Cognitive mapping the topic of Total Quality
Management (TQM)
Joseph
Kim-keung Ho
Independent Trainer
Hong Kong, China
Abstract: The topic of Total Quality
Management (TQM) in the subject of business management is complex. By making
use of the cognitive mapping technique to conduct a brief literature review on
the Total Quality Management topic, the writer renders a systemic image on the
topic of Total Quality Management. The result of the study, in the form of a
cognitive map on Total Quality Management, should be useful to those who are
interested in the topics of cognitive mapping, literature review and Total
Quality Management.
Key words: Total
Quality Management (TQM), cognitive mapping, literature review
Introduction
As a
topic in business management, Total Quality Management (TQM) is complex. It is
thus useful to employ some learning tool to conduct its study, notably for
literature review purpose. For a teacher in research methods, systems thinking
and management, the writer is specifically interested
in finding out how the cognitive mapping technique can be employed to go
through a literature review on Total
Quality Management. This literature review exercise is taken up and reported in
this article.
On the cognitive mapping exercise for
literature review
Literature
review is an important intellectual learning exercise, and not just for doing
final year dissertation projects for tertiary education students. On these two
topics of intellectual learning and literature review, the writer has compiled
some e-learning resources. They are the Managerial
intellectual learning Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page. Conducting
literature review with the cognitive mapping technique is not novel in the
cognitive mapping literature, see Eden and Simpson (1989), Eden, Jones and Sims
(1983), Open University (n.d) and the Literature
on cognitive mapping Facebook page. In this article, the specific steps
involved in the cognitive mapping exercise are as follows:
Step 1:
gather some main points from a number of academic journal articles on Total
Quality Management. This result in the production of a table (Table 1) with the
main points and associated references.
Step 2: consolidate the main points from Table 1 to come up with
a table listing the cognitive map variables (re: Table 2).
Step 3: link
up the cognitive map variables in a
plausible way to produce a cognitive map (re: Figure 1) on the topic under
review.
The next
section applies these three steps to produce a cognitive map on Total Quality
Management.
Descriptions of cognitive map variables on
the Total Quality Management (TQM) topic
From the
reading of some academic articles on Total Quality Management, a number of main
points (e.g., viewpoints, concepts and empirical findings) were gathered by
the writer. They are shown in Table 1
with explicit referencing on the points.
Table 1: Main
points from the Total Quality Management literature and referencing
Main points from the Total Quality
Management literature
|
Referencing
|
Point
1: "The quality idea has been around for hundreds of years. The
discerning customer in shops and market-places centuries ago applied 'quality
techniques', prodding and turning fruits and vegetables testing for firmness,
freshness and fitness for the purpose of consumption".
|
Flood,
R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley,
Chichester.
|
Point
2: "TQM wants to change the traditional management style. Handing down
responsibility, allowing for autonomy, and promoting local decision making
are all part of the new approach that TQM calls for. Greater motivation and
creativity are expected".
|
Flood,
R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley,
Chichester.
|
Point
3: "Total Quality Management is "continuous improvement, involve
all operations at all levels, undertake performance measurement, focus on
leadership, teamwork and employee participation and motivation, take a whole
system perspective".
|
Flood,
R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley,
Chichester.
|
Point
4: "Each quality guru has their own knowledge base and interests. Each
has worked in different situations, and several have contributed in
contrasting eras".
|
Flood,
R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley,
Chichester.
|
Point
5: "The [TQM] gurus have provided well for our technical mechanistic
needs. One area they say little about in respect to technical interests,
however, is organisational design".
|
Flood,
R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley,
Chichester.
|
Point
6: "Improved quality should shrink costs and thus yield a positive
outcome for financial performance. Moreover, superior-quality products or
services should enhance the retention rate of existing customers and attract
new ones, thus strengthening market share and revenue".
|
Chaudary,
S., S. Zafar and M. Salman. 2015. "Does total quality management still
shine? Re-examining the total quality management effect on financial
performance" Total Quality
Management & Business Excellence 26(7), Routledge: 811-824.
|
Point
7: "TQM results in process improvements both in the manufacturing and
service sectors, which lead to higher profits through product reliability and
costs cut through process efficiency".
|
Chaudary,
S., S. Zafar and M. Salman. 2015. "Does total quality management still
shine? Re-examining the total quality management effect on financial
performance" Total Quality
Management & Business Excellence 26(7), Routledge: 811-824.
|
Point
8: TQM can be defined as "a set of instruments employed by the firm's
management that aim to provide better value to customers by recognising their
observable and hidden needs (which are sensitive to changing markets) and
improving the efficiency of the procedures that generate the product or
service".
|
Chaudary,
S., S. Zafar and M. Salman. 2015. "Does total quality management still
shine? Re-examining the total quality management effect on financial
performance" Total Quality
Management & Business Excellence 26(7), Routledge: 811-824.
|
Point
9: "Lascelles and Dale... identify six TQM adoption levels: (1) uncommitted,
(ii) drifters, (iii) tool purchasers, (iv) improvers, (v) award winners, and
(vi) world class. These levels are not stages of TQM as much as they reflect
how a firm responds to TQM".
|
Chaudary,
S., S. Zafar and M. Salman. 2015. "Does total quality management still
shine? Re-examining the total quality management effect on financial
performance" Total Quality
Management & Business Excellence 26(7), Routledge: 811-824.
|
Point
10: "TQM is the mutual cooperation of everyone in an organization and associated business
processes to produce products and services which meet the needs and
expectations of customers".
|
Gunasekaran.
1999. "Enablers of total quality management implementation in
manufacturing: a case study" Total
Quality Management 10(7): 987-996.
|
Point
11: Teamwork and employee involvement are "the key enablers of
TQM". "Cultural change, focus, employee ownership of the processes,
and strategic partnership with customers and suppliers are critical to the
implementation of TQM".
|
Gunasekaran.
1999. "Enablers of total quality management implementation in
manufacturing: a case study" Total
Quality Management 10(7): 987-996.
|
Point
12: "....managers can implement TQM in any organization - manufacturing,
service, nonprofit, or government - and that it generates improved products
and services, reduced costs, more satisfied customers and employees, and
improved bottom line financial performance".
|
Powell,
T.C. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A Review
and Empirical Study" Strategic
Management Journal 16(1) January: 15-37.
|
Point
13: "In Japan, TQM produced such managerial innovations as quality
circles, equity circles, supplier partnerships, cellular manufacturing,
just-in-time production, and hoshin planning".
|
Powell,
T.C. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A Review
and Empirical Study" Strategic
Management Journal 16(1) January: 15-37.
|
Point
14: "American firms began to take serious notice of TQM around 1980,
when some U.S. policy observers argued that Japanese manufacturing
quality had equated or exceeded U.S. standards, and warned that
Japanese productivity would soon surpass that of American firms".
|
Powell,
T.C. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A Review
and Empirical Study" Strategic
Management Journal 16(1) January: 15-37.
|
Point
15: "... some employees resist or
even subvert TQM, finding it
ideological or faddish. Furthermore, TQM entails substantial time investments
from managers, it is expensive (especially for training and meetings), it
rarely produces short-term results, it demands intense CEO commitment, and it
makes unrealistic assumption about most organizations' capacities to
transform their cultures".
|
Powell,
T.C. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A Review
and Empirical Study" Strategic
Management Journal 16(1) January: 15-37.
|
Point
16: "Despite the increase in academic studies into total quality
management (TQM) during the past decade, there still seem to be relatively few empirical studies that
either confirm or contradict any of
the widely accepted theories".
|
Black,
S. and L.J. Porter. 1995. "An empirical model for total quality
management" Total Quality
Management 6(2): 149-164.
|
Point
17: "The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the US is a
generally accepted TQM framework. However, the Malcolm Baldrige Award are not
based on empirical evidence".
|
Black,
S. and L.J. Porter. 1995. "An empirical model for total quality
management" Total Quality
Management 6(2): 149-164.
|
Point
18: "As is inevitable for any idea that enjoys wide popularity in
managerial and scholarly circles, total quality management has come to mean
different things to different people".
|
Hackman,
J.R. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and
Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
|
Point
19: "Deming, Ishikawa, and Juran share the view that an organization's
primary purpose is to stay in business, so that it can promote the
stability of the community, generate
products and services that are useful to customers, and provide a setting for
the satisfaction and growth of organization members".
|
Hackman,
J.R. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and
Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
|
Point
20: "A fundamental premise of TQM is that the cost of poor quality (such
as inspection, rework, lost customers, and so on) are far greater than the
costs of developing processes that produce high-quality products and
services".
|
Hackman,
J.R. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and
Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
|
Point
21: "Employees naturally care about the quality of work they do and will
take initiatives to improve it - so long as they are provided with the tools and training that are needed
for quality improvement, and management pays attention to their ideas".
|
Hackman,
J.R. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and
Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
|
Point
22: "..organizations are systems of highly interdependent parts, and the central
problems they face invariably cross traditional functional lines".
|
Hackman,
J.R. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and
Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
|
Point
23: "When looking at the development and scope of IE [Industrial
Engineering], most of its techniques seem to "fit" well with the
modern quality concept of integrating people and physical operating systems,
through effective system modification and/or redesign".
|
Lo,
V.H.Y. and D. Sculli. 1995. "Industrial engineering and TQM" Training for Quality 3(3), MCB
University Press: 4-7.
|
Point
24: "IE [Industrial Engineering] techniques have evolved with the direct objective of
achieving particular goals in designing, implementing and effectively maintaining operating systems, TQM, on the
other hand, is essentially a system whereby the qualities of a product, or service are maintained and
enhanced through economic considerations".
|
Lo,
V.H.Y. and D. Sculli. 1995. "Industrial engineering and TQM" Training for Quality 3(3), MCB
University Press: 4-7.
|
Point
25: "Although there is evidence that supports the effectiveness of TQM
initiatives in organisations, a large number of studies have shown that
between 60% and 80% of TQM
initiatives fail, or fail to have
shown significant impact on business performance".
|
Antony,
J., C. Fergusson, S. Warwood and J.H.Y. Tsang. 2004. "Comparing total
quality management success factors in UK manufacturing and service
industries: some key findings from a survey" Journal of Advances in Management Research 1(2): 32-45.
|
Point
26: "Total quality management (TQM) is abstract, and perhaps subjective,
and hence defining it in comprehensive terms and a unique universally
acceptable language is almost impossible".
|
Mani,
T.P., N. Murugan and C. Rajendran. 2003. "Classical approach to
contemporary TQM: an integrated
conceptual TQM model as perceived in Tamil classical literature" Total Quality Management 14(3),
Routledge: 605-636.
|
Point
27: "The paradigm of TQM applies to both the manufacturing and the
service sectors. Of late, with the integration of Organizational Development
(OD) into the Quality System, the TQM philosophy and approaches have started
establishing roots in Human Resources Development".
|
Mani,
T.P., N. Murugan and C. Rajendran. 2003. "Classical approach to
contemporary TQM: an integrated
conceptual TQM model as perceived in Tamil classical literature" Total Quality Management 14(3),
Routledge: 605-636.
|
Point
28: "Dedication to the customers, internal as well as external, should
be the critical theme of the service industry. Six general targets for
serving the customer are high quality, flexibility, service, low cost, quick
response and minimal variability".
|
Mani,
T.P., N. Murugan and C. Rajendran. 2003. "Classical approach to
contemporary TQM: an integrated
conceptual TQM model as perceived in Tamil classical literature" Total Quality Management 14(3),
Routledge: 605-636.
|
With a
set of main points collected, the writer produces a set of cognitive map
variables. These variables are informed by the set of main points from Table 1.
These variables are presented in Table 2.
Table 2:
Cognitive map variables based on Table 1
Cognitive
map variables
|
Literature
review points
|
Variable
1: Factors that promote interest in Total Quality Management
|
Point 1: "The quality idea has been
around for hundreds of years. The discerning customer in shops and
market-places centuries ago applied 'quality techniques', prodding and
turning fruits and vegetables testing for firmness, freshness and fitness for
the purpose of consumption".
Point 13: "In Japan, TQM produced
such managerial innovations as quality circles, equity circles, supplier
partnerships, cellular manufacturing, just-in-time production, and hoshin
planning".
Point 14: "American firms began to
take serious notice of TQM around 1980, when some U.S. policy observers
argued that Japanese manufacturing quality
had equated or exceeded U.S.
standards, and warned that Japanese productivity would soon surpass that of
American firms".
Point 15: "... some employees
resist or even subvert TQM, finding it ideological or faddish.
Furthermore, TQM entails substantial time investments from managers, it is
expensive (especially for training and meetings), it rarely produces
short-term results, it demands intense CEO commitment, and it makes
unrealistic assumption about most organizations' capacities to transform
their cultures".
Point 18: "As is inevitable for any
idea that enjoys wide popularity in managerial and scholarly circles, total
quality management has come to mean different things to different
people".
|
Variable
2: More intellectual knowledge on Total Quality Management
|
Point
3: "Total Quality Management is "continuous improvement, involve
all operations at all levels, undertake performance measurement, focus on
leadership, teamwork and employee participation and motivation, take a whole
system perspective".
Point
5: "The [TQM] gurus have provided well for our technical mechanistic
needs. One area they say little about in respect to technical interests,
however, is organisational design".
Point
8: TQM can be defined as "a set of instruments employed by the firm's
management that aim to provide better value to customers by recognising their
observable and hidden needs (which are sensitive to changing markets) and
improving the efficiency of the procedures that generate the product or
service".
Point
9: "Lascelles and Dale... identify six TQM adoption levels: (1) uncommitted,
(ii) drifters, (iii) too purchasers, (iv) improvers, (v) award winners, and
(vi) world class. These levels are not stages of TQM as much as they reflect
how a firm responds to TQM".
Point
10: "TQM is the mutual cooperation of everyone in an organization and associated business
processes to produce products and services which meet the needs and
expectations of customers".
Point
19: "Deming, Ishikawa, and Juran share the view that an organization's
primary purpose is to stay in business, so that it can promote the
stability of the community, generate
products and services that are useful to customers, and provide a setting for
the satisfaction and growth of organization members".
Point
20: "A fundamental premise of TQM is that the cost of poor quality (such
as inspection, rework, lost customers, and so on) are far greater than the
costs of developing processes that produce high-quality products and
services".
Point
21: "Employees naturally care about the quality of work they do and will
take initiatives to improve it - so long as they are provided with the tools and training that are needed
for quality improvement, and management pays attention to their ideas".
Point
22: "..organizations are systems of highly interdependent parts, and the central
problems they face invariably cross traditional functional lines".
Point
23: "When looking at the development and scope of IE [Industrial
Engineering], most of its techniques seem to "fit" well with the
modern quality concept of integrating people and physical operating systems,
through effective system modification and/or redesign".
Point
24: "IE [Industrial Engineering] techniques have evolved with the direct objective of
achieving particular goals in designing, implementing and effectively maintaining operating systems, TQM, on the
other hand, is essentially a system whereby the qualities of a product, or service are maintained and
enhanced through economic considerations".
Point
26: "Total quality management (TQM) is abstract, and perhaps subjective,
and hence defining it in comprehensive terms and a unique universally
acceptable language is almost impossible".
Point
27: "The paradigm of TQM applies to both the manufacturing and the
service sectors. Of late, with the integration of Organizational Development
(OD) into the Quality System, the TQM philosophy and approaches have started
establishing roots in Human Resources Development".
|
Variable
3: Effective Total Quality Management practices
|
Point
2: "TQM wants to change the traditional management style. Handing down
responsibility, allowing for autonomy, and promoting local decision making
are all part of the new approach that TQM calls for. Greater motivation and
creativity are expected".
Point
4: "Each quality guru has their own knowledge base and interests. Each
has worked in different situations, and several have contributed in
contrasting eras".
Point
11: Teamwork and employee involvement are "the key enablers of
TQM". "Cultural change, focus, employee ownership of the processes,
and strategic partnership with customers and suppliers are critical to the
implementation of TQM".
Point
28: "Dedication to the customers, internal as well as external, should
be the critical theme of the service industry. Six general targets for
serving the customer are high quality, flexibility, service, low cost, quick
response and minimal variability".
|
Variable
4: Positive outcomes of Total Quality Management practices
|
Point 6: "Improved
quality should shrink costs and thus yield a positive outcome for financial
performance. Moreover, superior-quality products or services should enhance
the retention rate of existing customers and attract new ones, thus
strengthening market share and revenue".
Point 7: "TQM results in process improvements both in the
manufacturing and service sectors, which lead to higher profits through
product reliability and costs cut through process efficiency".
Point 12: "....managers can implement TQM in any organization -
manufacturing, service, nonprofit, or government - and that it generates
improved products and services, reduced costs, more satisfied customers and
employees, and improved bottom line financial performance".
Point 15: "...
some employees resist or even
subvert TQM, finding it ideological or
faddish. Furthermore, TQM entails substantial time investments from managers,
it is expensive (especially for training and meetings), it rarely produces
short-term results, it demands intense CEO commitment, and it makes
unrealistic assumption about most organizations' capacities to transform
their cultures".
|
Variable
5: Learn from Total Quality Management practices
|
Point 16: "Despite the increase in
academic studies into total quality management (TQM) during the past decade, there
still seem to be relatively few
empirical studies that either confirm
or contradict any of the widely accepted theories".
Point 17: "The Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award in the US is a generally accepted TQM framework.
However, the Malcolm Baldrige Award are not based on empirical evidence".
Point 25: "Although there is
evidence that supports the effectiveness of TQM initiatives in organisations,
a large number of studies have shown that between 60% and 80% of TQM initiatives fail, or fail to have shown significant
impact on business performance".
|
The next
step is to relate the cognitive map variables to make up a cognitive map on Total
Quality Management. The cognitive map and its explanation are presented in the
next section.
A cognitive map on Total Quality
Management and its interpretation
By
relating the five variables identified in Table 2, the writer comes up with a
cognitive map on Total Quality Management (TQM), as shown in Figure 1.
These
cognitive map variables, five of them
altogether, are related to constitute a systemic image of Total Quality
Management. The links in the cognitive map (re: Figure 1) indicate direction of
influences between variables. The + sign shows that an increase in one variable
leads to an increase in another variable while a -ve sign tells us that in
increase in one variable leads to a decrease in another variable. If there no signs shown on the arrows, that
means the influences can be positive or negative. Readers are referred to the Literature on quality and excellence
Facebook page for more information
on the topic.
Concluding remarks
The
cognitive mapping exercise captures in one diagram some of the main variables
involved in Total Quality Management. The resultant cognitive map promotes an
exploratory way to study Total Quality Management in a holistic tone. The
experience of the cognitive mapping exercise is that it can be a quick,
efficient and entertaining way to explore a complex topic such as Total Quality
Management in business management. Finally, readers who are interested in
cognitive mapping should also find the article informative on this mapping
topic.
Bibliography
1.
Antony, J., C. Fergusson,
S. Warwood and J.H.Y. Tsang. 2004. "Comparing total quality management success
factors in UK manufacturing and service industries: some key findings from a survey"
Journal of Advances in Management Research
1(2): 32-45.
2.
Black, S. and L.J. Porter.
1995. "An empirical model for total quality management" Total Quality Management 6(2): 149-164.
3.
Chaudary, S., S.
Zafar and M. Salman. 2015. "Does total quality management still shine?
Re-examining the total quality management effect on financial performance"
Total Quality Management & Business
Excellence 26(7), Routledge: 811-824.
4.
Eden, C. and P.
Simpson. 1989. "SODA and cognitive mapping in practice", pp. 43-70,
in Rosenhead, J. (editor) Rational
Analysis for a Problematic World, Wiley, Chichester.
5.
Eden, C., C. Jones
and D. Sims. 1983. Messing about in
Problems: An informal structured approach to their identification and
management, Pergamon Press, Oxford.
6.
Flood, R.L. 1993. Beyond TQM, Wiley, Chichester.
7.
Gunasekaran. 1999. "Enablers
of total quality management implementation in manufacturing: a case study"
Total Quality Management 10(7): 987-996.
8.
Hackman, J.R. 1995. "Total
Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and Practical Issues" Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 309-342.
9.
Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cognitive-mapping-800894476751355/).
10. Literature on
literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).
11. Literature on quality
and excellence Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.quality.excellence/).
12. Lo, V.H.Y. and D. Sculli. 1995. "Industrial engineering and TQM"
Training for Quality 3(3), MCB University
Press: 4-7.
13. Managerial intellectual learning
Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address:
https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).
14. Mani, T.P., N. Murugan and C. Rajendran. 2003. "Classical approach to
contemporary TQM: an integrated conceptual
TQM model as perceived in Tamil classical literature" Total Quality Management 14(3), Routledge: 605-636.
15. Open University. n.d. "Sign graph" Systems Thinking and Practice (T552): Diagramming, Open University,
U.K. (url address: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/) [visited at April
10, 2017].
16. Powell, T.C. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage:
A Review and Empirical Study" Strategic
Management Journal 16(1) January: 15-37.
Pdf version at: https://www.academia.edu/32802767/Cognitive_mapping_the_topic_of_Total_Quality_Management_TQM_
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