Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 31, Number 3
Summer 2000
A Contingent View of Quality Management—The Impact
of International Competition on Quality
Ajay Das
Zicklin School of Business, Department of Management, Box F-1831,
Baruch College, CUNY, 17 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10010,
email: ajay_das@baruch.cuny.edu
Robert B. Handfield
College of Management, Campus Box 7229, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7229, email: rob_handfield@ncsu.edu
Roger J. Calantone
Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Department of Marketing
& Supply Chain Management, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, MI 48824
Soumen Ghosh
Department of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
GA 30332
ABSTRACT. Much of the research on quality practices
and performance reflects a resource-based perspective of the
firm, dealing primarily with internal issues of managerial and
technological competence in developing and executing an effective
TQM strategy. The neoclassical perspective on the influence of
the competitive environment on quality practices and performance
remains conspicuously absent in the empirical quality literature.
Our study aims to address this gap by examining the contingent
role of international competition on quality management and performance.
We develop and test an integrative framework of quality management,
consisting of high involvement work practices, quality practices,
quality performance, and firm performance. We then examine the
contingent effects of international competition on the constructs
and relationships of the framework. International competition
was found to moderate the relationship between quality practices
and customer satisfaction performance, as well as the relationship
between high involvement work practices and firm performance.
The moderator effects suggest interesting implications for quality
theory and practice.
Subject Areas: Operations Strategy, Quality, and Structural
Equation Models. |