Sustained quality management: how to receive the Swedish quality award twice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how Agria Animal Insurance Sweden (Agria) has organised its quality‐related work through a sustained and systematic focus on basic elements of quality management such as value focused leadership, employee involvement, process management and control, customer focus, and continuous improvement.Design/methodology/approach – The study has been based on interviews, document studies and action research. It is a single case study design with limited intentions of generalisation.Findings – The analysis shows that the top management at Agria has been a strong driving force that has effectively united leaders at all levels as agents of change. Additional success factors have been the deployment of basic values, the “five always”, and the value focused leadership. Further on the company has succeeded in creating a cultural basis and structures for systematic work with improvements.Practical implications – A way to address corporate culture in order to open up for a ...

[1]  Rickard Garvare,et al.  Process management and sustainable development in a quality perspective : implementation and measurement related to small and medium sized enterprises , 2002 .

[2]  Henrik Eriksson,et al.  Organisational value of participating in quality award processes , 2003 .

[3]  Milan Ambrož,et al.  Total quality system as a product of the empowered corporate culture , 2004 .

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

[5]  Alan Brown,et al.  Quality management over a decade: A longitudinal study , 2002 .

[6]  W. Edwards Deming,et al.  The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education , 2018 .

[7]  K. B. Hendricks,et al.  Does Implementing an Effective TQM Program Actually Improve Operating Performance? Empirical Evidence from Firms That Have Won Quality Awards , 1997 .

[8]  Theo Haupt,et al.  Inhibiting factors of implementing total quality management on construction sites , 2004 .

[9]  Robert K. Yin,et al.  Applications of case study research , 1993 .

[10]  Elena Maceviciute,et al.  Review of: Einspruch, Eric L. An introductory guide to SPSS® for Windows®. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005 , 2006, Inf. Res..

[11]  Henrik Eriksson,et al.  Organisational performance improvement through quality award process participation , 2005 .

[12]  R. E. McQuater,et al.  Total quality management sustaining audit tool: Description and use , 1997 .

[13]  David J. Lemak,et al.  Total quality management and sustainable competitive advantage , 2000 .

[14]  A. Sohal,et al.  The human side of introducing total quality management: Two case studies from Australia , 2003 .