Quality culture deployment – using behaviours to explain, diagnose and improve a quality culture

Abstract

Purpose

Today’s organisations face the challenge of measuring the right things and then using those measurements as a starting point to work with improved quality. The failure to generate a shared value base is pointed out as one main cause for the inability to effectively apply quality management and lean within organisations; thus, it appears central to measure these values. However, the measuring of values and behaviours seems to be missing within both concepts. Therefore, there is a need for a tool that measures not only quality values but also behaviours that support or obstruct a quality culture. The purpose of this paper is to describe how a measuring tool which measures quality culture can be designed and structured.

Design/methodology/approach

A project with the aim to measure and develop quality culture started in 2015 by three Swedish universities/institutes and seven organisations. During several workshops, quality values and supportive and obstructive behaviours were developed and described. This resulted in a survey where employees of the participating organisations ranked performance and importance of the described behaviours. The results were presented and discussed in a fourth workshop.

Findings

A framework of behaviours and a measurement tool for a quality culture are presented in this paper.

Originality/value

The framework of behaviours, supporting or obstructing a quality culture, is original and may be very useful to diagnose and develop a quality culture.

Citation

Cronemyr, P., Bäckström, I. and Rönnbäck, Å. (2017), "Quality culture deployment – using behaviours to explain, diagnose and improve a quality culture", International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Vol. 9 No. 3/4, pp. 498-518. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-02-2017-0008