Examining top management commitment to TQM diffusion using institutional and upper echelon theories

Using critical systems thinking to compensate for lack of management commitment in the implementation of TQM- based organisational learning

There is an 80% failure rate for organisational development programmes like total quality management (TQM). Scholars and practitioners agree that success and failure of TQM and other organisational learning programmes depend on having strong management commitment. As this may not always be possible to obtain, one might ask whether good implementation methods based on systems thinking could comp...

Examining Trends of Technology Diffusion Theories in Information Systems

Since the publication of Roger’s fifth edition of Diffusion of Innovations in 2003, there is a need to investigate the recent Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) for Information Systems (IS) research for the purpose of finding trends. Much research has been conducted and needs to be synthesized to map a direction for future research. The methodology used in this study is meta-analysis of recent I...

Knowledge Management and TQM: An Integrated Approach to Management

Knowledge management (KM) is the name given to the set of systematic and disciplined actions that an organisation can take to obtain the greatest value from the knowledge available to it. Knowledge management has received increasing attention from 1990. For a few years, it was the next big thing after business process reengineering and total quality management. This paper describes and compares...

Commitment, Theories and Typologies

Good news when commitment comes from top management

A great part of our daily life is “governed” by software operated systems. Nevertheless, software engineering is still an “elite realty”, often considered an optional plus. Why do we not experience daily disasters using machines? The main reason is that process and controls are embedded in the programmers’ minds. Their skills and experience generally guarantee acceptable final quality-to-market...