Quality improvement approach and performance: multisite analysis within a firm

A contingency-based view of an organization suggests contextual variables, such as leadership, training, product (service) design, and employee relations, vary among firms. This leads to varying levels of quality performance. The interest in this study is to identify the contextual variables within a firm, which affect quality performance and other financial variables. A second study objective is to determine if the variables that affect quality are different in rapid- vs. slow-learning environments. The study was conducted in five manufacturing plants of a supplier to many large automotive firms. Results suggest that quality improvement is enhanced by following a process-oriented, quality control approach to improvement, emphasizing product design, and stressing conformance to specifications. To increase the chance of improved financial performance, the firm would follow a process-oriented, quality control approach to improvement and introduce external quality information. No differences were found between fast and slowly improving plants (improving quality) regarding approach to quality improvement. Expectations were that differences in approach to quality would exist between the two groups and that the slow-to-improve plants would use a more robust set of quality improvement variables.