Quality and Quality Systems

Quality and Quality Systems Completed by University of a) From a quality perspective how do you ensure that the outcome of teamwork is consistent with its intended purpose? Various individuals have tried to determine the most definite driving force in any organization. This matter has been thoroughly studied and analyzed by top managers, directors, and researchers who concentrated on finding or developing the best solution to the problem of modernization and new positive ideas in the company. Many approaches were used to determine whether technical or human factor played the outmost role in the principal of constructive development. Although many would still argue that there is no definite answer or even a specific source that seems to have the greatest direct relevance to this issue, organization’s employees who are able to concentrate on quality and follow the quality assurance guidelines are considered to be the force that leads to most innovations and progressive findings in the company. Although all of the above views have definite grounds for their existence, recent researches, current studies, and a number of modern professionals prove that teams that concentrate on quality have much higher chances of reaching outcomes that are consistent with its intended purpose. The nature of the team is central to the type and quality of firms’ strategic, including decisions regarding entrepreneurial posture. Upper echelons theory posits that managers make strategic choices based upon their values, cognition, and perspectives, and that organizational activities or outcomes reflect the collective cognitive biases and abilities of the TMT. A significant body of research concerning innovation and organizational leadership has examined the link between the team involved in a specific project and innovative or creative behavior on the part of the management or the firm. For example, Bantel and Jackson found that “demographically diverse teams were associated with higher levels of creativity and innovation” (1989, p. 132). Similarly, some critics were able to link teams’ heterogeneity and propensity to engage in strategic change. High-quality decisions spring from both the collective cognitive capability of the team and the decision-making process used by the team.

The collective mental capability of a demographically heterogeneous team provides the requisite variety necessary for the team to cope with complex, ambiguous, and multifaceted decisions such as those associated with developing strategy. The alternatives are likely to be characterized by diversity, novelty, and comprehensiveness. In other words, cognitive diversity is a valuable resource. The presence of people with differing points of view ensures consideration of a larger set of problems and a larger set of alternative potential solutions. What is more, demographic diversity also impacts decision-making processes. There is substantial research that suggests that decision-making processes that synthesize the diverse knowledge bases, values, and perspectives of demographically dissimilar team members enhance decision quality. The members of a demographically and cognitively diverse group are likely to view strategic decisions differently from one another, engendering debate regarding the most appropriate alternative. Such decision-making processes have the twin benefits of preventing the uncritical acceptance of the seemingly obvious and tapping the knowledge and perspectives of group members. In an empirical study, it was found that dialectical inquiry (DI) and devil’s advocacy (DA) techniques produced closer evaluation of competing assumption bases, and faster, higher quality decisions. DI/DA techniques applied to strategic decision making were significantly more effective than consensus- seeking techniques in exploiting the different capabilities of team members. Thus, conflict among team members regarding the most appropriate course of action can enhance decision making by unearthing the assumptions underlying each potential course of action and causing management to critically evaluate the merits of each alternative. Indeed, such conflict is vital to the development of high-quality decisions. b) What change-promoting strategies would you implement to overcome any potential troubles in the above exercise? In recent years, the concept of quality in work groups has been utilized in business and industry to further the cause of employee empowerment.

In such teams, employees take personal responsibility for the outcomes of their work, manage and monitor their own performance, seek needed resources, and take the initiative to help others improve. Minimal criteria for successful teams were identified by Bantel and Jackson. 1. The group be intact and identifiable-if sometimes small or temporary- social system. 2. The team can be charged with generating an identifiable product whose acceptability is potentially measurable. 3. The group have the authority to determine how members will go about working together to accomplish their task. (1989, p. 77) These researchers studied the introduction of work groups in an organization that had traditionally relied on individual’s basic ideas of improvement and modernization in the company. In the context of an independent property and casualty insurance firm, specific individuals were found to threaten the personal control and autonomy of employees and to result in reduced services to customers. Teams were introduced in this organization without worker participation or approval and were used as a means of increasing management control. Bantel and Jackson concluded that additional research is needed on the effects of introducing work groups in service occupations, particularly when employees have a history of individual autonomy. Researchers have also been interested in the functions of leaders in organizations with such teams. Most writers on the subject have concluded that leadership is at least as important in organizations with work groups as it is in traditionally structured organizations The leader in an organization with work teams as an non-leader is the one who leads others to lead themselves. Leadership is both more important and a more demanding undertaking in self-managing units than in traditional organizations. Dess notes that “team characteristics are a key contingency factor influencing the relationship between firm-level innovation and firm performance” (1996, p. 54). Contingency models advance one’s understanding of organizational phenomena because they move beyond regular relationships and explicitly recognize the need for increased model specification.

Hence, to enhance person’s understanding of how innovation may contribute to performance outcomes, it is important to examine the impact of team characteristics upon that relationship. Briefly, upper-echelons research frequently posits that the decisions of top management are primary drivers of firm performance, and those decisions are influenced by the demographic makeup of the top management team. The upper-echelons literature has met with equivocal results, particularly when attempting to link TMT (Top Management Team) demography directly to firm performance. Perspective that recognizes an interaction effect between strategy and the teams may more accurately reflect the strategy formulation and implementation process. Taken all of the above evidence into consideration, one may conclude that teams that implement a strong system of quality control are the major driving force in the organization as opposed to those teams that concentrate on the result or performance more than on quality. Quality controlling teams are able to cope with the disruptive consequences of innovation and change. Thus, there may be complex interrelationships encompassing environmental as well as organizational characteristics such as the nature of the top management team, or the firm’s innovation implementation climate that more fully delineate the relationship between innovation and firm performance. What is more, these results have important implications for management practice. As Jackson notes, “teams bear final responsibility for the selection and implementation of firm actions in a manner that generates wealth” (1995, p.28). Thus, to ensure that a firm’s pursuit of product- market innovation results in profitable market share gains- avoiding the overzealous pursuit of innovation or market share for its own sake- managers should actively incorporate open debate using more complex and diverse points of view in the strategic decision-making process. The teams characterized by members with wide diversity in demographic attributes may be successful on projects that intuitively benefit from marked dispersion of attitudes, interests, and perspectives.