Hon Keung Yau and Alison Lai Fong Cheng
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the IT professionals in a Hong Kong public transport company have a general perception of influence of the organisational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the IT professionals in a Hong Kong public transport company have a general perception of influence of the organisational defensive patterns on learning of ICT; and whether skilled incompetence, organisational defensive routines and fancy footwork are positively associated with each other in IT group of a transport company.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigated the influence of organisational defensive patterns by means of a survey of 171 IT professionals at a Hong Kong public transport company. Each selected employee completed a questionnaire that asked them to indicate the influence of the organisational defensive patterns (skilled incompetence, organisational defensive routines and fancy footwork) on the learning of ICT in their organisation.
Findings
The employees indicated that skilled incompetence, organisational defensive routines and fancy footwork had influence on the learning of ICT. The findings show that the IT professionals in a Hong Kong transport company have the general perception of influence of skilled incompetence, defensive routines and fancy footwork on learning of ICT. The findings also indicate that skilled incompetence, defensive routines and fancy footwork are positively associated with each other in IT group of the transport company.
Originality/value
This article is a first step towards extending the theory and practice of organisational defensive patterns to IT group of a transport company.
Details
Keywords
Hongyi Sun, Yangyang Zhao and Hon Keung Yau
The speed of new product development (NPD) has been a key factor in a firm's degree of competitiveness. The tools and philosophy of quality management have been widely used to…
Abstract
Purpose
The speed of new product development (NPD) has been a key factor in a firm's degree of competitiveness. The tools and philosophy of quality management have been widely used to improve and control product quality. However, there is a lack of literature on the relationship between quality management and NPD. This paper aims to report on a study that investigates the influence of quality management on the speed of NPD.
Design/methodology/approach
The philosophy of quality management refers to total quality management (TQM). Tools for quality management include teamwork, continuous improvement (CI), value analysis (VA) and quality function deployment (QFD). This study begins by comparing literature in concurrent engineering (CE) and TQM, which leads to several common principles and five hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from 700 manufacturing companies in 20 countries.
Findings
The research reveals that TQM, Team, VA and QFD are positively correlated with the speed of NPD, meaning that the tools and philosophy of quality management have a positive influence on the speed of NPD. However, no relationship is found between CI and the speed of NPD.
Research limitations/implications
This paper tests hypotheses using survey data. It reveals the empirical relationship between quality management and the speed of NPD but does not provide details regarding the mechanism of influence between the two. Consequently, case studies should be conducted in the future to probe into the details. Additionally, new quality methods like Six Sigma can also be included in a future study, since Six Sigma covers both quality and NPD.
Practical implications
This study proposes that companies that have implemented TQM and other quality management tools will have a better foundation for implementing new NPD approaches like CE and design for manufacturing and assembly. This is especially encouraging for those original engineering manufacturing (OEM) firms that would like to change from OEM to original design manufacturing/original brand manufacturing (ODM/OBM). OEM companies typically implement TQM but invest very little in NPD.
Originality/value
This paper fills the gap in research exploring the links between quality management and NPD. It addresses the concern over whether quality management may hinder NPD. The critical issues for implementing quality management such as culture change, learning, change management, and team building can all be applied to implementing NPD methods such as CE. The result also supports the concept of “design the quality into products”. It is beneficial for employees in quality and NPD to share and work together.
Details
Keywords
Alison Lai Fong Cheng and Hon Keung Yau
The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of a sample of Hong Kong principals and teachers of the extent to which quality management (QM) has been effectively…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of a sample of Hong Kong principals and teachers of the extent to which quality management (QM) has been effectively implemented in primary schools. The features of QM improvement implemented in Hong Kong primary schools include: values and duties, systems and teams(ST) resources and changes(RC) and meeting pupil needs and empowering staff.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative, survey questionnaire was adopted in this study. A total of 322 respondents (83 principals and 239 teachers) out of 83 primary schools responded to the questionnaire.
Findings
The finding shows that all four features of QM are perceived as being implemented in Hong Kong primary schools. There are significant differences between the perceptions of principals and teachers towards “value and duties”, “ST”, “RC” of QM. However, there is no significant difference between the perceptions of principles and teachers towards “meeting pupil needs and empowering staff” of QM.
Originality/value
This paper is a first step towards extending the theory and practice of QM to principals and teachers in Hong Kong primary schools.
Details
Keywords
Alemu Moges Belay, Fentahun Moges Kasie, Petri Helo, Josu Takala and Daryl J. Powell
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing nation and benchmark with the world average.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary and secondary data were collected from 34 selected companies. The primary data were obtained using a questionnaire survey to determine the quality management adoption level of each company using the European Business Excellence Model. Secondary data also collected in order to compute labor productivity of each organization and benchmark with international norms.
Findings
In this research, labor productivity is measured by revenues per employee and total assets per employee and found that adopting quality management has strong relationships with revenue per employee unlike total asset per employee that is weakly related.
Originality/value
Several authors suggest a positive relationship between adoption quality management principles and productivity in large organizations located in developed countries. However, this paper particularly focuses on labor productivity of labor-intensive companies.