Internalizing a Culture of Business Excellence: Perspectives from Quality Professionals

Underline by the importance of sustainable quality management practices to contemporary organizations, this edited book complies best practice cases of leaders who have initiated and facilitated quality practices in their organizations. The cases highlight how these best practices manifested in their work cultures, values, and beliefs. Not only do they address organizational efforts towards implementation of quality practices but they also discuss the challenges the leaders faced to instill a sense of quality in practices across the hierarchical structures of their organizations. At the end of each case, the authors provide questions to facilitate interesting and thought-provoking discussions, to teach key quality concepts, and to apply relevant theoretical frameworks.

In today’s business world, as transnational companies face the dual challenges of managing global knowledge networks and multicultural project teams, as well as interacting and collaborating across boundaries using global communication technologies, it is crucial to have quality management programs in place that fit into these multinational environments. Although quality management may be viewed as both a catalyst and driver for change, research has also clearly indicated that national culture is highly resistant to change due to diverse mind-sets, chaotic emotional challenges, and varying behavioural norms and patterns. As well, although quality practices can be easily changed, the fundamental values that underlie those practices are very difficult to transform. Such a phenomenon would suggest a strong need for global firms to adapt their quality practices to the local national culture. As a consequence, organizational cultures of globalized firms need to be aligned to the divergent values rooted in the national cultures of the local leaders and workforce. Accomplishing this cultural integration should not compromise the integrity of world-wide quality management policies, rather efforts towards program development should be geared toward strategies that can be most effectively implemented in the local culture, as well as the organizational culture. Thus, organizational leaders are increasingly in need of quality management approaches that result in sustainable business results.