Corporate Culture’s Impact on a Strategic Approach to Quality

The purpose of this research is to further examine the relationship between organizational culture and a strategic approach to quality, as embodied in Malcolm Baldrige Quality award criteria. To accomplish this, a questionnaire was developed for a postal survey. The questionnaire was based upon the Competing Values Model of Culture and the Baldrige Award criteria to define the position of the company in their strategic quality approach. This questionnaire was then sent to 1000 members of the American Society for Quality. A total of 219 usable responses were received and analyzed. The results indicate that higher Baldrige scores tend to be significantly related to the Adhocracy and Group cultural types.