Changing employee attitudes: the independent effects of TQM and profit sharing on continuous improvement orientation

This research examines the independent effects of two change interventions on employee attitudes. The first study evaluates the impact of a TQM intervention while the second study explores the effect of profit sharing on a core outcome of TQM; namely, continuous improvement orientation at the individual level. The research design involved a survey of employees with two measurement occasions: nine months and thirty two months after the commencement of a TQM intervention (n= 118); ten months prior to and twenty months subsequent to the introduction of a profit sharing program (n=141). The findings from study 1 indicate that participation in a TQM intervention can enhance the development of employees' orientation to continuous improvement, explaining 5% additional variance in the dependent variable. The results from study 2 suggest that perceived fairness of profit sharing and perceived ability to contribute to the profitability of the site were significantly associated with continuous improvement orientation, explaining an additional 6% of the variance. The implications of these findings for organizational change are discussed

Managerial Approaches toward Service Quality: The Case of Three Service Organisations

Using a multiple case study, this paper is concerned with assessing the impact of senior management’s approach and attitudes on service quality and its implications for middle and first line managers. Date from 52 semi-structured interviews representing a variety of managerial levels suggests that there exist many conflicts and differences in senior management’s orientation and approach toward QM with that of middle and first line managers. The results further indicate that getting such consistency appropriate to the needs of top, middle and first line management, and of the QM itself, is one of the key problems of current management of service quality. However, the findings highlights that where there is consistency between senior managers’ underlying approaches toward service quality goal with that of middle and first line managers, service quality programmes will highly likely produce expected results. Finally, the implications of these findings as well as future research are put forward. Key Words: Managing Service Quality; Service Sector; Case Study Research