Knowledge that Transforms

Quality has been in the limelight as organizations have sought to create a competitive advantage and theorists have sought to understand the implications of quality management. This paper examines the synergistic effects of the quality emphasis in the organizations, the use of appropriate work force management practices, and the managerial performance outcomes as interactive phenomena. Using data from multiple levels of employees in manufacturing units in various industries, we tested hypotheses regarding the managerial performance impact of the synergy in work force management practices and the quality emphasis. The results indicate that the effectiveness of work force management practices in enhancing managerial performance varies with the emphasis on quality that is manifested by meeting and exceeding customer needs and preferences through accurate, consistent, reliable, and durable products, and by making design changes in the products as desired by the customer.

This paper develops a theoretical framework that relates a service guarantee to service quality. The framework hypothesizes that a service guarantee can positively affect service quality through its positive effect on both learning through service failure and employee motivation and vision. A longitudinal, empirical study was conducted to test these hypotheses. Surprisingly, the service guarantee was not found to have a direct effect on learning through service failure. However, the service guarantee clearly had a positive effect on service quality primarily through its positive effect on employee motivation and vision. The research strongly supports using a service guarantee to improve service quality.

Since “Normal Accidents: Living With High‐Risk Technologies” was first published in 1984, there have been very few tests of its validity or its application to different classes of technology or organizations. This paper describes a robust, parametric test of Normal Accident Theory applied to a class of high‐risk systems: petrochemical plants and refineries. The theory has important implications for scholars interested in the relationship of organizations to the natural environment and managers responsible for safe, socially responsible, and environmentally appropriate operation of high‐consequence systems.

Product stewardship is the set of practices related to reducing risks from chemical and process hazards in a company's supply chain. This paper develops an economic framework for evaluating supply chain liability as a driver for adopting product stewardship. Companies that outsource production may face residual liability for damages from use of their products, when liabilities are large enough to exceed supply chain partners' assets. The resulting potential liabilities can be mitigated through product stewardship. This paper shows that extended supply chain liabilities provide incentives for investing in reducing environmental hazards throughout the supply chain.

Poka‐yoke (mistake‐proofing) is a powerful quality improvement approach, which usually employs relatively simple devices to achieve marked improvements. Inexpensive jigs, fixtures, switches, and gauges act as obvious environmental cues to signal mistake detection. Poka‐yoke has been largely ignored as an avenue for serious academic research. This paper provides scientific underpinning to the largely anecdotal mistake‐proofing literature, by drawing upon research from psychology and cognitive science concerning human error. We delineate areas where additional research would be worthwhile, and guide practitioners in understanding what they are trying to accomplish and how poka‐yoke devices attain this end.

Much of the early literature in the area of quality management literature is anecdotal, prescriptive, and methodologically suspect. As such, theory construction and rigorous empirical testing is a relatively recent development with the emphasis very much on quality practices. However, the various dimensions of quality performance and the relationship between them have received less attention from the research community. More specifically, the role of design quality has not been fully addressed in empirical studies. To address this gap we developed a path model incorporating quality practices, design quality, conformance quality, external quality‐in‐use, product cost, time‐to‐market, customer satisfaction and business performance. The model was tested with data collected from 200 suppliers in the electronics sector in the Republic of Ireland. Data analysis of the data indicated considerable support for the conceptual model.

The importance of evaluating the effectiveness of the purchasing function in firms along multiple criteria has attracted considerable attention. However, few studies have identified the defining elements that constitute purchasing competence. This paper introduces the construct of purchasing competence using a second‐order factor structure derived from purchasing practices identified from the literature. The validity of the construct (purchasing competence) is tested using data from a sample of 179 firms. The results indicate (1) the construct validity of purchasing competence and (2) the predictive validity of purchasing competence, which has a significant positive influence on total quality management performance and customer satisfaction. The implications of these findings for additional research are discussed.

Manufacturing history is too often neglected in operations management and its lessons lost. Its usefulness for testing theory is under‐appreciated. This paper uses critical aspects of the history of manufacturing to provide support for the Theory of Swift, Even Flow as an explanation of productivity gain. The rise of Britain in the Industrial Revolution and the rapid overtaking of Britain by the United States and Germany are argued to be thoroughly consistent with Swift, Even Flow, thereby vindicating both theory and the usefulness of history.

Companies are increasingly being held accountable for the life‐cycle impact of their products and services. Transportation is frequently a major component of this life‐cycle impact. Hence, to reduce total environmental impact, logistics managers will have to become more sophisticated in their understanding of how they can reduce the environmental impact of their transportation operations, without negatively affecting the cost or effectiveness of these operations. In line with this mandate, we quantify the dynamic impact of road vehicles on the environment. In most emission models, a constant speed is used depending only on the specific road type. Using such a model will lead to an underestimation of the effective emissions. It turns out that the differences with a more realistic dynamic assessment model are significant. The analysis here suggests that the policy consequences of these differences for both public sector managers and private companies are potentially quite important.