Challenges Posed to Performance Management by TQM Gurus: Contributions of Individual Employees Versus Systems-Level Features

There is a plethora of literature to suggest that even in quality-oriented organizational contexts, the approach driving performance appraisal is fundamentally in conflict with Total Quality Management (TQM) precepts, which put heavy emphasis on systems-level features of performance management. This inconsistency arguably impedes the transition to a stable Total Quality (TQ) environment, or even actively encourages regression to traditional ways. In response to this inconsistency, this paper discusses the contributions of individual employees towards organizational performance versus systems-level features, based on a wide-ranging literature survey and an empirical study of a sample of EFQM-affiliated organizations. The results indicate that most performance appraisal systems fail to meet TQ expectations in practice, and that they contradict TQM assumptions about the relatively low importance of individual employees as a source of variation in organizational performance. In this paper, we argue that performance management should be based on both systems-level features and contributions from individual employees, as these tend to complement each other. Our findings suggest that individual employees--as a basis for competitive advantage in the new millennium--will retain a critical role in providing a potential source of quality improvement. Thus, our research findings will provide a new insight into how quality-driven organizations not only cope with apparent mismatches between TQM precepts and the performance appraisal system used in practice, but also attempt to utilize the latter system to the advantage of both the organization and its employees.

[1]  Adrian John Wilkinson,et al.  Managing with Total Quality Management: Theory and Practice , 1998 .

[2]  Kenneth P. Carson,et al.  Performance Appraisal as Effective Management or Deadly Management Disease , 1991 .

[3]  Michael J. Stahl,et al.  Competing Globally Through Customer Value: The Management of Strategic Suprasystems , 1991 .

[4]  J. Bowman.  At Last, an Alternative to Performance Appraisal: Total Quality Management , 1994 .

[5]  Suzanne S. Masterson,et al.  Total quality management and performance appraisal: An integrative perspective , 1996 .

[6]  J. Dean,et al.  MANAGEMENT THEORY AND TOTAL QUALITY: IMPROVING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE THROUGH THEORY DEVELOPMENT , 1994 .

[7]  Peter R. Scholtes,et al.  Total quality or performance appraisal: Choose one , 1993 .

[8]  J. Ghorpade,et al.  Creating quality-driven performance appraisal systems , 1995 .

[9]  Yunus Kathawala,et al.  Traditional Performance Appraisal Systems: The Deming Challenge , 1992 .

[10]  Jeffrey B. Arthur,et al.  Effects of human resource systems on manufacturing performance and turnover , 1994 .

[11]  The Nature of Living Systems , 1973, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[12]  P. B. Petersen.  The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education , 1993 .

[13]  A. Wilkinson,et al.  Cashing In On Quality? Pay Incentives and the Quality Culture , 1996 .

[14]  G. Milkovich,et al.  The Current State of Performance Appraisal Research and Practice: Concerns, Directions, and Implications , 1992 .

[15]  P. Findlay,et al.  Playing God? the Performance of Appraisal , 1996 .

[16]  L. H. Peters,et al.  Situational Constraints and Work Outcomes: The Influences Of a Frequently Overlooked Construct , 1980 .

[17]  S. Sitkin,et al.  DISTINGUISHING CONTROL FROM LEARNING IN TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: A CONTINGENCY PERSPECTIVE , 1994 .

[18]  Ebrahim Soltani,et al.  Towards a TQM‐driven HR performance evaluation: an empirical study , 2003 .

[19]  John S. Oakland,et al.  Total Quality Management: The Route to Improving Performance , 1993 .

[20]  C. Voss,et al.  Quality management re-visited: a reflective review and agenda for future research , 2002 .

[21]  G. Cole.  Personnel and Human Resource Management , 2004 .

[22]  R. J. Clinton,et al.  Implementing Total Quality Management: The Role of Human Resource Management , 1994 .

[23]  Edward E. Lawler,et al.  Total quality-oriented human resources management , 1992 .

[24]  Brian E. Becker,et al.  The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance , 2001 .

[25]  Terry Williams,et al.  A TQM Approach to HR Performance Evaulation: A Questionnaire Survey , 2003 .

[26]  Melvin Blumberg,et al.  The Missing Opportunity in Organizational Research: Some Implications for a Theory of Work Performance , 1982 .

[27]  K. Sisson.  Personnel management : a comprehensive guide to theory and practice in Britain , 1994 .

[28]  W. Mak,et al.  The Tao of people-based management , 2000 .

[29]  Christopher Mabey,et al.  Strategic human resource management : a reader , 1998 .

[30]  R. Kaplan,et al.  The balanced scorecard--measures that drive performance. , 2015, Harvard business review.

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

[32]  David A. Waldman,et al.  THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT TO A THEORY OF WORK PERFORMANCE , 1994 .

[33]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  The Perceived Inequity of Systems , 1992 .

[34]  R. Cardy,et al.  Person and system effects in performance appraisal: Ratings as a function of the degree of performance responsibility and errorfulness , 1998 .

[35]  Adrian John Wilkinson,et al.  Managing with Total Quality Management , 1998 .

[36]  Benson Rosen,et al.  Total quality and human resources management: lessons learned from Baldrige Award-winning companies , 1993 .