Strategic orientation and TQM: Linking vision to action

Abstract Total Quality Management (TQM) programs have been increasing in popularity in the U.S., in part an organizational response to a turbulent environment. Yet empirical studies on the relationship between organizational strategy and implementation of TQM programs are scarce. This issue grows in importance as managers search for ways to integrate internal practices with strategic objectives. Using the Miles-Snow (1978) typology, we studied the relationship between strategic orientation of home health care organizations and their use of TQM practices. The sample for this study consisted of 361 home health care organizations from all major regions of the U.S. Regression analysis showed that the analyzer orientation significantly predicted commitment to quality improvement, after controlling for structural factors.

[1]  E. Segev.  A systematic comparative analysis and synthesis of two business-level strategic typologies , 1989 .

[2]  John V. Mullane,et al.  Creating earthquakes to change organizational mindsets , 1994 .

[3]  Tom R. Burns,et al.  The Management of Innovation. , 1963 .

[4]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Measuring And Assessing Organizations , 1980 .

[5]  L. Branch,et al.  Medicare Home Health: A Description of Total Episodes of Care , 1993, Health care financing review.

[6]  Margaret J. Wheatley.  Leadership and the New Science , 1992 .

[7]  C. Ellenbecker.  Profit and non-profit home health care agency outcomes: a study of one state's experience. , 1995, Home health care services quarterly.

[8]  T. C. Powell.  Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage , 1995 .

[9]  H. Ansoff,et al.  Critique of Henry Mintzberg's ‘The design school: Reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management’ , 1991 .

[10]  H. Bahrami.  The Emerging Flexible Organization: Perspectives from Silicon Valley , 1992 .

[11]  Shaker A. Zahra,et al.  Research Evidence On The Miles-Snow Typology , 1990 .

[12]  L. Bourgeois.  STRATEGIC GOALS, PERCEIVED UNCERTAINTY, AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN VOLATILE ENVIRONMENTS , 1985 .

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

[14]  Barbara W. Keats,et al.  A Causal Model of Linkages Among Environmental Dimensions, Macro Organizational Characteristics, and Performance , 1988 .

[15]  Gregory G. Dess,et al.  Clarifying the Entrepreneurial Orientation Construct and Linking It To Performance , 1996 .

[16]  J. Begun,et al.  Strategic orientations of small multihospital systems. , 1988, Health Services Research.

[17]  G. Strahan.  An overview of home health and hospice care patients: preliminary data from the 1993 National Home and Hospice Care Survey. , 1994, Advance data.

[18]  Barbara A. Spencer,et al.  MODELS OF ORGANIZATION AND TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: A COMPARISON AND CRITICAL EVALUATION , 1994 .

[19]  Rhonda K. Reger,et al.  REFRAMING THE ORGANIZATION: WHY IMPLEMENTING TOTAL QUALITY IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE , 1994 .

[20]  Henry Mintzberg.  The design school: Reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management , 1990 .

[21]  D. Hambrick.  Some tests of the effectiveness and functional attributes of Miles and Snow's strategic types. , 1983, Academy of Management journal. Academy of Management.

[22]  J L O'Brien,et al.  Assessing the evidence on CQI: is the glass half empty or half full? , 1995, Hospital & health services administration.

[23]  Laura B. Cardinal,et al.  Strategic Planning and Firm Performance: A Synthesis of More Than Two Decades of Research , 1994 .