Increasing the organizational performance benefits of TQM: An approach based on organizational design

摘要

Among many researchers there is an agreement about TQM's capacity to improve organizational performance (Refs. 1 to 4). This article focuses on how firms can increase the benefits deriving from TQM adoption. This article uses the theoretical and conceptual framework provided by Williamson's (Ref. 5) transaction cost theory (TCT) for this purpose. Organizational performance depends on its ability to solve the firm's organizational design (OD) problems and in particular, these problems are the information (coordination) and motivation (incentive) problems arising in firms. This work analyses a set of firms that have adopted TQM, and find empirical evidence to confirm that when firms apply OD and TQM elements simultaneously they obtain superior organizational performance. (81 refs.)