Achieving Employee Commitment for Continuous Improvement Initiatives

Purpose – Although prior research has found that employee participation is key to successfully implementing quality management initiatives (Baird et al., 2011; de Menezes, 2012; Lagrosen and Lagrosen, 2005), little research in operations management exists that investigates which management actions and behaviors lead to employee commitment to such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the operations management literature by investigating which influence tactics are the most effective in soliciting employee commitment to continuous improvement tasks. The paper also examines how influence tactics affect the supervisor-subordinate relationship and the manager’s effectiveness in implementing continuous improvement initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – A survey instrument was used to measure supervisor-subordinate relationship quality, usage of influence behaviors and participants’ task commitment to continuous improvement initiatives. Findings – The results indicate that five of the 11 influence tactics identified in the prior literature, i.e., collaboration, consultation, ingratiation, inspirational appeals, and rational persuasion, are significant and strong predictors of employee commitment to continuous improvement initiatives. Further, analyses show that these influence tactics are significant drivers of the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship, which was found to partially mediate the relationship between influence tactics and the supervisor’s effectiveness in implementing continuous improvement projects. Research limitations/implications – Since the extant CI and Total Quality Management literature has looked at the plant or program level rather than the worker-level as in the research, the findings offer one explanation as to why earlier studies investigating the relationship between quality management programs and increased organizational performance reported mixed results. Practical implications – Increasing managers’ awareness and usage of influence tactics may increase the success rate of continuous improvement projects as well the quality of the relationship with the manager’s subordinates. Originality/value – While the extant literature has argued that management support and employee commitment are key components of a continuous improvement project implementation, little has been written about the specific management actions and behaviors that lead to success.

[1]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[2]  Z. Huq,et al.  Workforce cultural factors in TQM/CQI implementation in hospitals. , 2000, Health care management review.

[3]  Michael Beer,et al.  Why Total Quality Management Programs Do Not Persist: The Role of Management Quality and Implications for Leading a TQM Transformation , 2003, Decis. Sci..

[4]  Stefan Lagrosen,et al.  The effects of quality management – a survey of Swedish quality professionals , 2005 .

[5]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  The Impact of Quality Management Practices on Performance and Competitive Advantage , 1995 .

[6]  Injazz J. Chen,et al.  Quality manager involvement and quality performance , 1997 .

[7]  Sanjay L. Ahire,et al.  Development and Validation of TQM Implementation Constructs , 1996 .

[8]  Berrin Erdogan,et al.  Support from the top: supervisors' perceived organizational support as a moderator of leader-member exchange to satisfaction and performance relationships. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[9]  Harry Barton,et al.  Organizing for continuous improvement: Structures and roles in automotive components plants , 2002 .

[10]  Kee-hung Lai,et al.  An operational and institutional perspective on total quality management , 2007 .

[11]  L. Cronbach.  Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests , 1951 .

[12]  G. Easton,et al.  The Effects of Total Quality Management on Corporate Performance: An Empirical Investigation , 1998 .

[13]  Lori S. Cook,et al.  Examining quality improvement programs: the case of Minnesota hospitals. , 2008, Health services research.

[14]  G. Graen,et al.  Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective , 1995 .

[15]  Lawrence D. Fredendall,et al.  Leadership and quality management practices in Thailand , 2011 .

[16]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  The effects of organizational context on quality management: An empirical investigation , 1991 .

[17]  G. Graen,et al.  A Role-Making Model of Leadership in Formal Organizations: A Developmental Approach , 1975 .

[18]  Thomas F. Gattiker,et al.  Understanding project champions’ ability to gain intra-organizational commitment for environmental projects , 2010 .

[19]  S. Lam.  The utilization of influence tactics for the implementation of quality improvement policies , 1997 .

[20]  Charles R. Gowen,et al.  The patient safety chain: Transformational leadership's effect on patient safety culture, initiatives, and outcomes , 2009 .

[21]  Ravi Kathuria,et al.  Leadership practices, competitive priorities, and manufacturing group performance , 2010 .

[22]  Florence Stinglhamber,et al.  Leader-member exchange and affective organizational commitment: the contribution of supervisor's organizational embodiment. , 2010, The Journal of applied psychology.

[23]  Carolyn I. Chavez,et al.  Validation of the extended Influence Behavior Questionnaire , 2008 .

[24]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  A Practical Guide To Factorial Validity Using PLS-Graph: Tutorial And Annotated Example , 2005, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[25]  W. Edwards Deming,et al.  Out of the Crisis , 1982 .

[26]  Mark G. Brown,et al.  The Top Ten Reasons Total Quality Fails in Most American Companies Why Does Total Quality Fail in Two Out of Three Tries , 1993 .

[27]  Aleda V. Roth,et al.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Competence Constructs: Two-Stage Multi-Item Scale Development and Validation , 2002, Decis. Sci..

[28]  William J. Haga,et al.  A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership within formal organizations: A longitudinal investigation of the role making process , 1975 .

[29]  R. Hackett,et al.  Leader-Member Exchange as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Followers' Performance and Organizational Citizenship Behavior , 2005 .

[30]  M. Beer,et al.  Why change programs don't produce change. , 1990, Harvard business review.

[31]  Jayant V. Saraph,et al.  An Instrument for Measuring the Critical Factors of Quality Management , 1989 .

[32]  Sandeep Grover,et al.  Role of human factors in TQM: a graph theoretic approach , 2006 .

[33]  R. Schroeder,et al.  Relationships between implementation of TQM, JIT, and TPM and manufacturing performance , 2001 .

[34]  Carolyn I. Chavez,et al.  Assessing the construct validity and utility of two new influence tactics , 2005 .

[35]  Hale Kaynak,et al.  Using replication research for just-in-time purchasing construct development , 2006 .

[36]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  Perceptual measures of performance: Fact or fiction? , 2004 .

[37]  J. J. Dahlgaard,et al.  Total quality beyond North America A comparative analysis of the performance of European Excellence Award winners , 2013 .

[38]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management , 2005 .

[39]  Charlotte R. Gerstner,et al.  Meta-Analytic Review of Leader-Member Exchange Theory: Correlates and Construct Issues , 1997 .

[40]  Bert Spector,et al.  Beyond TQM Programmes , 1994 .

[41]  Mile Terziovski,et al.  The link between total quality management practice and organisational performance , 1999 .

[42]  Lilian M. de Menezes,et al.  Job Satisfaction and Quality Management: An Empirical Analysis , 2012 .

[43]  Anand Nair,et al.  Meta-analysis of the relationship between quality management practices and firm performance -- Implications for quality management theory development , 2006 .

[44]  G. Yukl,et al.  Consequences of Influence Tactics Used With Subordinates, Peers, and the Boss , 1992 .

[45]  James R. Langabeer,et al.  Implementation of Lean and Six Sigma quality initiatives in hospitals: A goal theoretic perspective , 2009 .

[46]  R. Schroeder,et al.  A THEORY OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT UNDERLYING THE DEMING MANAGEMENT METHOD , 1994 .

[47]  John M. Maslyn,et al.  Multidimensionafity of Leader-Member Exchange: An Empirical Assessment through Scale Development , 1998 .

[48]  T. C. Edwin Cheng,et al.  An Empirical Model for Managing Quality in the Electronics Industry , 2005 .

[49]  Kevin Baird,et al.  The relationships between organizational culture, total quality management practices and operational performance , 2011 .

[50]  Richard W. Foster,et al.  Keys for successful implementation of total quality management in hospitals , 1996, Health care management review.

[51]  Gregory G. Dess,et al.  Measuring organizational performance in the absence of objective measures: The case of the privately-held firm and conglomerate business unit , 1984 .