ROLE OF QUALITY CIRCLE IN ENHANCING ORGANISATIONAL COM- MITMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

ROLE OF QUALITY CIRCLE IN ENHANCING ORGANISATIONAL COM- MITMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS Dr. Bal Krishna Upadhyay Faculty of Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru Nagar, Bhopal Indian Institute of Forest Management, PB No. 357, Nehru Nagar, Bhopal ABSTRACT Quality circles have been hailed to be effective tool for linking employees to the process of decision making in their work premise and hence enhancing their motivation to work and perform. As one of the participative approach, Quality Circle programmes were one the major initiatives of various manufacturing units in last decade that has revealed great success for various organisations in terms of increasing organisational effectiveness and empowering employees, in both public and private organisations. Also, its effectiveness has been questioned by many researchers in the recent past. However, with the time and new innovative approaches that has come up in recent years, Quality Circle programmes has been reducing very fast. With many organizations using and discarding quality circles in the recent year the present study was conducted to evaluate the impact of quality circle in enhancing organisational commitment and effectiveness. Further, it aims to examine the relationship between the membership of QC and organisational commitment and effectiveness. A total of 80 employees (QC members= 40; Non-QC members=40), of a large manufacturing unit, participated in this study who responded on the measures of organisational commitment and organisational effectiveness. The results have depicted a positive impact of quality circle membership on both the measures of commitment and effectiveness. Furthermore, the correlation results depicted that membership of quality circle enhances the perceived organisational commitment and organisational effectiveness. Key Words: Quality Circle; Organisational Commitment; Organisational Effectiveness INTRODUCTION People are the greatest assets of any organisation. This is in the view that all other resources are converted into utilities but humans as such cannot be treated as a utility. This is why, management of human resources has always been considered to be tricky. Participative methods, at workplaces have been used as one of the ways to manage them improves the work environment as well as productivity and quality of the organisation. In this line quality circle is one of such employee participation methods used by various organisations to develop the skills, capacities, confidence, and creativity of people through cumulative process of education, training, work experience and participation. Quality circles (QCs), are small groups of volunteers from the same work area who meet regularly to identify, analyze, and solve quality and related problems in their area of responsibility (Munchus, 1983). There are usually eight to ten members who meet once a week during normal working hours. More so, members of QCs usually receive some form of training in problemsolving techniques. Historically, QCs first came into trend in the U.S. companies around the beginning of the 1980s (Griffin, 1988). The strengths of the Japanese approach to management were being formally acknowledged, and American managers were looking for ways to compete more effectively. One source of tactics was the Japanese themselves. In this line, Ouchi s work (1981a, 1981b) on Japanese management practices, for example, was very well received in the United States by managers looking for ways to enhance organizational effectiveness (Griffin, 1988) along with the use of QCs. Later, the same trend was adopted by several organisations in Indian and in different parts of the world. By and by, employee participation has been seen as an avenue for achieving a variety of outcomes and QCs, in this regard, has been linked to great success for various organisations around the globe (e.g., Barrick & Alexander, 1987). It is worth mentioning that the success of the quality circles Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 77

depends solely on the attitude of the top management and plays an important role to ensure the success of implementation of quality circles recommendations in the organization. This means that a Quality Circle needs full support of the top management and involvement and commitment of the QC members to be effective. Besides, Park (1991) has demonstrated that QC programs are effective management interventions in increasing organisational effectiveness and empowering employees, in both public and private organisations. Organisational effectiveness represents a desirable attribute in organization and is conceived as the degree to which organization realizes its goals. It is an ability of an organization to mobilize its centers of power for action-producing and adaptation. Thus, organisational effectiveness is the outcome of all collective initiatives made by the employee and employer towards attaining the set mandate of the organisation. Similarly, Richard and associates (2009) in their study notes that organizational effectiveness captures organizational performance plus the excess of internal performance outcomes normally associated with more efficient or effective operations and other external measures that relate to considerations that are broader than those simply associated with economic valuation. As QCs influences organisational effectiveness they also affect the organisational commitment of employee behaviour (Chinen & Enomoto, 2004). This is, in part, due to the vast number of works that have found some specific relationships between organizational commitment and attitudes and behaviors in the workplace (Porter et al., 1974, 1976; Koch and Steers, 1978; Angle and Perry, 1981). Furthermore, Batemen and Strasser (1984) state that the reasons for studying organizational commitment are related to (a) employee behaviors and performance effectiveness, (b) attitudinal, affective, and cognitive constructs such as job satisfaction, (c) characteristics of the employee s job and role, such as responsibility and (d) personal characteristics of the employee such as age, job tenure. In this line, definition of organisational commitment states that it is multidimensional in nature, involving an employee s loyalty to the organization, willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, degree of goal and value congruency with the organization, and desire to maintain membership (Bateman and Strasser, 1984). By and large, organizational commitment has been studied in the public, private, and non-profit sector, and more recently internationally. Early researches have focused on defining the concept and current research continues to examine organizational commitment through two popular approaches, commitment-related attitudes and commitmentrelated behaviors. A variety of antecedents and outcomes have been identified in the past thirty years (e.g., Angle and Perry, 1981; Mowday et al, 1979; Hall, 1977), in this regard. Some parallels can be drawn between the elements of organizational commitment according to the organizational behaviour school (Porter et al., 1974) and the motivational taxonomies of March and Simon (1958) and Katz (1964). A committed member s definite desire to maintain QC membership would have a clear relationship to the motivation to participate in all affairs related to respective QC. Willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization and the belief in and acceptance of the organization s goals, in combination, have implications for the member s motivation to produce for the organization and reveal high degree of personal and group effectiveness. By and by, studies have highlighted that commitment has a great impact on the successful performance of an organisation. This is because a highly committed employee will identify with the goals and values of the organizations have a stronger desire to belong to the organization, show involvement, and is willing to display greater organizational citizenship behaviour. Since QCs are team effort, it is manifested that they tend to enhance the commitment level of the members. And if human resources are said to be an organization s greatest assets, then committed human resources should be regarded as an organisation s competitive advantage. Thus, a successful implementation of QCs practices will enhance the organisational performance, as a whole. But effectiveness of QCs has been a big question right from the historical practices of implementing the QC as a technique in various organisations. To date, there has been very little evaluative research on quality circles. In fact, some studies fail to provide evidence that they are effective. Cox and Norris (1983) reported that members of quality circles were actually less productive and more frequently absent than were employees from the same organization who were not members. In addition, Cox and Norris did not report Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 78

any statistical differences between the work performance, absenteeism, and tardiness of members of quality circles. Consequently, it is not too surprising that quality circles have been variously praised or criticized for their impact on an organization s effectiveness (Barrick & Alexander, 1987). However, researchers have claimed that, among the broad list of organisational and individual outcomes, productivity (Benscoter, 1983; Srinivason, 1983; Wolfe, 1985), job satisfaction (Berg, 1999; Rafaeli, 1985; Shores, 1985; Wolfe, 1985;), absenteeism (Krigsman, 1984; Mohrman & Novelli, 1985), grievance rates (Hunt, 1981; Tortorich et al., 1981), organizational commitment (Griffin & Wayne, 1984; Platten, 1984), and morale (Seybolt & Johnson, 1985; Wolfe, 1985) seems to be affected by the QC process. Even though most of the studies, in general, fail to specify a theoretical model, it is understood that these outcomes are either directly or indirectly affected by the quality circle intervention. Barrick & Alexander (1987) have mentioned, in this regard, that the problem-solving procedure inherent in the quality circle technique is expected to modify the work-flow process, thereby directly influencing both productive efficiency and quality. Besides, cognitive and motivational benefits may accrue from enhanced hierarchical and lateral communication, increased feedback, and goal-setting, as well as the group process itself. With so many organizations using and discarding quality circles, one would assume that they are quite effective. While anecdotal and impressionistic claims propagate which substantiate to this effectiveness, there is a dearth of studies in regard to the role of QC in organisational effectiveness and commitment. The present study intends to evaluate the impact of quality circle in enhancing organisational commitment and effectiveness. Further, it aims to examine the relationship between the membership of QC and organisational commitment and effectiveness. Thus, it was hypothesized that there will a positive relationship between organisational commitment and effectiveness and also that membership of QC will enhance the organisational commitment and effectiveness, as a whole. METHOD Present study intended to explore the impact of Quality Circles on Organizational Commitment so as to help tracing out the differences in the level of job satisfaction and absenteeism between the workers who work in the Quality Circle units and those who work in the non Quality Circle Units. The study also intends to reveal the benefits of the quality Circle on organizational Effectiveness. For this, the following methods have been adopted. Sample In order to undertake this study, 80 employees, of a large manufacturing unit located in central India, were selected to participate in the present study, out of which 40 were members of the 17 quality Circles that are functioning in the organisation. The members who participated in the study were mainly the monitors and facilitator of the Quality circles. Rests of the 40 participants were non-members form the same organisation. The selection of QCs was based on the year of establishment, i.e. only those QCs were selected to participate in the study which was established before 2005. Thus, the membership of QC was considered as independent variable for the current study. Table 1 shows the details of all selected QCs for the study. Table I : Details of QCs taken for the study Tools and Techniques In order to undertake the study, a questionnaire was developed, which consisted of demographic profile and three other sections dedicated to the measures of organisational commitment, organisational effectiveness and a section asking suggestions for increasing the performance of QCs. The demographic profile aimed at collecting information about the respondent s age, sex, designation, year of joining, department, unit, position in the QC, and the year of the establishment of their respective QCs, in case the respondent is a member of the quality circle. The second section consisted items pertaining to organisational commitment. This scale, developed by Dhar, Mishra and Shrivastava (2000), consisted a total of 8 items to be scored on 5 point rating scales. The items were divided into two factors, where factor I, measured one s concern for the organization and Factor II, measures one s identification with the organization. Third section was adapted from the work done by Jeanine Lee of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2007) to examine the perceived organizational effectiveness. This adapted version of measure comprised of 16 items, which was scored on a yes or no scale. Fourth section highlighted the performance of the QCs with a single open-ended item intending Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 79

to get suggestions with regard to enhancing the performance of the QCs in the organisation. This item was to be responded only by the members of QC only. Procedure The researcher first took permission from the concerned authorities, for undertaking such a study. After getting the permission, the respondents were contacted and all prospective respondents who agreed to participate in the study were handed over the questionnaire after a briefing of the objectives of the study. The data was collected individually. The respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their responses. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Data were analysed using SPSS. Mean, standard deviation and t-test were applied to reach the results which have been presented in tabular form. It can be observed from Table 2, that there is a significant difference between the members of QC and non members of QC on the measure of concern for the organization (t = 2.387, P < 0.05). The table further reveals that members of QC had scored higher (M=26.28) than the non-members (M = 25.40). However, there was no significant difference on the measure of Identification with Organization between QC and non QC members. Furthermore, a significant effect of QC membership was observed on the measure of Organizational Effectiveness (t =4.353: P <.01). More so the mean result reveals that QC membership (M= 31.10) had some role to play in inducing better organisation effectiveness. Non membership to QC (M= 30.00) do seem to the effect that it is disadvantageous, in terms of instilling the effectiveness outcome. Table 2 The correlation result presented in table three reveal that membership of QC facilitates the perceptions of organizational commitment and organisation effectiveness. It may be observed the table that the negative relationship of QC membership with the two dimension of organizational commitment, namely, concern for organization (r= -.26) and identification with organization (r=-.27). Similarly, membership was negatively and significantly related with organizational effectiveness (r = -.44) indicating that the membership of QCs facilitates organizational effectiveness if the QC programme is properly implemented. Table 3: Suggestions received from the facilitators and monitors for the betterment of the QCs shows very clearly that regularity in meetings and punctuality was one of the measure concerns for the members (table 4). It was suggested that monitoring of performance (81%) and developing a proper documentation system with regards to problems and solutions presented by the Circles in total was perceived to be important (72%) for enhancing the performance of the QCs. The monitors of QC s also suggested that the members should not get biased while selecting a problem and that the non-member from the same department should also be included while discussing the problems so as to receive their line of thinking and develop their involvement from outside. The members were of view that all departments should cooperate to solve the problem. For better performance of QC it was also suggested to give adequate training to the facilitators and monitors. More so, involvement of young and nonmember occasionally in the QC meeting was suggested so that they are ready to be included in the team as and when required. In addition, it was also revealed that all the members have adequate opportunity to participate in the Quality Circle meetings and give their views and suggestions. Table 4: The study shows that QC members were more committed and were more concerned for the Organization s performance in contrast to the nonmembers. This may be because of the fact that QC promotes a participative culture and hence, giving the grass root level workers an opportunity to be own the solutions and take responsibility to perform in the line of company s overall objective. Being QC member also seems to promote them as special employee, thus, increasing the commitment of the members. Organizational effectiveness results revealed a very significant effect of membership to respective QCs. This seems to indicate that the quality circle membership may facilitate organizational effectiveness and may play a positive role with regard to enhancing performance of the organisation in achieving its set goals. The results, further, indicate that employees, who have a great concern for the organization, will be more committed towards the organization and will have greater identification with the organization. In addition, positive identification with organisation also seems to facilitate organizational effectiveness. QC members were Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 80

found to be enjoying a high quality of work life in all aspects when compared to the non-members. The results are of the present study is consistent with Udpa (1988). Conclusion The study has indicated that QC membership certainly have some effects on employee s level of organizational commitment as well as the productivity and efficiency of the company. It further depicts that QCs seems to have a positive effect on employees as individuals as well as on the organization, as a whole. By and large, QCs are known to facilitate independent thinking and encourage members to come out with innovative ideas so as to tackle day to day work life problems. Decision making opportunity is also provided to the members of QCs. It seems that opportunity to make decisions provided to the QC members has proved to be a great motivator for them and hence their performance on work was also enhanced. This further led to greater commitment towards their organization. Thus, the study indicates that a positive impact of quality circle membership on organisational commitment and effectiveness, as a whole. The hypothesis, that there will a positive relationship between organisational commitment and effectiveness is valid. Similarly, other hypothesis stating that membership of QC will enhance the organisational commitment and effectiveness was also found to be valid. However, the findings of the present study should be interpreted in the light of the limitation of the sample size. Yet, the results open a premise for future studies in this area of enquiry, which may include large samples taken from different organisations with varied manufacturing/business interest. Nevertheless, the result seems to have contributed towards establishing the role of QCs in enhancing productivity, profit and overall effectiveness of the organisation. The present state of QCs appears to be fading away with newer innovation in team work, however, the results clearly speak that QCs are still effective and may be used along with other management techniques to get employee involvement. References Angle, H. & Perry, J. (1981). An empirical assessment of organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, 1-14. Barrick, M.R. & Alexander, R.A. (1987). A Review of Quality Circle Efficacy and the Existence of Positive-Findings Bias. Personnel Psychology, 40, pp. 579-592. Bateman, T. & Strasser, S. (1984). A longitudinal analysis of the antecedents of organizational commitment. Academy of Management Journal, 21, pp. 95-112. Benscoter, G.M. Jr. (1983). A study of the effects of training in the use of selected quality circle data collection and analysis tools upon leader/group interaction patterns and a group s ability to extract factual information from a data set. Dissertation Abstracts International, 44, 368A. Berg, P. (1999). The Effects of High Performance Work Practices on Job Satisfaction in the United States Steel Industry. Industrial Relations, 54, No.1 pp. 111-135. Chinen, K & Enomoto, C. E. (2004). The Impact of Quality Control Circles and Education on Organizational Commitment in Northern Mexico Assembly Plants. International Journal of Management, 21, pp. 51-57. Cox, J. F., & Norris, D. R. (1983). Measuring quality circle effectiveness. Proceedings of the American Production and Inventory Control Society, 178-181. Dhar, U., Mishra, P. & Shrivastava, D.K. (2002). Organizational Commitment Scale. Lucknow: Vedant Publications. Griffin RW, Wayne SJ. (1984). A field study of effective and less-effective quality circles. Proceedings of the Academy of Management, 44, 217-221. Griffin, R.W. (1988). Consequences of quality circles in an industrial setting: A longitudinal assessment. Academy of Management Journal, 31(2), 338-358. Hall, D.T. (1977). Conflict and congruence among multiple career commitments as the career unfolds. Paper presented at annual meeting of Academy of Management, Orlando, Florida. Hunt B. (1981). Measuring results in a quality circles pilot test. The Quality Circles Journal, 5(3), 26-29. Katz, D. (1964). The motivational basis of organizational behavior. Behavioral Science, 9, 131-146. Koch, J. L., & Steers, R.M. (1978). Job attachment, satisfaction, and turnover among public sector employees. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 12, 1 19-128. Krigsman N. (1984). Quality control circles and feedback: Effects on productivity and absenteeism. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hofstra University. Lee, J. (2007). Profiles in Organizational Effectiveness for Nonprofits. Downloaded from http:// centerpointforleaders.org/effectiveness.html. March, J. G., & Simon, H.A. (1958 ). Organizations. New York. Wiley. Mohrman SA, & Novelli L Jr. (1985). Beyond testimonials: Learning from a quality circles Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 81

programme. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 6, 93-110. Mowday, R. T., Steers, R.M. & Porter L.W. (1979). The measurement of organlzational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14, pp. 224-247. Munchus, G. III. (1983). Employer-employee based quality circles in Japan: Human resource policy implications for American firms. Academy of Management Review, 8, 255-261. Ouchi, W. (1981a). Organizational paradigms: A commentary on Japanese management and Theory Z organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 9(4), 36-43. Ouchi, W. (1981b). Theory Z. Reading, Mass.: Addison- Wesley. Park, S. (1991). Estimating success rates of quality circle programs: public and private experiences, Public Administration Quarterly, 15 (1), pp. 133-146. Platten, P.E. (1984). The investigation of organizational commitment as a source of motivation in quality control circles. Dissertation Abstracts Intemational, 45, 708B. Porter, L.W., Crampon, W.J. & Smith, F.J. (1976). Organizational commitment and managerial turnover: A longltudinal study. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, pp 87-98. Porter, L.W., Steers, R.M., Mowday, R.T., & Boulian, P.V. (1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric Table I : Details of QCs taken for the study S.No. Year of Establishment No. of QCs 1 1996 3 2 1997 6 3 1999 4 4 2002 3 5 2003 1 Total 17 technicians. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, pp 603-609. Rafaeli, A. (1985). Quality circles and employee attitudes, Personnel Psychology, 38, 603-615. Richard, P.J., Devinney, T.M., Yip, G.S. & Johnson, G. (2009). Measuring Organizational Performance: Towards Methodological Best Practice. Journal of Management. 35 (3), pp. 718-804. Seybolt, J.W. & Johnson, R.L. (1985). The effectiveness of quality circles at Tenneco: Two years later. Transactions of the Seventh Annual IAQC Conference, 7, 148-152. Shores, D.L. (1985). An exploratory study into the relationship between quality circles and job satisfaction. Dissertation Abstracts International, 45, 2014A. Srinivason, C. (1983). Influence of quality circles on productivity, group behavior, and interpersonal behavior: An exploratory micro-organizational development perspective. Dissertation Abstracts International, 43, 3055A. Tortorich, R., Thompson, P., Orfan, C., Layfieid, D., Dreyfus, C., & Kelly, M. (1981). Measuring organizational impact of quality circles. The Quality Circles Journal, 4(A), 24-34. Udpa, S.R. (1988). Quality Circles in India. New Delhi: Tata McGraw- Hill Publishing Co Limited. Wolfe PJ. (1985). Quality circle intervention: Structure, process, results. Dissertation Abstracts Intemational, 45, 2184A. Table 2: Mean, SD, and t value for Quality Circle Members and Non- Members on the measures of Organizational Commitment and Organizational Effectiveness. Measures QC Membership N Mean Std. Deviation Concern for organization QC Member 40 26.28 1.569 QC Non-Member 40 25.40 1.707 Identification with QC Member 40 6.78 1.928 Organization QC Non-Member 40 5.75 1.736 Organisational QC Member 40 31.10 1.215 Effectiveness QC Non-Member 40 30.00 1.038 Mean Difference t value (df=78).875 2.387* 1.025 2.499 1.100 4.353** *Significant at 0.05 levels **Significant at 0.01 levels Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 82

Table 3: Relationship of Organisational commitment and organisational effectiveness with the QC membership Identification with Concern for Organization organization Organisational Effectiveness QC Membership # -.261* -.272* -.442** Concern for organization 1.346**.331** Identification with Organization 1 -.024 * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level.; ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level. # Score for QC membership was low and non-membership was high. Table 4: Suggestions received from QC Members to make the QCs more effective S. No. Suggestions Percentage 1 Proper training for the facilitators and the monitors. 8.33% 2 Consideration of necessity, time involvement and resource availability while problem 11.11% selection. 3 No bias on views regarding selection and presentation of problems. 13.88% 4 Non members from same work area should be allowed to attend the QC meetings. 13.88% 5 QC meetings should be focused on solving the problems taken and should not drift from it 16.66% 6 Proper inter-departmental cooperation should be maintained with regard to requirement of 19.44% any emergency help. 7 More senior than younger and inexperienced members should be involved in the QCs to 22.22% get maximum benefits.. 8 QC members should acquaint the head with the decisions taken in the meetings 38.8% 9 Employees who are not part of the QC should be made aware of the workings of QC, so 41.66% as to prepare them as future members. 10 Proper Documentation of the problems taken up in the meetings and disciplined code of 72.2% conduct to be maintained regularly. 11 Frequent monitoring of Performance made mandatory 80.55% 12 Meetings need to be held on regular basis and punctuality of all the members should be perceived and practiced as important in the meetings. 100% Summer Internship Society Volume III Issue-1 April 2011 83