Research On The Mechanism Of Quality Management Practices For Updating Of Organizational Operating Routines

The concept of sustaining quality innovation tends to override the traditional concept of sustaining quality improvement with the speedy development of science and technology and the progression of economic globalization. Concerning how to use traditional quality improvement tools to simplify and reasonably transform the process of enterprise periodic change, a new opportunity reveals itself to introduce quality management practice at present. Additionally, balancing efficiency and flexibility becomes a key index to measure the quality competitiveness of the enterprise while the capability of rapid and efficient updating of organizational routines is deemed to be decisive for organization to acquire quality competitive edge in response to complex dynamic environment. Therefore, how to carry out quality management practice to promote rapid, sustaining and efficient updating of organizational routines within the enterprise has been a new challenge in quality management research under the contemporary background of hypercompetition.This paper centers around the key issue-how quality management practice affects the updating of organizational operating routines. With introduction of theory of complex adaptive system, various updatings of organizational routines triggered by the meta-routines driving mechanism, administrator intervention mechanism, and routines executor acting mechanism prevailing in previous routines updating research are deemed to be self-organization actions of complex adaptive system in response to change to inside and outside environment of organization. On this basis, the theoretical framework of "quality management practice-organizational operating routines updating-quality outcomes" is further established. Several research approaches are used in this paper, such as literature review, theoretical derivation, case analysis, empirical analysis, etc., to discuss the following three sub-problems gradually and progressively:(1) how to differentiate the conceptual difference between meta-routines and organizational dynamic capability (research 1)? (2) What is the mechanism of action of quality management practice for updating of organizational operating routines (research 2 and 3)? (3) What’s the role of organizational operating routines updating in the contingency relationship between quality management practice and organizational quality outcomes (research 4)?Research 1 introduces the complex adaptive system theory to redefine the organizational routines-immune response theory from the perspective of complex adaptive system on the basis of the existing performative view of routines, organization immunity theory and organizational routines-immune response theory, and thus redescribe the process of organizational response to change in inside and outside environment as an automatic response process of the complex adaptive system with routines artifacts, organizational operating routines and organizational strategic dynamic capability to such change at different three levels according to inside and outside alien extent. The new theory not only integrates the various updatings of organizational routines triggered by the meta-routines driving mechanism, administrator intervention mechanism and routines executor acting mechanism prevailing in previous routines updating research into the self-organization action of complex adaptive system in response to change to inside and outside environment of organization, but also further defines the dynamic capability to be effective channel and mode through which the organization adapts to the dynamic environment change and acquires competitive edge, and thus integrates the various effective channels and modes through which the organization acquires competitive edge as described in previous dynamic capability literature into the compositions containing in foresaid three levels and their interactive process, and thereby redescribes the dynamic capability difference resulting in superiority or inferiority of competitiveness among different organizations as the difference among a set of compositions and their interactive process.Research 2 discusses the impact of quality management practice on the updating of organizational operating routines through a case study of hospital where excellent performance mode is being introduced, and mainly analyzes the specific changes of organizational operating routines in the process of quality management practice and their influencing factors. The research shows that organizational quality management practice can directly influence updating of organizational operating routines, and indirectly influence updating of organizational operating routines through influencing the updating of organizational quality schemata; in addition, updatings and effects of different operating routines within the same organization vary, and the ostensive aspect and artifacts of routines and corresponding organizational quality schemata are likely to change together with the performative aspect of routines.Research 3 verifies the influence of quality management practice on updating of organizational operating routines with the large sample data of 196 organizations introducing the idea of total quality management, and on the basis of existing organizational schemata theory, verifies the Mediating and moderating effects of organizational quality schemata updating and environmental dynamics in foresaid relation. The research shows that a part of soft elements and hard elements of quality management practice indirectly impact on the updating of organizational operations routine through the updating of organizational quality schema,verifying that organizational quality management practice can create updating of organizational operating routines in conjunction with change of organizational quality schemata, and also create updating of organizational operating routines without change of organizational quality schemata. The hard elements of quality management practice can better promote the total number of updating of organizational operating routines and the part of them without change of organizational quality schemata, but the soft elements of quality management practice can better promote updating of organizational quality schema and updating of organizational operating routines in conjunction with change of organizational quality schemata.In addition, the research unveils that environmental dynamics can only intensify the efficacy of soft elements of quality management practice for updating of updating of organizational quality schemata, but has no remarkable influence on the relation between hard elements of quality management practice and updating of organizational quality schemata, and has no influence on the mediating effect of updating of organizational quality schemata between soft elements and hard elements of quality management practice and updating of organizational operating routines.Research 4 introduces four variables of work characteristics of routines executor, i.e. complexity, uncertainty, interdependence and time pressure to further improve the cause-effect model of updating of organizational operating routines, and uses large sample data of 196 organizations where the idea of total quality management are introduced to investigate overall the Mediating and moderating effects of updating of organizational operating routines and foresaid 4 variables of work characteristics in the relation between soft elements and hard elements of quality management practice and organizational quality outcomes. The research finds that soft elements and hard elements of quality management practice indirectly effect on organizational quality outcomes completely through the updating of organizational operating routines; as for the verification of moderating effects of variables of work characteristics in the relation between soft elements and hard elements of quality management practice and updating of organizational operating routines, complexity and interdependence have remarkable negative effect on foresaid two relations, uncertainty has remarkable negative effect on the positive relation between hard elements of quality management practice and updating of organizational operating routines, and time pressure has unremarkable moderating effect in foresaid two relations; finally, the research also finds that the interaction between soft elements of quality management practice and work complexity, the interaction between hard elements of quality management practice and work complexity, and the interaction between hard elements of quality management practice and work interdependence can indirectly influence organizational quality outcomes completely through the updating of organizational operating routines, while the respective interaction between work uncertainty or time pressure and soft or hard elements of quality management practice cannot indirectly influence organizational quality outcomes through the updating of organizational operating routines.In comparison with available researches, the theoretical contributions of this paper are embodied in three aspects:1. it introduces the complex adaptive system theory to redefine the organizational routines-immune response theory from the perspective of complex adaptive system on the basis of the existing performative view of routines, organization immunity theory and organizational routines-immune response theory. This theoretic model not only effectively integrates various existing theoretic interpretations with respect to triggering of routines updating, but also provides a more comprehensive interpretation on current research on the nature of dynamic capability; 2. in light of the up-to-date results of research on quality management practice and organizational routines, it establishes a complete cause-effect model of updating of organizational operating routines, and effectively fills in the theoretic blanks in existing researches of quality management practice and organizational routines; 3. with introduction of four meso-level variables in the context of organizational work, i.e. complexity, uncertainty, interdependence and time pressure, it supplements and perfects the research of contingency relationship between quality management practice and organizational quality outcomes, and provides effective theoretic and experiential bases for proceeding of sustaining quality innovation activities of enterprises at present.