Evolution in system of quality management.

Sisek, Boris ; Knego, Nikola ; Kolakovic, Marko 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Development stages of quality management reflect changes in the environment of modern corporations, changes in the quality management practice (development and integration of standards, creation of integrated management system) and development of the theoretical framework for quality analysis. What has the most influence on changing stages? These are certainly changes in the environment of modern business. Changes in the external environment of the company can be found in several areas: technological change; the unpredictable business cycles and changes in legislation and regulations; changes in the forms of competitive games; the new type of relationships with customers; globalization processes, Internet and the increasing role of intellectual capital.

The issue of responsible social behavior and achieving business aims imposed theoretical debates on the nature of the relationship between ethical principles and financial results. Under the new circumstances, social responsibility and awareness of the corporations' aims towards more interested persons than only shareholders arose as problems. The mentioned changes have an impact on the companies' aims, the change in corporate governance, human resource management and organizational culture. The main purpose of this paper is to explain the causes of the evolution of quality system, the reasons for the creation of the new quality model, its characteristics and conditions necessary for its implementation.

2. DEVELOPMENT STAGES IN QUALITY MANAGEMENT

It is necessary to distinguish narrower and broader understanding of quality. Narrower conception treats quality as a feature of the product or service. It is related to the usefulness or utility value of products or services, or more precisely, to the client-manufacturer relationship and customer satisfaction. In a broader sense we talk about the quality system or total quality management. Quality is not only a characteristic of products or services, but also characteristic of the company. Specifically, the quality system includes relations between client and company, as well as relations between all business processes and their actors which are essential for creating a quality product or service. Differences between narrower and broader quality approaches can be best illustrated by the analysis of the quality development stages (Lazibat, 2009):

1. Characteristic of the first phase is that the supply is less than the demand. Because of the shortage of goods in the postwar period (until 1963) customer had to take everything that was offered. Capacity, design and quality were defined only by the manufacturers, without the inclusion of the end user, and management was primarily focused on ensuring the quantity of the products;

2. Increase in quantity of the products supplied resulted in supply and demand equilibrium. This is why in the second phase opens the possibility for the manufacturer to focus more attention on designing the product, or to meet the first simple requirements in terms of quality;

3. The third phase is characterized by increased product supply. This is why customer comes to a better position. The customer does not only begin to exactly define the quality of the product (request it and ensure statistical methods for testing series, etc.), but is interested in market position and economic strength of the suppliers' quality system, in order to prevent the creation of the defects. Quality must be preventively ensured by systematic monitoring of product creation. Standards for standardization of quality system (ISO 9000 ff: 1987) are introduced in order to facilitate certification and comparability of quality management system from independent place;

4. As the customer sets the requirements regarding the quality of products and services more frequently, more producers are in a situation to deliver the product of the same quality under competitive prices. Customer satisfaction is becoming more important measure for quality that starts to depend more on motivation and awareness of employees in the company (human capital) and business process management of the companies. Central task of the management is to define the structure of the company in terms of objectives and strategies of companies with divisions on the style of leadership and organizational model. This is the main characteristic of the fourth phase. Series of ISO 9000 introduced in 1994 have become the basis for certified quality management systems that together lead to the design of models for Total Quality Management, TQM. There are several models of TQM which are realized through various prizes and awards: Deming Award for quality (Japan), National Awards for Quality Malcolm Baldrige (USA), the European awards for the quality and International Standard by structure and form ISO 9000 ff: 2000 (Khoo & Tan, 2003), and

5. The fifth phase is characterized by stronger relations between producer and customer, the importance of environmental protection and quality of service. It is not enough only to meet customers' demand for quality of the product. The transcending of this requirement through joint planning of customers' and producers' quality requirements, as well as increased networking of different companies in the unique process of the product creation for the optimization of the entire system, is in the first plan. News is mass customization, because modern technology allows products specifications that can lead the company towards smaller groups of people. The fifth phase should become characteristic in this century, and it is predicted to come to the integration of quality management system, system of environmental protection and quality safety into an integrated management system. The implementation of the business excellence idea is predicted to be the final step in changing the system of production and providing services. The integration of quality standards and quality management systems has occurred recently.

3. STAKEHOLDERS' QUALITY MODEL

From the previous quality development phase analysis it is obvious that the concept of quality changes, and we can distinguish three dimensions of quality (Foster, D. & Jonker, J., 2003):

1. In the beginning the quality focuses on products and services, i.e. it is a tool for measurement, control or inspection. The aim is satisfaction of certain customers;

2. In the second level (period) the emphasis is on organizational quality--it refers to the proportions in which the company maximizes efficiency and effectiveness (reduction of waste goods, coordination between the teams, good human relations, etc.). There is an emphasis on the analysis of Total Quality Management (TQM) and how to affect the nature of output. Here TQM is emphasized as a particular philosophy of management, which strives to the best use of available resources and opportunities through permanent improvements;

3. Business quality tells about the degree to which business serves the needs of the society. At this dimension the focus of observation and analysis moves outside the company's internal environment and suggests that because of the long-term development, company must recognize the importance of its relationship with wider social community. At the same time a reconceptualization of the company's nature towards stakeholders' theory occurs.

According to the creators of the stakeholder approach, the aim of the realization of this concept is to build a free, ethical and cohesive society based on wide membership, social inclusion and market economy. The implementation of this concept try to examine which novelties the stakeholder approach to the economy and society brings to the existing theories which centre on the idea of belonging and social inclusion.

The stakeholder view of the corporation represents a critical distance from the traditional understanding of the corporation. The stakeholder concept stresses the role and importance of all stakeholders--providers of critical resources in the process of value creation, who have made firm specific instruments that are at risk in the same way equity capital is.

Stakeholders' quality approach is the concept in which the corporation is treated as a social institution. The consequence of such views is that the management of the company must take account of the demands (and interests) of other individuals and groups who are not the owners. Stakeholders' concept of corporate governance has to explain how a company should determine the priorities in relations with the stakeholders and how to manage these relations (Sisek, 2008).

Stakeholders' model largely focuses on all operations of the company, which means on issues (problems) that are important for the stakeholders. The aim of all these changes is the achievement of business excellence. What is business excellence? The term applies to (Mele, C. & Colurcio, M., 2006) the superiority of a particular company in the context of the market in which it operates. In other words the achievement of a position of excellence is linked to the enterprise capacities to obtain superior results over competitors on behalf of customers, of the enterprise itself and of other stakeholders. The following list summarize the key aspects for business excellence on which firms focus their attention:

* focus on customer and on market;

* focus on core competencies:

* develop knowledge and capabilities;

* use of conventional and revolutionary tools and methodologies;

* continuous improvement;

* develop breakthrough systems and

* develop value innovations.

For the implementation of this model it is important to accept the entrepreneurial orientation and changes in the enterprise culture. There is a quest for sustainable competitive advantage, an elusive goal that can no longer be achieved based on conventional management practice (Morris at all, 2008.). The ultimate source of marketplace advantage is entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurships is defined as an opportunity--driven process of value creation, and when this process is applied to established organizations, our focus becomes corporate entrepreneurship.

4. CONCLUSION

The phase analysis in the quality development leads us to the emergence of the new model i.e. stakeholders' quality model. This model requires changes in the way of corporate governance. It should determine what legitimizes certain stakeholders as interest groups and what are the consequences on the aim of the company and the way of governance.

The problems of creating conditions for the new quality model arise. They must be ensured under the conditions of corporate entrepreneurship, because it is impossible to achieve business excellence without entrepreneurial orientation.

In order that a company succeeds in the new environment, employees must have characteristics that are essential for entrepreneurial orientation: innovativity, proactivity and risk taking. A similar problem occurs in creating the organizational culture. Culture of the company can be understood as the way in which the company performs and how it wants to perform its activities regardless of the short-term disturbances.

The way that balance between the individual values that make core of the culture is established is often of crucial importance. One of the problems is to establish equilibrium between individualism and collectivism which often have contradictory values and beliefs.

5. REFERENCES

Foster, D. & Jonker, J. (2003). Third generation quality management: the role of stakeholders in integrating business into society, Managerial Auditing Journal, 18(4), pp. 323-328. ISSN 0268-6902

Khoo,H.H. & Tan, K.C. (2003). Managing for quality in the USA and Japan: differences between the MBNQA, DP and JQA, The TQM Magazine, No.1, pp. 14-24., ISSN 0954-478X

Lazibat, T. (2009). Quality Management, ISBN-978-953-95902-1-3, Znanstvena knjiga, Zagreb, Croatia

Mele, C. & Colurcio, M. (2006). The evolving path of TQM: towards business excellence and stakeholder value, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 23(5), pp. 464-489, ISSN 0265-671X

Morris, M. H., Kuratko, D.F. & Covin, J.G. (2008.). Corporate entrepreneurship and inovation, 2nd ed. ; ISBN 978-0-324-25916-2, Thomson South Western, Mason, USA

Sisek, B. (2008). The Stakeholder Approach to the Economy and Society, in Tipuric, D. (ed) Corporate Governance, ISBN 978-953-6895-36-6, Sinergija, Zagreb, Croatia