Description	Requirements & Grading
Schedule	Reading List
Term Paper	Ethics Guidelines
Participation	Ethics Forms Consent Letter; Student agreement
Useful Material	Interview Tools Guidelines Dimensions of TQM TQM effects on job Effects on satisfaction The match

Course Description

This course introduces students to several quality improvement (QI) approaches that are increasingly used by North American managers. TQM provides the overall QI concept and serves as the backdrop to understanding reengineering, the learning organization and ISO 9000. The TQM philosophy stresses a systematic, integrated, consistent, organization-wide perspective involving everyone and every aspect of the production process. TQM affects all functions of business (e.g., research & development, operations/production, finance, sales/marketing, human resource management [HRM]) and is the integration of these functions and related processes into the product life cycle. The measurement of success is customer satisfaction and the way to its achievement is through continuous improvement.

This course has two major parts. Part I first discusses the traditional managerial paradigm and why it is being replaced by TQM and other QI approaches. The ideas and theories of TQM, as developed by Deming, Juran, and Ishikawa, are then examined and related to the learning organization, reengineering and ISO 9000. Part II addresses practical issues related to QI implementation and application.

Course Requirements and Grading

The Project

For your term project you may choose any organization, as long as it is practicing QI, planning to launch a QI initiative, or practiced QI. You can also choose an organization that does not have any experience with QI.  Then, you will have to develop a QI plan for the organization.  In the introduction, explain your research question/argument or the problem you will be dealing with. Next, describe the research setting and the QI initiative.  Then, analyze the situation. This analysis is guided by the research focus you have established in the introduction. A section outlining your findings, conclusions and recommendations should end the paper. To improve your paper, use the literature on quality improvement to support your arguments; provide a reference list; and if appendices are provided, integrate them with the discussion.

Ethics Considerations  

Your project requires interviews. Therefore, you must:

�         attend an instructional session in which ethical issues relating to this project have been discussed;

�         read the University of Alberta Standards for the Protection of  Human Research Participants;

�         sign and submit to me the student agreement BEFORE you conduct any interviews;

�         get each of your interviewees to sign a letter of consent;

�         submit all the letters of consent, which must be signed, with your final project.

I will not grade projects submitted without signed letters of consent 

Other documents you may wish to consult

1. Code of Student Behavior
2. University of Alberta Research and Scholarship Integrity Policy
3. Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans

To construct your interview questions, consult the guidelines for interviews.

University Policy

The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty.  Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior
(online at http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/content.cfm?ID_page=37633) and avoid any behavior which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence.  Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

Participation

It is anticipated that students will attend every class.  You cannot participate if you are not present.  I recognize that there are extenuating circumstances that might prevent you from attending, and will not become too excited if you miss up to two classes.  If you miss more than two classes without a very valid reason (e.g., illness, blizzard) you will lose five participation marks out of the total 15 each time you miss a class.  Presence in a given class means joining the class during its first 30 minutes (between 0900-0930) and staying in class until it ends at 1150.  

Course Schedule

Section I: The Intellectual Foundations of TQM

Week (1-2)      

Week (3-4)

Week (5)

Week (6-7) Beyond TQM

Section II: Quality Improvement

Week (7-9) Planning for Quality                                                                  

Week (10)

Week (11)

Week (12-13)

Course Readings:

A reading package is available at the Bookstore.
Items not included in the reading package can be downloaded from the internet.

Reading List

Paul S. Adler & Robert E. Cole. 1993. "Designed for Learning: A Tale of Two Auto Plants." Sloan Management Review, Vol. 34, 3, 85-94.

Selwyn W. Becker. 1993. "TQM Does Work: Ten Reasons Why Misguided Attempts Fail." Management Review, May, 30-33.

Selwyn W. Becker, William A.J. Golomski & Daniel C. Lory. 1994. TQM and Organization of the Firm: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, Quality Management Journal, Vol. 1, 2, 18-24.

Robert Cole. 1998. "Learning from the Quality Movement: What did and what didn't Happen and Why?" California Management Review, Vol. 41, 43-73. (ABI)

W. Edwards Deming. 1986. Out of the Crisis. Boston: MIT.

David A. Garvin. 1993. "Building a Learning Organization." Harvard Business Review, July-August, 78-91.

R. Ray Gehani. 1993. "Quality Value-Chain: A Meta-Synthesis of Frontiers of Quality Movement." Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 7, 2, 29-42.

Michael Hammer & James Champy. 1993. Reengineering the Corporation. Summary by Steve Gildersleeve.

Oren Harari. 1993. "Ten Reasons Why TQM Doesn't Work." Management Review, January, 33-38.

Oren Harari. 1993. "The Eleventh Reason Why TQM Doesn't Work." Management Review, May, 31-36.

Frederick Herzberg. 1987. "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees." Harvard Business Review, September-October.

Kaoru Ishikawa. 1985. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Joseph M. Juran. 1988. Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: Free Press.

Joseph M. Juran. 1986. "The Quality Trilogy." Quality Progress, August, 19-24.

R. Krishnan, A.B. Shani, R.M. Grant & R. Baer. 1993. "In Search of Quality Improvement: Problems of Design and Implementation." Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 7, 4, pp. 7-20.

Edward E. Lawler, III. 1988. "Choosing an Involvement Strategy." Academy of Management Executive, 197-204.

Harold J. Leavitt. 1962. "Unhuman Organizations." Harvard Business Review, July-August, 90-98.

Elton Mayo. 1945. The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization. Boston: Harvard.

David A. Nadler, and Michael L. Tushman. 1983. "A General Diagnostic Model for Organizational Behavior: Applying a Congruence Perspective." In J. Richard Hackman, Edward E. Lawler III, and Lyman W. Porter (eds.) Perspectives on Behavior in Organizations. Toronto: McGraw-Hill: 112-124.

Warren H. Schmidt, and Jerome P. Finnigan. 1992. The Race without a Finish Line. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Peter Senge. 1990. The Fifth Discipline. Summary by Dorothy Marcic.

Robert Simons. 1995. "Control in the Age of Empowerment." Harvard Business Review, March-April, 80-88.

Sim B. Sitkin et al. 1994. "Distinguishing Control from Learning in TQM: A Contingency Perspective." Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19, 3, 537-564. (ABI)

Frederick W. Taylor. 1911. Principles of Scientific Management. Easton, PA: Hive.

Nicole A. Wishart, Joyce J. Elam & Daniel Robey. 1996. "Redrawing the Portrait of a Learning Organization: Inside Knight-Ridder, Inc." Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 10, 1, 7-20.

Some more useful information

Interesting discussions of TQM can be found in:  

Academy of Management Review,1994, Vol. 19, 3; Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 1995, Vol. 12, 2.

An interesting review article is:

J. Richard Hackman & Ruth Wageman. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and Practical Issues." Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 40: 309-342.

TQM's effects on firm competitiveness:

Thomas C. Powell. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A Review and Empirical Study." Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 16: 15-37.

A paradigmatic explanation for the late adoption of TQM in America:

The term research project is a field study involving interviews. You may choose an organization that is practicing quality improvement (QI); tried to implement a QI effort and failed; or is planning to launch a QI campaign.  You may also select an organization that does not practice any QI initiative.  In this case you use the term paper to provide the organization with a plan/recommendations for QI.

Note, there is no rule on how many people you have to interview.  Therefore, interview enough people until you get a reliable and broad picture of the problem at hand.

Note, the length of a typical term paper is 17 pages (not including appendices).

The paper's main parts

1. Start with an Introduction.  Here you should clearly state your research question/argument or the problem you are dealing with. This research statement will give your paper a focus and direction, and help you maintain internal consistency. 

2. Next, describe the research setting (the company) and the QI initiative. 

3. Then, analyze the situation. This is probably the most important part of the paper.  AN ANALYSIS IS NOT A SURVEY OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT  PRACTICES. The analysis is where you use the interview data to answer the research question or support/reject your argument. The analysis is guided by the research focus you have established in the introduction. 

4. A section outlining your findings, conclusions and recommendations should end the paper.

You can easily improve your paper by:

1. Using the literature on quality improvement to support your arguments 
2. Providing a reference list (make sure that all the items you use in the paper are listed, and that all the items appearing on the list are used in the paper)
3. Using page numbers
4. Using headlines 
5. If appendices are provided, integrating them with the discussion. 

Very important

Your project requires interviews. Therefore, you must read the research ethics guideline, fill out and signed the student agreement before you can begin interviewing subjects, and submit a signed copy of the consent letter.