Intra-organizational communication practices and strategies for total quality management in manufacturing organizations

The general axiom which implied that total quality management (tqm) acts as the ‘engine’ of an organization, while effective communication is the lubricant which ensures the smooth running of the engine must be clarified and understood in the theoretical and practical contexts. this study aims to ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sharina, Samsudin
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://etd.uum.edu.my/10308/1/depositpermission_s95554.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/10308/2/s95554_01.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/10308/
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Summary:The general axiom which implied that total quality management (tqm) acts as the ‘engine’ of an organization, while effective communication is the lubricant which ensures the smooth running of the engine must be clarified and understood in the theoretical and practical contexts. this study aims to explore the forms, mediums, practices and strategies of intra-organizational communication within Malaysian manufacturing organizations, as there is scarcity of sources that are available for this topic, particularly in relation to the Malaysian industrial context. a pareto analysis of literature reviews had been done in order to select the most related critical factors and to narrow down the scope of the research. then, a pilot study was conducted which involved four managers, representing one local organization and one foreign organization in order to get a preliminary view and to improve the instruments developed. finally, in actual study phase qualitative data was collected involving five large scale manufacturing organizations which two of them are local organizations, the other three are foreign organizations which two of them are from eastern origin, and the other one from western origin. semi-structured in-depth interviews and nonparticipant observations had been done. fourteen managers and quality steering committee informants representing the five organizations had participated in the semistructured in-depth interviews. raw data was transcribed using “meaning for meaning” transcription and thematic analysis. the findings revealed the effective practices of intra-organizational communication and three communication strategies that are common to the participants’ respective organizations. in general, this study agrees with and supports the information richness theory by daft, lengal and trevino, and also the organizational communication theory of te’eni. furthermore, this study had successfully clarify and substantiate the elaborations on the complex critical success factors of tqm such as enhancing commitment, teamwork and involvement, while increasing the effectiveness of leadership, training and motivation for manufacturing organizations by practicing specific types of effective intra-organizational communication strategies. thus, the intra-organizational communication (mediums, practice and strategies) are also one of the critical success factors of tqm and should be taken into account in its implementation.