Organizational antecedents to the successful implementation of total quality management: A social cognitive perspective

Although a majority of large U.S. organizations have adopted some form of Total Quality Management (TQM), they have experienced widely varying levels of commitment to TQM, TQM success and optimism about its future. In an effort to help organizations achieve desired results, recent empirical work has focused on defining the components of TQM. This paper attempts to advance this area of inquiry by using the defined components of TQM and social cognitive theory as a guide in the selection of organizational variables under management control which are most likely to result in employee adoption of TQM consistent behaviors and TQM related outcomes. Propositions are generated for empirical testing.