Describes research which has been carried out using case‐study analysis to investigate how three Thai companies have adopted TQM. As Japanese and US companies are major investors in Thailand, one purpose of the study was to compare approaches to TQM implementation between three ownership...

The research proposes a theory that organizational design mediates completely the effect of context on quality management. The results show that the greater the level of the organizational design variables (formalization, technocratic specialization, and strategic decentralization), the greater...

A considerable amount of resources are being deployed by organisations of all sizes and types towards implementing Total Quality Management and other improvement strategies. However, little is known about the impact these practices are having on organisational performance, particularly for...

The popular business press, government regulators, environmentalists and the public are calling on operations managers to shift away from their traditional emphasis on pollution control toward pollution prevention when improving environmental performance. Yet, any managerial decision about the...

This paper considers the links between quality management systems and environmental management systems. In particular, how firms use their experience with the former to develop the latter. Case studies of seven plastic manufacturers in New Zealand found a high degree of applicability of TQM...

This article investigates the relationship between the functional areas of manufacturing and human resources by analysing the practices of human resource management associated with the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, e.g. quality, delivery performance, flexibility and cost....

Since the mid‐1980s, the subject of information systems (IS) integration and its role in business process improvement (BPI) has been of considerable interest to business managers and researchers. The present study examines the effects of IS integration on BPI. The moderating effects of...

Supply chain management (SCM) is conceived by academics and practitioners as either an extension of logistics or an all‐encompassing approach to business integration. From the authors’ point of view, SCM involves not only logistic activities but also other processes such as quality...

Many studies claim that when an organization interacts with suppliers and with customers across the supply chain, the organization would achieve improved time performances. This claim, however, has undergone limited theoretical development, as well as subsequent systematic empirical testing. As...

This paper contributes to, and links the areas of quality management and buyer‐supplier relationships. In doing so, we seek to address two broad research questions. To what extent do quality practices impact upon the various dimensions of quality performance, manufacturing performance and, in...