Quality management has often been advocated as being universally applicable to organizations. This is in contrast with the manufacturing strategy contingency approach of Operations Management which advocates internal and external consistency between manufacturing strategy choices. This article empirically investigates whether quality management practices are contingent on a plant’s manufacturing strategy context, by examining the use of process quality management practices- a critical and distinctive subset of the whole set of quality management practices- across plants representative of different manufacturing strategy contexts. The study strongly suggests that process quality management practices are contingent on a plant’s manufacturing strategy, and identifies mechanisms by which this takes place.

Learning from experience, the cyclical interplay of thinking and doing, is increasingly important as organizations struggle to cope with rapidly changing environments and more complex and interdependent sets of knowledge. This paper confronts two central issues for organizational learning: (1) how is local learning (by individuals or small groups) integrated into collective learning by organizations? and (2) what are the differences between learning practices that focus on control, elimination of surprises, and single-loop incremental “fixing ” of problems with those that focus on deep or radical learning, double-loop challenging of assumptions, and discovery of new opportunities? We articulate these relationships through an analysis of learning practices in high-hazard organizations, specifically, problem investigation teams that examine the most serious and troubling events and trends in nuclear power plants and chemical plants. Our analysis suggests a four-stage model of organizational learning reflecting different approaches to control and learning. LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE IN HIGH-HAZARD ORGANIZATIONS 1

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As daily U.S. newspapers have faced increasing competition, they have experienced falling circulation and declining household penetration. In an effort to cope with the adverse changes, some newspapers have sought the advice of consultants who have advised such administered changes as total quality management and similar managed workplace transformations. While such changes have succeeded in other workplace environments, such as manufacturing, they have faced resistance in professional settings, such as newsrooms at daily newspapers. One newsroom that faced a similar administrative change was the Winston-Salem Journal, where the North Carolina daily in 1995 adopted an efficiency “grid ” for newsroom professionals that was rejected in early 1996. A preliminary survey of the professional news staff at the Journal two years after the efficiency initiative was announced found that news professionals there remained strongly resistant to business-administered changes in newsroom routines and professional norms, and they strongly adhered to traditional views about the separation of business and news departments. The study also found worthy of further study suggestions that some newsroom professionals view staff cuts that coincide with administrative changes as falling within the purview of business administrators and as unrelated to professional norms and values and work routines.

Quality management has often been advocated as being universally applicable to organizations and organizations activities. This is in contrast with the manufacturing strategy contingency approach in which the field of Operations Management has been strongly rooted from its inception, which advocates internal and external consistency between manufacturing strategy choices. In addition, as quality management has matured, more recent rigorous academic studies have raised doubts as to the universal validity of its set of practices. Simultaneously, the quality management practitioner literature abounds with reports of problems in implementing quality management. Although proponents of the universal view of quality management would argue that these difficulties are part of moving the organization towards quality, an alternative explanation is that those difficulties result from too great a mismatch between the proposed form of quality management and the particular organizational context. This question has been overlooked by research on quality management implementation. Taking for granted that espoused quality management is universally applicable, the influence of an organization’s context has been ignored. Despite these tensions, there is still little empirical research conducted in quality management aimed at shedding light on the question: Are quality management practices contingent on a plant’s manufacturing

Best practice benchmarking is now relatively common in all sectors of the economy, including the voluntary and public sectors. It is even being adopted by small and medium sized enterprises, although seldom by very small firms. The gains in terms of improved performance of key processes are often assumed to be self-evident, yet systematic evaluation of the costs and benefits of benchmarking is relatively rare. This paper reports on an ongoing study supported by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the Open University Business School which aims to improve understanding of the factors which contribute to ‘successful ’ and ‘less successful ’ experiences with benchmarking. Data from questionnaire surveys and several case studies of organisations actively involved with benchmarking will be presented, together with views from managers who have found that benchmarking did not live up to their expectations. Conclusions will be drawn about contingent ‘success factors ’ and an emerging life cycle of benchmarking practices. 1.

discussion in preparing this manuscript. COMPLEMENTARITIES, COMMON CHANGE INITIATIVES, AND

Hybrid governance forms that seek to meld the virtues of both market control and traditional hierarchical control are alluring governance forms. While extensive research has examined such hybrids forms, the research has been restricted largely to external hybrids ⎯ market exchanges infused with elements of hierarchical control. Comparatively little research, outside of the M-form literature, has examined internal hybrids ⎯ hierarchical forms infused with elements of market control. This paper contends that common change initiatives, such as TQM, reengineering, autonomous work teams, and group-based rewards, are appropriately viewed as attempts to craft internal hybrids by selectively infusing elements of market control within hierarchy. However, these common change initiatives are implemented typically in isolation and, as a consequence, violate patterns of complementarity that both sustain traditional hierarchy or support the stable infusion of market control. Managers overlay new measures on existing, functionallyoriented structures; they implement new structures without new performance measures and without new pay systems; they implement new pay systems, but fail to restructure or develop new performance measures. The paper argues that these violations of complementarity often unravel the bundle of elements that support traditional hierarchy and spiral hierarchies toward fundamental transformation. The clear trajectory of these transformations is toward quite radically, disaggregated organizations structured around teams. The paper presents both logic and evidence supporting the presence of complementarities in common change initiatives.

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