Impact of organizational culture on total quality management in construction industries

This report aims to increase the understanding of the relation between quality management practices and organizational culture. This is done by a study with considering construction sector. There is a need for an appropriate culture to support the scope of Quality Management. Customer focus, systems approach, teamwork, involved management and continuous improvement are the aspects of TQM that facilitate improved organisational success, growth, and competitiveness. Many companies are now complementing continuous improvement with innovation, which is seen as the successful exploitation of new ideas. A clear synergy appears between these two corporate success factors as they are often integrated under an appropriate corporate culture for exploitation. The results of this can support substantial improvements in business performance and competitiveness of the company. With this in mind, this paper discusses the concept of corporate culture, places this social construct within the arena of TQM, and highlights the relationships that exist among culture, quality, and competitiveness.In the competitive environment of today, it is crucial to stay ahead of competition and continuously satisfy customers. Quality management practices have been widely implemented, and while some organizations experience great success, other initiatives have failed. Many studies have started questioning the universal application of quality management in all organizations, and they claim that some of the quality management practices are dependent on the organizational context, such as industry, firm size and country. Out of these, organizational culture is among those listed at the top. These studies indicate that the organizational context, and consequentially its culture, will have an impact on the outcome of implemented quality management practices. This motivated me to study the impact of organizational culture in quality management. This paper discusses quality management practices and their potential in organizational cultures. The organizational culture is supporting several quality practices, which have been used to bring suggestions on how the unit can continue to develop their quality management. In order to achieve a higher performance in the process management practice, it is important to increase the feeling of empowerment among employees and to involve the people closest to the process it the quality efforts at the unit. Much of the literature discussing the cultural impact on quality management practices agrees that an appropriate culture is needed to support quality practices, with TQM as an example. Even though TQM alone is a whole concept, it has to be aligned with the existing cultural setting at the company where it is implemented. The quality management practices needs to be embedded in a supportive quality culture. When an organization would like to introduce TQM but lack an appropriate supportive culture the initiative will most likely fail. For instance, if employees do not feel empowered they might be afraid of stopping the production line right away when a defect product becomes visible. Quality of processes, services and products can be the difference between success and failure in every firm irrespective of the sector it belongs to. Customer satisfaction and customer value have become the main concern of all organizations in the increasingly intensified competition for customers in today’s customer-centred era. As a result, many organizations are paying increasing attention to improve their overall quality. The quality improvements will lead to customer satisfaction and cost management that result in improved profits. As a step in an empirical study of quality management, this study incorporates the total quality management. Since, organizational culture is directly affects the total quality management, this topic of study is very relevant and important in the current business market. This study paper takes into account construction sector under the study.