Melbourne Business School - Theses
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ItemThe relationship between quality management strategies and organisational performance in manufacturing firms( 1997)Higher requirements for improved quality of products and services have led to three important changes in international business over the last decade. These changes include: • The growing recognition of the strategic importance of Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy and methods. • A major push by organisations worldwide to seek certification to the ISO 9000 quality standards. • The growing recognition and application of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), the Australian Quality Award (AQA), and the European Quality Award (EQA). Although there are many cases where the above quality strategies have been successfully applied, there is still considerable confusion, frustration and uncertainty surrounding the applied role and business value of TQM and ISO 9000 certification. For example, many managers believe that gaining certification to the ISO 9000 standards is synonymous with adopting the TQM philosophy or winning a quality award. Anecdotal evidence and the limited number of empirical studies in the literature suggest considerable variability in the performance of TQM, ranging from unprecedented successes to abandonment of TQM, and even bankruptcy. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to address the gaps and contradictions in the literature. This was achieved by investigating the relationship between TQM philosophy and ISO 9000 certification (individually and in combination) with organisational performance. An Integrated Continuous Improvement Framework (ICIF) was developed from the literature to show the theoretical relationship between TQM, ISO 9000 certification, and organisational performance. The TQM component of the framework was developed as a surrogate MBNQA (S-MBNQA) model. This model allowed comparison of the S-MBNQA scoring criteria with the 1995 MBNQA criteria. Hypotheses were developed based on relationships within the integrated framework. The relationships were tested using a large data base consisting of 962 responses from Australian manufacturing firms and 379 responses from New Zealand manufacturing firms. The tested hypotheses were further explained by utilising six case studies of Australian manufacturing organisations that had been implementing TQM and ISO 9000 certification as part of the Australian Best Practice Demonstration Program. The first major finding of the study was that the MBNQA criteria are a generally valid and reliable model for measuring and predicting the relationship between TQM practice and organisational performance. For example, specific dimensions of the TQM philosophy: leadership commitment, people management, and customer focus, were significantly related to organisational performance. These dimensions were also significant differentiators between high, medium, and low performing firms. The second major finding was that ISO 9000 certification was not significantly related to organisational performance. Both high and low performing firms seek ISO 9000 certification in roughly equal proportions, within strong and weak TQM environments, without any significant effect on performance outcomes. The study concluded that adopting TQM philosophy and gaining ISO 9000 certification are not synonymous. However, ISO 9000 certification and TQM can complement each other as part of an Integrated Quality Strategy. The limitations of the study and the implications of the research findings are reviewed, along with the directions for future research.
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ItemThe relationship between team communication and R&D project performance: a five factor model of team communication( 1999)While the importance of sound communication for achieving excellent research and development (R&D) performance is widely recognised, previous research has not identified which aspects of team communication are most important for effective project performance. The thesis examined dimensions of team communication, drawing upon a five factor team model of communication, in order to determine the key communication factors for effective R&D project team performance. The model comprised the following factors: supportive leadership; team boundary spanning; adaptive problem solving; team reflexivity and project clarity. Supportive leadership refers to the leader's role performance as a feedback provider, director, facilitator and boundary spanner. Team boundary spanning refers to the activity of the team in connecting with stakeholders or experts and other sources of information and support from within and outside the organization. Adaptive problem solving refers to open discussion, participative decision making and the absence of power conflict in the team. Team reflexivity refers to the activity of team members reflecting on the team's tasks and processes. Finally project clarity refers to quality of information flow in regards to the performance of project tasks. To test the model of team communication a longitudinal study design was used, studying teams at regular four-month intervals for one year. Data analyses were based on team member ratings of team communication and multiple stakeholders' ratings of project performance. Fifty-six teams were surveyed, comprising 56 project leaders and 238 team members, as well as 32 research managers and 27 project customers. The results provided broad support for the five factor team communication model, which explained a large proportion of the variance in project performance over time. However, different stakeholders' ratings of performance indicated that different communication factors are associated with effective project performance. Based upon team ratings, project clarity followed by supportive leadership, adaptive problem solving and team reflexivity were the most significant predictors of project performance. Based upon research managers' ratings, project clarity, followed by supportive leadership, were the strongest correlates of project performance. Adaptive problem solving was the strongest, most consistent correlate of customer ratings of project performance. Additional analyses were conducted to extend the model of team communication by examining the effects of project team design (i.e. task interdependence, single or multi-site location and proportion of time assigned to project work) and team composition (i.e. team tenure, membership change and team size) on the two most important communication factors identified in the first analysis (viz. adaptive problem solving and project clarity). For interdependent teams, the time assigned to project work was significantly correlated with project clarity. Team size and membership change were negatively correlated with adaptive problem solving. Long serving teams with stable membership displayed high ratings of adaptive problem solving and team performance, while long serving teams with changing membership displayed low ratings of adaptive problem solving and team performance. New teams displayed no effects of stable or changing membership on their ratings of team communication and project performance. The results are discussed in relation to theory, practical implications and directions for future research.
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ItemMoney: a personal and private currency( 1996)This thesis confronts the ‘taken-for-granted’ nature of money. It explores the word ‘money’ itself, contrasting the way it is used/defined in the economics discourse with the way it has been approached in the psychological discourse. The thesis crosses disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to come closer to the everyday, personal experience of money. It unwraps the childhood history of money, showing how adult money attitudes emerge from unconscious predispositions and childhood experience. It demonstrates the importance of ‘control’ as a variable and the lifelong balancing act which takes place between spending and saving. Today, the form of money is in the process of change. It has undergone significant changes before: the nineteenth century adoption of paper money upset the bullionists as much as plastic or virtual money can unsettle traditionalists at the end of the twentieth century. Attitudes to the underlying substance 'money' remain relevant, whatever physical form the currency takes. Thus, gold and silver coins, the treasure of childhood pirate stories, may retain mental currency long after their demise as physical currency. Indeed, the more money becomes abstracted from something tangible, the more it is necessary to understand the primal nature of the underpinning attitudes that are affected.
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ItemThe alignment of business and information strategies( 1990)The aim of this study was to explore the nature and extent of the alignment of business and information strategies, and organisational factors which might be related to that alignment. The study was undertaken in two parts: an extensive literature analysis to identify possible factors and models of alignment, followed by empirical case study based research examining factors which might be related to the alignment of business and information strategy in some large information intensive organizations. The conceptual frameworks for the study were drawn from the literatures of strategy development, organizational design, and theories and practices of information systems and services. The literature review and analysis for this study was purposely extensive in order to encompass a wide range of conceptual and research based literatures about the management of information systems and services which inform the study. the literature review revealed burgeoning interest in the area of business and information strategy alignment from different, though often narrow, paradigms. At the same time there was plenty of rigorous, empirically based and cumulative studies of direct relevance to the research question. Areas of potential importance to the alignment of business and information strategy, drawn from the conceptual and research based literature, were examined in a hypothesis-generating empirical case study analysis of four of Australia’s five largest firms in the financial services sector.
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ItemThe financial impact of top management groups in Australian banking coprorations( 1998)This thesis examines the link between the top management group and company financial performance in Australian banks, and identifies some of the most important demographic characteristics involved in the relationship. A number of scholars have studied the link between the top management group’s demographic characteristics and various organisational outcomes, such as financial performance, diversification strategy, competitive moves, strategic conformity and persistence and organisational innovation (Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1990; Hambrick and D’Aveni 1992, Hambrick, Cho and Chen, 1996; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992). This research is different from previous studies of top management group effectiveness because it combines several methodological features found separately in these studies. The present study uses an inclusive, self nominated, definition of the top management group and a systematic, conceptual approach for selecting the demographic characteristics used to describe the top group. It also collects longitudinal data directly from the field, and is one of few studies of top management effectiveness conducted on organisations outside the USA. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemMaking sense of change: the change agents' perspective( 1999)Searching for a better model of change management, this study became an examination of what is meant by 'change' and 'change management'. Different views about what represents 'successful' change and 'failed' change exist and an extensive organisational change literature provides a vast array of prescriptive but conflicting advice about how to be successful. Its various contributions present distinctive but partial views of organisational change, based on often implicit values and assumptions. As well, the literature contains two different conceptions of organisational change, each giving a different view of how manageable is organisational change and reflecting broader debates about order and conflict in society and the extent to which people can control their environment. No generally accepted theory of change exists. This study analyses organisational change from the perspective of change agents. Currently their exposure in the literature is limited. This study identifies the range of ways in which change agents, faced by varying prescriptive advice and considerable pressure to perform and act, make sense of organisational change and determine their strategies for change-making. It combines theory and practice. Twenty senior change agents recount 35 stories of change. Through two phenomenographic studies the different ways in which they construct their roles and the kinds of strategies they use are described. By relating role to strategies, three basic approaches to change-making are established. When contrasted with change management and leadership models in the literature, similarities are revealed but none capture exactly the approaches adopted by these change agents. By supplementing the primary phenomenographic research approach with sense-making and personal style constructs, this study explores how these approaches are developed. An amalgam of family, educational, workplace and social experiences and influenced by the prevailing conventional wisdom about what organisations and leaders should be doing, sense-making structures and individual change styles evolve to simplify and codify experiences and provide ways in which individual change agents can meet their personal drives and manage their anxieties. The resultant models of change shape the way change agents construct roles for themselves and select strategies. Because these models are integrally linked to self-image and identity, they find it difficult to adopt different approaches as prescribed by many change management models, instead modifying them incrementally. The study establishes that both researchers and change agents alike engage in sense-making but because they do so from varying perspectives, they develop distinctive models of change to explain their experience of organisational change. Shared cultural traditions lead to many commonalities, including an attraction to simplified models that embody the predominant themes of Western thinking - that change is controllable, it needs to be tackled in a sequential way and over a defined period of time - and to search for the better way.
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ItemThe role of quality, value and structural factors on exit, voice, loyalty and neglect in the relationship between law firms and corporate clients( 1995)The purpose of the research was to enhance understanding of business-to-business relationships. The subject of the study was the relationship between professional service providers, specifically legal firms, and their corporate clients. The client-firm relationship was conceptualised and analysed in terms of a model consisting of two components, referred to as the transactional and the relational components. The two components of the model were linked by perceived value, being the dependent variable for the transactional component and an independent variable for the relational component. No previous work has empirically investigated the linking role of value between quality and price, on the one hand, and clients' behavioural intentions, on the other. To address this gap in the literature an holistic perspective including both the transactional and relational aspects of the client-firm relationship was necessary. A multidisciplinary approach drawing on and integrating previous research in the fields of services marketing, relationship marketing, economics and organisational behaviour was used to achieve this objective. Arguments on the transactional component were presented to understand how corporate clients defined and evaluated the quality of the professional service 'product' and to identify the role of perceived quality and price (monetary and non-monetary) in determining the value provided by law firms. For the relational component, arguments were presented to examine the influence of perceived value and the structural factors of available alternatives, switching costs and investment in predicting clients' behavioural intentions. Clients' behavioural intentions were defined as loyalty, voice, neglect and exit. The research was conducted from the perspective of the client. The measures of the constructs of quality, price, value, structural factors and behavioural intentions were derived partly from prior research and partly from the qualitative field work. Multiple regression and logistic regression were used to test the significance of the hypotheses. The results for the transactional component of the model showed that three dimensions, namely competence, people attributes and service delivery, determined perceived quality. Image played no role in this evaluation. Furthermore, the three dimensions influenced one another in the manner in which quality was perceived. Quality was found to be more important than monetary price in predicting perceived value. Non-monetary price had the least influence. A new construct termed 'cost consciousness' was identified. Cost consciousness reflected the law firm's sensitivity to the costs incurred by the client. This factor was as important as monetary price in determining clients' perceptions of value. The study found perceived value contributed more to clients' behavioural intentions than did the structural factors of alternatives, switching costs and investment. Loyalty was the only one of the four behavioural intentions that was influenced by value and all of the structural factors. As predicted, value appeared to play a linking role between quality and price in determining behavioural intentions. These intentions ultimately determine the direction and longevity of relationships between corporate clients and their legal providers.
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ItemBest practice, employee performance and manufacturing performance( 1996)This research is concerned with the relationships between various technological, organisational and human resource investments, commonly termed Best Practices, and employee performance and manufacturing performance. Best Practices considered include: Total Quality Management (TOM), Just In Time (JIT), Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT), Strategic Planning, Leadership, Teams, Benchmarking and Training. The research uses two major pieces of field work. First, it analyses the practices and performance of 1024 Australian and New Zealand Manufacturing firms with a view to identifying "what works". This element of the research project tests a range of propositions concerned with the associations between Best Practices and measures of employee and manufacturing performance. Second, a detailed suite of case studies describing the Best Practice experiences of twelve Australian Manufacturers are analysed to assess "how it works". In particular, this area of research seeks to gain insights into how Best Practices relate to improvements in performance. Key findings include: • a moderated to strong association between employee performance and manufacturing performance, • TQM, JIT and leadership are key differentiators of employee performance and manufacturing performance, • AMT is positively associated with manufacturing performance but only in a strong TQM environment, • the strength of the associations between TQM, JIT and manufacturing performance increases with strength of AMT environment, • TQM explains approximately twice the variance in performance in weak manufacturing performance environments compared to strong manufacturing performance environments. The implications of these findings for existing conceptual theories, current research methodologies, theory development and practitioners are discussed in considerable detail. Although the research concludes that firms investing in Best Practices generally outperform those which do not, it also provides a number of salient notes of caution. In particular, it was found that firms need to introduce these investments within a strategic context that provides a demonstrable link to competitive and performance requirements otherwise, investments risk becoming “flavours of the month” rather than building blocks that contribute to the development of key organisational capabilities. This approach also helps to ensure that firms introduce interventions using a structured planning process, thereby avoiding resource crises and the confusion that can be created by an excessive number of fragmented interventions.
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ItemThe politics of influence: the work of the Country Women's Association of Victoria incorporated in the public sphere( 1997)This research is focussed on the organisational, structural and leadership dimensions of the Country Women's Association of Victoria. The thesis seeks to examine the nature of the CWA's influence as one of Australia's most successful women's organisations, and to assess its prospects for the future. The CWA is Australia's largest women's organisations and it has extensive international links and a long history of effective lobbying on behalf of rural women and their families. The Association has been an active participant in the Australian political process, influencing public policy and the political agenda, and encouraging civic participation by women. It has provided leadership roles and effective political strategies for women, particularly isolated rural women.