Total Quality Management, Organizational Commitment, Perceived Organizational Support, and Intraorganizational Communication

Abstract

As the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement sweeps through American businesses, much of the practitioner-oriented TQM literature discusses ways to improve intraorganizational communication while enhancing employee attitudinal organizational commitment and perceived organizational support. This study investigates such claims comparing employee responses from an organization which was not implementing TQM with those from two organizations which were implementing TQM. Organizational commitment and perceived organizational support were significantly higher in the organizations implementing TQM. Employees in the organizations implementing TQM indicated more positive employee-top management and coworker communication relationships, as well as more quality information from top management. Further, these communication elements explained more of the variance in organizational commitment and perceived organizational support in the organizations implementing TQM. However, different communication elements were important in commitment and perceived organizational support regressions depending on the TQM or non-TQM setting.