Companies are increasingly establishing quality circles

 

Companies are increasingly establishing quality circles to combat quality issues. This involves working with people as a team.

What are the benefits of a quality circle?

Do they increase communication, participation and trust? Why or why not?

What might be some of the pitfalls?

Have you yourself participated in a quality circle or something similar?

What was your experience like?

Sample Solution

Companies are increasingly establishing quality circles

The concept of quality circles has emerged from quality control. Quality circles are quite popular in Japan and U.S.A. A quality circle is defined as a small group of employees who voluntarily cooperate to solve problems to production, wastage of materials; quality of raw material; scheduling, delay; and maintenance. Advantages of quality circles are: improved communication; management awareness of employee job-related concerns; personal growth and development; enhanced decision making skills; increased individual power; and opportunities for recognition of individual improvement. Quality circles provide a future-oriented approach. They seek high quality products in the current production run and in the future.

re are other contingency theories that provide a more continuum based approach such as Redding’s theory of leadership and management, however Fielder’s description of how situational factors affect the leadership style required for the situation is extremely useful in understanding the fundamentals of leadership (Pettinger, 2007). Chelladurai in his Multi Dimensional Model of Leadership, expands on much of Fiedler’s theory but in a continuum based approach, in which the leader can adapt their leadership style to fit the situation (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). Chelladurai’s theory is taken from sports psychology but can be applied to an organisational scenario. It provides a much more empirical categorisation of task structure, clearly differentiating a plethora of situations that require certain leadership styles for success. Chealldurai found three characteristics that affect the leadership style required for a situation, called antecedents, they mainly expand upon Fiedler’s situational factors and leader – member relations and ultimately affect how a leader should behave towards a situation. The first are situational characteristics, the environment in which the leader must perform, the second are leader characteristics, the experience, personal qualities and skills of the leader, and the third are member characteristics, the motivation, skill and experience levels of group members (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). The situational characteristics and member characteristics have a required behaviour to ensure maximum group performance, they also have a preferred behaviour to ensure the satisfaction of group members, if the leaders actual behaviour matches both the required behaviour and preferred behaviour of the situation the consequence is maximum group performance and satisfaction. However, if the group are not performing and achieving goals or are not satisfied or both, then the leader is able to amend their actual behaviour to improve this. Leaders able to monitor performance and satisfaction, and understand what is required to amend the situation will achieve optimum group performance in Chelladurai’s model. The one limitation of Chealldurai’s model is that it assumes the leader is in a position of complete positional power over the group, and can implement any leadership style of their choosing without constraints. Positional power is the authority and influence a leader has over a group, if the leader has positional power, they will be able to implement the leadership style they best see fit for the situation. Positional power cannot be measured or quantified, making it highly ambiguous and hard for a leader to understand whether they have it or how then can gain it. It becomes the responsibility of the organisation to have policies in place to pr

This question has been answered.

Get Answer
WeCreativez WhatsApp Support
Our customer support team is here to answer your questions. Ask us anything!
👋 Hi, Welcome to Compliant Papers.