Scott C. Manley, Ralph I. Williams Jr. and Joseph F. Hair Jr.
Given the positive organizational principles associated with total quality management (TQM) – customer focus, continuous improvement, and process management – one would assume…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the positive organizational principles associated with total quality management (TQM) – customer focus, continuous improvement, and process management – one would assume TQM's application is universally beneficial across businesses. Generally, research supports that notion. However, given resource limitations and shallow management teams in small businesses, there are multiple challenges in implementing TQM in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, small business leaders should benefit from knowledge linking other management practices to TQM’s positive effect on small firm performance, which enhances these leaders' return on TQM investment.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to explore TQM’s effect on small business performance and how other management practices enhance that relationship. Specifically, the authors explore how a comprehensive strategic approach (CSA) – a higher-order construct consisting of strategic planning, goal setting, and financial ratio analysis – moderates the relationship between TQM and small business performance. Given the complexity of the authors' model, the application of higher-order constructs, and the exploratory nature of this work, PLS-SEM is well suited for this study.
Findings
Consistent with prior research, the authors found that TQM (also a higher-order construct, consisting of seven lower-order constructs) positively impacts small firm performance. In addition, the authors found that CSA positively moderates the relationship between TQM and financial performance.
Originality/value
TQM’s effect on small business performance is enhanced when leaders implement a CSA. In other words, when small business leaders strategically plan, set goals, and analyze financial ratios, TQM's positive effect on firm performance is enhanced. This finding provides business leaders insights for how to maximize the TQM investment return.
Details
Keywords
Ralph I. Williams Jr, Torsten Pieper, Franz Kellermanns and Joe Astrachan
Current approaches to measuring family business performance have limitations: failing to acknowledge the entire family business holistically, and lacking recognition of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Current approaches to measuring family business performance have limitations: failing to acknowledge the entire family business holistically, and lacking recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of family business goals. By applying organizational effectiveness and the achievement of desired organizational outcomes, the purpose of this paper is to develop a scale to measure performance based on a family business’ idiosyncratic goals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies mixed methods, including qualitative research, two surveys and structural equation modeling.
Findings
The authors develop a scale employing 21 items, representing six goal dimensions, to measure the family business performance.
Originality/value
The family business performance measurement scale from this study responds to multiple calls for a scale gauging family business performance in a manner including both financial and non-financial outcomes.
Details
Keywords
Business performance measurement is vital to expanding knowledge of how various strategies and behaviors affect organization outcomes. Given the recent growth of the family…
Abstract
Purpose
Business performance measurement is vital to expanding knowledge of how various strategies and behaviors affect organization outcomes. Given the recent growth of the family business research field, it is appropriate to assess how researchers measure family business performance, seeking to provide thoughts related to how to improve family business performance measurement in research. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a systematic approach to review 338 family business performance studies published in peer-reviewed journals from 1980 through 2015.
Findings
Observations are presented from this exhaustive review, including the expansion of the family business research field, types of journals publishing family business studies, research topics, types of measures utilized, and others. In addition, potential gaps are identified and possible solutions are presented.
Originality/value
It appears no review of family business performance measurement in research is available. Observations from this review may assist researchers in measuring a vital metric, family business performance.
Details
Keywords
Ralph I. Williams Jr, Daniel L. Morrell and John V. Mullane
The purpose of this paper is to propose that top management commitment to its organization's mission statement moderates the mission's effect of firm performance. The proposed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose that top management commitment to its organization's mission statement moderates the mission's effect of firm performance. The proposed model combines numerous aspects of top management commitment to give depth to the moderating effect.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a conceptual overview of the mission statement literature toward a theoretical model.
Findings
The impact of mission statements on firm performance long has been studied and debated, without consistent results. This paper proposes that this is due to the presence of moderating influences, specifically the commitment of top management, that, if not properly studied, will affect empirical results.
Practical implications
Practicing managers can unlock the power of the mission statement by involving the entire organization in the mission statement process, clearly and consistently communicating the mission's tenets, setting measurable operational targets from the mission statement, and periodically revising the mission to ensure it is current.
Originality/value
The concept of a moderator is original in the mission-performance debate. Concepts from several key articles have been combined in a unique manner to develop the model.
Details
Keywords
Larry W. Isaac, Daniel B. Cornfield and Dennis C. Dickerson
Knowledge of how social movements move, diffuse, and expand collective action events is central to movement scholarship and activist practice. Our purpose is to extend…
Abstract
Knowledge of how social movements move, diffuse, and expand collective action events is central to movement scholarship and activist practice. Our purpose is to extend sociological knowledge about how movements (sometimes) diffuse and amplify insurgent actions, that is, how movements move. We extend movement diffusion theory by drawing a conceptual analogue with military theory and practice applied to the case of the organized and highly disciplined nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We emphasize emplacement in a base-mission extension model whereby a movement base is built in a community establishing a social movement school for inculcating discipline and performative training in cadre who engage in insurgent operations extended from that base to outlying events and campaigns. Our data are drawn from secondary sources and semi-structured interviews conducted with participants of the Nashville civil rights movement. The analytic strategy employs a variant of the “extended case method,” where extension is constituted by movement agents following paths from base to outlying campaigns or events. Evidence shows that the Nashville movement established an exemplary local movement base that led to important changes in that city but also spawned traveling movement cadre who moved movement actions in an extensive series of pathways linking the Nashville base to events and campaigns across the southern theater of the civil rights movement. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.
Details
Keywords
Ralph Williams, W. Randy Clark, Deana M. Raffo and Leigh Anne Clark
Leader credibility is often discussed in literature. Although the literature discusses many facts related to building leader credibility, organized and structured knowledge of how…
Abstract
Purpose
Leader credibility is often discussed in literature. Although the literature discusses many facts related to building leader credibility, organized and structured knowledge of how leaders build leader credibility is missing. The present study's purpose is to begin closing that gap by drawing concepts from the literature related to building leader credibility, categorizing them into relevant constructs and building a model. The present study provides a foundation, built from items drawn from peer-reviewed literature, for future research on how leaders build credibility.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors reviewed 66 articles discussing or exploring building leader credibility. From those articles, they drew potential leader credibility antecedents. They analyzed the antecedents, seeking to group them into understandable constructs that provide a building leader credibility model. Seeking nomological validity (evidence that our building leader credibility constructs reflect real-world thinking), they conducted an open-ended survey to compare what practitioners say builds leader credibility to our model.
Findings
The leader credibility antecedents the authors drew from the literature fell into two dimensions: competence and character. The competence antecedents fell into three subdivisions: interpersonal competence, technical competence and leader competence. The character antecedents fell into two subdivisions: character behaviors and character attributes. Responses from our open-ended survey fit our five subdimensions for building leader credibility, providing some nomological validity for our model.
Practical implications
The authors’ model may help practitioners see the big picture of building leader credibility, develop specific tactics for building leader credibility and provide a basis for assessing their building leader credibility approach.
Originality/value
Although leader credibility is vastly researched and leader credibility antecedents are discussed or explored, a big-picture model of building leader credibility is lacking. This study pursues a path previously not taken, developing a credibility-building model drawn from concepts presented in the literature.
Details
Keywords
Ralph Williams Jr, Deana M. Raffo and Leigh Anne Clark
The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model describing potential relationships among transformational leadership, charisma, credibility and organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model describing potential relationships among transformational leadership, charisma, credibility and organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual, based on a review of current transformational leadership, charisma and credibility literature.
Findings
The authors present a model where credibility is an antecedent of transformational leadership; transformational leadership has a positive effect on organizational performance; and charisma positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance.
Research limitations/implications
A model to integrate credibility into transformational leadership research is proposed.
Practical implications
This paper considers credibility as an important attribute of transformational leadership, and thus credibility may have significant implications for practitioners in leadership development strategies.
Originality/value
Currently, there is a lack of research on the role of credibility in leadership. The authors discuss the importance of measuring leader credibility and generating a credibility scale.
Details
Keywords
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.
Williams was a black feminist pragmatist who contributed to and drew on the ideas and practices of the “Hull-House school of race relations” (HHSRR). This American theory unites…
Abstract
Williams was a black feminist pragmatist who contributed to and drew on the ideas and practices of the “Hull-House school of race relations” (HHSRR). This American theory unites liberal values and a belief in a rational public with a co-operative, nurturing, and liberating model of the self, the other, and the community, based on the historical ideas and commitments of abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln. Education and democracy are emphasized as significant mechanisms to organize and improve society, especially the relations between black and white people. This school had a distinct institutional influence, structure, and status (Deegan, 2002b). As an African American women who wrote and spoke using feminist pragmatism as it applied to the black experience viewed from her lived standpoint, she developed black feminist pragmatism (Deegan, 2002a). I concentrate here on her writings on biculturalism, especially her (Williams, 1907) essay on the perils of “a White Negro.” She wrote about this anomalous racial category in a number of other pieces that I also analyze here.