CORPORATE PERFORMANCE AND TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (A STUDY OF MILLENNIUM INDUSTRY LTD AWKA)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Experience has shown that consumers of goods and  services are becoming more sensitive to product quality more than before and as a result, producers cannot afford to take for granted the issue of quality which itself is a function of good performance. Corporations produced to sell and make maximum profit irrespective of consumers taste and style. For instance, bank consumer expects efficient, quick and courteous service from his banker and readers of newspaper anticipates clarity of production, grammatical soundness and dept of news coverage from the editor. Likewise consumer of manufacturing products expects high reliability and effectiveness of the products manufactured from that industry.

It is therefore not enough to meet specification, but also meet all the quality the customer expects from the product. In this context therefore, quality means “Total or Complete quality”. That is a customer is able to get the right quality and quantity of goods and services at the right time. All these should be achieved at first attempt and not when patronage is repeated on several occasions.

Total Quality Management according to Nwachukwu C.C. (2006) are set of principles and practices whose core idea include understanding customer needs, doing things right the first time and striving for continuous improvement. It is a management approach which is aimed at incorporating awareness of quality in all organizational processes.

Many organization are striving for quality products and services that will meet or exceed customers expectations and as a result of this, they are searching for approaches to manage people and production system that will assure that transformation of inputs into quality output.

In comparing the performance of public and private enterprise, there exists a general understanding that public enterprise in both developed and developing countries have performed below expectation it has been argued that excessive political interference and bureaucratic failure are responsible mainly for the inefficiency associated with public sector. To salvage this, the privatizations and commercialization exercises come into being. Hence poor performance resulting in the inability to perform, failure to meet customer expectation and inability to meet target result, shareholders demand and there social responsibilities. They can be readily discovered using various operational techniques especially as it relates to the various inputs into the production.

So in achieving greater performance, the concept of Total Quality Management is the tool since Total Quality Management involves people and system working harmoniously for the benefit of the customers, the achievement of corporate goals and enhancement of workers quality of life.

But Hills (2003) on the other hand emphasizes that if there is lack of commitment from top management then TQM cannot be implemented in its entirely and also stress the fact that the support that management takes in implementing a total quality environment is very critical to the success of the Total Quality Management Implement.

conceptual framework

Total Quality Management is a management approach  which is aimed at incorporating awareness of quality in all organizational processes. Many organization are striving for quality products and services that will meet or exceed customers expectation and as a result of this they are searching for approaches to managing people and production system that will assure the transformation of inputs into quality output.

Much research has been done with regards to the implementation of total quality management. Pheng and Jasmine (2004) pointed out that with the adoption of TQM there is the benefits of higher customer satisfaction, better quality products and higher market shares. Customer satisfaction is one of the prime objectives of TQM and it is the most widely discussed approach to directing organizational efforts towards the goal of customer satisfaction.

According to Hills (1991) TQM theory is based on: continuous improvement, top management leadership and commitment to the goal of customer satisfaction, employee empowerment and customer focus.

With the full adoption and implementation of TQM, there should be a turn around in corporate culture and management approaches as compared to the traditional way of management in which the top management giving orders and employees merely obeying them.

TQM is generally perceived to emphasize employee empowerment and de-emphasize states distinction in an organization.

An TQM organization is basically a customer oriented organization and the organization should strive to maximize customer satisfaction rather than internal efficiency and that each person within the organization should consider the need of the next person in line who uses its output.

The quality scholars have indicated that primarily the employees build quality into an organization’s goods and services.

Hence the quality of products and services depends heavily on employee empowerment, participation, morale, motivation, compensation. It is believed that motivational theories when properly developed cause quality initiatives to be successful. While others do not. Some of the motivational theories in context are content theory, Expectancy theory, Behaviour modification theory, Goal Setting theory, Equity theory and job Design theory. The researcher shall devote the cause of this research work on Goal Setting and Expectancy theory because if properly developed, are most likely to bring success to quality initiatives.

Goal setting theory: The theory was proposed by psychologist Edwin Locke, he says that the natural human inclination to set and strive for goal is useful only if the individual both understand and accepts a particular goal. He further states that individuals are motivated when he behave in ways that move them to certain clear goals that they accept and can reasonably expect to attain.

Stoner (2007) describes Goals Setting as a process theory of motivation that focus on the process of setting goals.

C. Earley and C. Shalley (2000) as edited by Stoner (2007) describes the goal setting process in terms of four phases of a person’s reasoning.

Establishment of a standard to be attained.

Evaluation of whether the standard can be achieved

Evaluation of whether the standard matches personal goals

The standard is accepted, the goal is thereby set and behaviour proceeds towards the goal.

Edwin Lock also proposed that intention to work towards a goal are a major source of work motivation. That is, goal tell an employee what needs to be done and how much efforts will need to be done and how much efforts will need to be expended. We can also easily say that specific goals increase performance; that difficult goals when accepted result in higher performance than easy goals.

Goal commitment is most likely to occur when goals are made public, when the employee has an internal locus of control, and when the goals are self-set rather than assigned.

It is also believed that goals seems to have a more substantial effect on performance when tasks are simple rather than complex, well learned rather than novel.

Expectancy Theory: This was propounded by Victor Vroom. Expectancy theory argue that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.

Stonner (2007) States that it is a theory of motivation that says that people choose how to behave from among alternative course of behaviour based on their expectation of what there is to gain from each behaviour. The strength of a tendency to act in certain way depends in the strength of an expectation that an act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of the outcome to the individual.

Robbins S. and Sanghi S. (2008) says that employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when they believe that effort will lead to a good performance appraisal; that a good appraisal will lead to organizational reward such as a bonus, a salary increase or a promotion and that the reward will satisfy the employees personal goals and on the organizational side will bring for a better corporate performance by the employee.

David  Nadler  and  Edward  Lawler  describe  four assumption about behaviour in  organization as edited  by Stonner (2007) on which expectancy approach is based.

Behaviour is determined by a combination of factors in the individual and factors in the environment  Individuals make conscious decisions about their behaviour in the organization.

Individual have different needs, desire and goals.

Individual decide between alternative behaviours on the basis of their expectations that a given behaviour will lead to a desired outcome.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The statement of problems in this study is to describe the processes involved in the implementation of Total Quality Management in an organization.

This study will also investigation if Total Quality Management improves organizational performance.

This study will also investigate if organization that have implemented Total Quality Management involves itself in continuous improvement of her products on the basis of understanding customer needs and wants.

From this research investigation, some suggestion will be made on how to improve Total Quality application in some business organization.

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