Development and validation of an instrument of measure adherence to Deming's philosophy of quality improvement

The study discusses the development of an instrument to measure organizational adherence to Deming's philosophy of quality management. Using the Unitarian approach (Landy, 1986), an effort was made to validate the instrument. This validation effort also allowed for statements to be made about the nature of the philosophy with respect to extant organizational behavior research. The study progressed from content validation through construct validation to criterion-related validation. Six subject-matter experts (SME's) assisted in the writing of a 135 questionnaire items. Sixty content validation panelists reviewed these items, associating them with Deming's points. Fifty items with high interrater reliability were retained for the final instrument. This conceptual factor analysis was used to arrive at a starting model for structural equations analysis. The 50-item questionnaire was responded to by 393 employees from 44 organizations. LISREL was employed to arrive at measurement and structural models. The results indicated great overlap between Deming's ideas and previous organizational culture research. The most interesting finding was that good interdepartmental communication was negatively related to an overall smooth implementation of statistical quality control (SQC). Other findings include a marginal relationship between a lowered scrap rate and market share. The results are discussed as indicating the amount of agreement between what Deming prescribes and previous organizational culture research. The instrument is seen as having components which might be useful to organizations as they assess themeselves on dimensions seen as important in the organizational culture literature as well as by Deming. Of the 11 factors retained from the measurement model and subsequently employed in the structural model, only three were shown to be important to an overall smooth statistical quality control implementation: a focus on purchasing quality raw materials, modern methods of training, and the aforementioned negative relationship with interdepartmental communication.