Today's organizations face the challenge of measuring the right things and then using those measurements as a starting point to work with improved quality. The failure to generate a shared value base is pointed out as one main cause for the inability to effectively apply quality management and lean within organizations; thus, it appears central to measure these values.
By Peter Cronemyr, Ingela Bäckström, Åsa Rönnbäck
Purpose
Today's organizations face the challenge of measuring the right things and then using those measurements as a starting point to work with improved quality. The failure to generate a shared value base is pointed out as one main cause for the inability to effectively apply quality management and lean within organizations; thus, it appears central to measure these values. However, the measuring of values and behaviors seems to be missing within both concepts. Therefore, there is a need for a tool that measures not only quality values but also behaviors that support or obstruct a quality culture. The purpose of this paper is to describe how a measuring tool which measures quality culture can be designed and structured.
Design/methodology/approach
A project with the aim to measure and develop quality culture started in 2015 by three Swedish universities/institutes and seven organizations. During several workshops, quality values and supportive and obstructive behaviours were developed and described. This resulted in a survey where employees of the participating organizations ranked performance and importance of the described behaviours. The results were presented and discussed in a fourth workshop.
Findings
A framework of behaviors and a measurement tool for a quality culture are presented in this paper.
Originality/value
The framework of behaviors, supporting or obstructing a quality culture, is original and may be very useful to diagnose and develop a quality culture.