Suchergebnisse

Employee attitudes toward implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) are studied in a regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author condected more than a dozen interviews and adnistered questiousaires to 448 employees in the summer of 1991. Contrary to previous literature, clerical and managerial employees were most favorable toward the TQM program, whereas professionals were most negative. Apparently, professionals have experienced more work and few immediate rewands from the TQM implementation process, perhps because the agency stuied had not yet used TQM to simplify work processes for professionals. More behavioral research on TQM is calledfor.

A "situational"perspective on employee attitudes is used to interpret the relationship between age and work satisfaction among 434 employees of a Federal Government agency. Distinct age-satisfaction curves are discovered among three employee groups: a U-shaped curve among nonprofessionals, an upward-sloping double-bend curve among elite professionals, and a downward sloping curve among ordinary professionals. Employee perceptions of management climate, mobility possibilities, and personal influence all vary by subcontext and determine level of work satisfaction. Results are seen as supporting a situational rather than ontogenetic explanation of work satisfaction.

Organizational researchers have attacked the rational, or bureaucratic, model of organizations and have sought to replace it with a number of different perspectives that stress informal influence, political processes, situational negotiations, or random interaction. Yet one key test that bears on the applicability of the rational model has not been systematically or thoroughly, performed: an analysis of the extent to which formal authority, in comparison to various nonformal factors, constrains actual behavior. The current study focuses on one key characteristic of the rational model; namely, organizational decision-making. Regression analysis is used to weigh the relative effect on participation in decisions of formal hierarchical authority and general nonformal power bases. Limited support is given to one aspect of the rational model, though not to the exclusion of other models. Renewed research effort, using a variety of techniques, is called upon to fully investigate the role of formal authority in organi zations.

This article presents a survey instrument designed to measure total quality management (TQM) and supporting organizational culture. In this study, 13 a priori dimensions of TQM and 10 a priori dimensions of organizational culture or climate were operationalized in a 113-item survey designed to measure the level of culture and TQM as experienced by individual members. The instrument was successfully administered to a diverse sample of organization members. A factor analysis of results from 886 respondents indicates that seven TQM and five culture dimensions, comprising only 56 of the original items, account for most of the scale variance. This produces a relatively compact instrument that allows researchers and practitioners to measure perceived culture and TQM implementation among all types of employees, work contexts, and TQM program levels. Revised index scores were found to be significantly related to stage of formal TQM program, thus supporting scale validity. Suggestions for using the instrument are presented.