A re-examination of the relationship between Quality Managementand Human Resource Management: how QM evolved beyond the
production domain
Svetoslav G. Georgiev
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, No. 19, Nguyen Huu Tho street,
Tan Phong ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
svetoslav.georgiev@tdt.edu.vn+84 961146649
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9644-3647

PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR PERMISSIONACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research paper represents the first stage of a multi-phased project whose main purpose is toanalyse the relationship between employee training and quality management (QM) through theimpact of the increase in non-regular employment in Japan. The project is sponsored by the Japan
Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT) through their (annual) Foreign Researcher
Invitation Programme. The paper is the result of almost three months of secondary research at
JILPT’s office in Tokyo, Japan. That being said, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the
President (Prof. Y. Higuchi) and everyone else at JILPT for their support and guidance throughout
and beyond June-August 2019. Special thanks are extended to the staff from the International
Exchange Section at JILPT including Eriko Kubo and Masumi Seto. I would also like to thank Dr.
D. Helman from Ton Duc Thang University (Vietnam) and Prof. T. Kurogi from Musashino
University (Japan) for their support during the application process of the visiting research
programme.

A re-examination of the relationship between Quality Managementand Human Resource Management: How QM evolved beyond the
production domain
An organization able to build quality into its people is already halfway toward producing quality
products.
Imai (1986)

ABSTRACTThis paper is the first stage of a multi-phased project, and it attempts to provide an overview ofthe literature discussing the relationship between quality management (QM) and human resource
management (HRM). More specifically, I re-examine and synthesise how QM has evolved toconsider the importance of HRM as part of the quality manufacturing pursuit. Given theseaspirations, I conducted a systematic literature review based on a computer search in two databases– JSTOR and Science Direct. The analysis of forty peer-reviewed articles (including seven books)
shows that the evolution of QM has been rather controversial in terms of recognising HRM’s
importance to quality manufacturing. In particular, a significant shift away from HRM since thestart of the Industrial Revolution, and a consequent revitalisation of its (HRM’s) salience within
the QM context from the 1950s onwards was revealed. Moreover, today, the broad QM literatureargues that HRM is probably the single most important factor to successful implementation ofmodern QM approaches such as TQM. At the same time, although a much greater attention to HR
practices might be expected in the QM literature (given the afore-mentioned scientificdevelopments and claims), my synthesis shows that this is not the case.

KEYWORDS
Human Resource Management; Human Resource Development, Manufacturing; Quality
Evolution; Quality Management; Soft TQM

1. INTRODUCTION
Not until long ago, businesses around the world believed that quality was a responsibility of
only employees of departments that are directly related to production (Deming, 1986; Ebert et al.,
1996; Beckford, 2010). In the last fifty years, however, this limited awareness has beensignificantly challenged as a result of the so-called ‘quality revolution’ 1. Specifically, as the QM
concept continued to evolve throughout the second half of the twentieth century, production
approaches such as total quality control (TQC), (and later on) total quality management (TQM)
1

Japan’s post-war success in quality manufacturing is often been referred to as the quality revolution.

and Lean offered a new paradigm revolving around the notion that quality improvement must be
an organisation-wide initiative. This new paradigm widened QM’s domain not only on ahierarchical, but also on a functional level (e.g. marketing, sales, research and development) which,in turn led, to studies of QM’s relationship to other management practices. Following theseresearch developments, today, the QM literature agrees that QM has evolved from a number ofmanagement disciplines including Production Management (PM) and Human Resource
Management (HRM) among others (Dahlgaard et al., 1998). Moreover, the evolution of QM as amanagement concept, and the introduction of TQM per se, shifted academics’ focus from the hardscience of quality towards more abstract aspects such as human resource development (HRD) andorganisational culture (Schonberger, 1994; Calvo-Mora et al, 2013).
As TQM – the pinnacle of the quality movement – was advanced internationally as a “bestpractice in the 1990s, companies around the world rushed to adopt it (TQM) in line with theirpursuit of business excellence (Zhang and Xia, 2013; Aoki et al., 2014). Unfortunately, manyorganisations (including internationally renowned firms such as Federal Express, Wallace
Corporation) faced significant challenges during the implementation process 2 (Rahman, 2004).
These developments ushered an unprecedented interest among both QM practitioners andresearchers in the attempt to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for TQM implementation.
As the research works in this field advanced, the (T)QM literature introduced the hard-soft CSFs
division. The hard CSFs were argued to be production techniques (e.g. statistical process control),whereas the soft CSFs were explained as the intangible and difficult to measure aspects that are
essentially HR driven (e.g. top management involvement, employee empowerment) (Wilkinson,
1992; Rahman and Bullock, 2005; Mogdil and Sharma, 2017). Notably, some of these studies
made additional contributions to the QM literature by revealing that the soft CSFs, in comparison
with the hard ones, are significantly more important to TQM implementation (Pegels, 1994;
Samson and Terziovski, 1999; Rahman, 2004; Calvo-Mora et al., 2013).
Essentially, since the early 1990s, the importance of and QM’s relationship to humanresource management (HRM) in achieving higher product quality began drawing significant
scientific attention (Jayaram et al., 1999; Grover et al., 2006; Boon et al., 2007; Daoud Abu-Doleh,
2012, Dubey et al., 2015). Following over two decades of research, today, the broad QM literatureagrees that human factor is probably the most essential variable affecting modern QM approaches
such as TQM (Badiru, 1990; Ebert et al., 1996; Bamber et al., 2014; Mendes and Jesus, 2016). As
Imai (1986) notes, an organisation that is able to instil quality into its people is already halfway
toward manufacturing high quality products. Moreover, research into companies undergoing TQM
implementation has shown that some of the most considerable changes taking place as a result ofSome authors claim that in the 1990s, the number of TQM failures in comparison with the number of TQM
triumphs was in favour of the former (Eskildsen and Dahlgaard, 2000).
2

the quality improvement initiatives relate to the HR department (Monks et al., 1997; Daoud AbuDoleh, 2012).
Given these research developments, a much greater attention to HR practices might be
expected in the QM literature. Unfortunately, scientific research claims that this is not the case
(Monks et al., 1997; Keng Boon et al., 2005; Plsek, 2013; Bamber et al., 2014). Specifically, eventhough there has been some progress in terms of the inclusion of HRM in QM-related research,
the notion that employees need to buy into TQM without coercion continues to persist (Monks etal., 1997; Daoud Abu-Doleh, 2012; Bamber et al., 214). Consequently, this paradigm has limited
the number of studies that go beyond the hard side of QM. As Bamber et al. (2014) assert, the bulkof the research on process improvement has not progressed (sufficiently) enough as it continues to
pay more attention to the technical instead of the people-related aspects – the soft side - of QM.
Ultimately, the relationship between QM and HRM has not been examined comprehensively.
Taking these substantial gaps within the QM literature into consideration, I attempt to reexamine and synthesise the research works that have focused (at least partially) on the relationshipbetween QM and HRM. Specifically, this paper seeks to answer the following research question(RQ): how has the historic evolution of QM progressed to consider the importance of HRM as partof the quality manufacturing pursuit? Given these research aspirations, I have conducted asystematic literature review based on a computer search in two databases – JSTOR and Science
Direct. The aim of the search was to identify peer-reviewed articles pertaining to the relationshipbetween QM and HRM. Year of publications was not limited. The searching was conducted
between June and August 2019, and it represents the initial stage of the systematic literature review.
Since this synthesis is part of a larger, multi-phased project whose ultimate goal is to analyse therelationship between employee training and QM through the impact of the increase in non-regular
employment in Japan, a second stage of the systematic literature review is scheduled for year 2020.
Besides the forty peer-reviewed articles that were deemed relevant, I have also added data fromseven books that have covered the topic of QM and/ or HRM. Given these specifics, it is important
to note that this paper does not fully account for the research works on the relationship between
QM and HRM. At the same time, the initial stage of the systematic literature review does provide
a comprehensive coverage of this topic, I argue.
My review of literature shows a rather controversial shift in the evolution of QM withreference to its relation to HRM. Specifically, if prior to the Industrial Revolution human skills
were central to product quality, their importance lost ground with the introduction of mass
manufacturing. It was only in the late 1940s – almost a century and half after the start of theIndustrial Revolution - when QM (as a management concept) began to reconsider the importanceof the human factor. Since then, over the next fifty years, QM evolved to the point where, today,
HRM is recognised as (probably) the most important factor for the successful implementation ofmodern QM approaches. At the same time, while a much greater attention to HR practices mighthave been expected in the QM literature (given these research developments and claims), mysynthesis shows that this is not the case. Specifically, the QM literature continues to pay more
attention to the technical instead of the people-related aspects of QM. Moreover, it seems thatwhile HR practices have been often ignored in the QM literature, QM practices have drawn much
more attention in HRM-related studies.
This study contributes to the existing QM literature by providing a synthesised perspectiveof the path through which QM has evolved to consider the importance of HRM within the pursuitof higher product quality. Importantly, the synthesis reveals some of the main reasons behind theongoing (somewhat) limited focus of scientific research on the soft side of QM which is
predominantly human resource driven. Overall, the information provided in this paper is ofsignificant value to researchers, educators, policy makers, and managers as it aids to the better
understanding of the relationship between QM and HRM.
The reminder of this paper is organised as follows. First, I present a summary of the(historical) evolution of QM as a management concept. Next, I move on to discuss how QM has
evolved to consider the importance of human resources as part of the quality improvement process.
In the penultimate section, I offer a brief summary of the findings and address the theoretical andpractical implications based on the study. Finally, I focus on the limitations and paths for future
research.

2. Evolution of Quality Management
While QM as a concept is relatively new, the quality idea has been around for many centuries(Deming, 1986; Flood, 1993; Fisher and Nair, 2009; Beckford, 2010). As Flood (1993) notes, evenback in the days when money was non-existent, people could differentiate between good and bad
product quality. For instance, customers would apply different “quality techniques” such as
prodding and turning fruits and vegetables in testing them for freshness or fitness for consumption.
This quality control method known as inspection continued to be used in one form or another until
the second half of the 20th century (as we will see later in this section). Traditionally, however,building quality into a product was the responsibility of skilled craftsmen (Flood, 1993, p.5). Fisher
and Nair (2009) note that by the end of the 13th century, thanks to the medieval craftsmen, productquality had already begun to spread as an important aspect of manufacturing. For instance, highquality products were marked with special symbols as a means of quality assurance. Moreover,craftsmen were in charge of the manufacturing standards, wages, and prices among other essential
aspects of the preindustrial world – a power which they exercised through professionalorganisations known as guilds (Fisher and Nair, 2009; Beckford, 2010). The importance of skilledcraftsmanship to product quality was so significant that it extended until the end of the 18th century,
when manufacturing took a sharp turn.

The increased efficiency of steam engines and the invention of machine tools among othernovelties during the late 18th and early 19th century 3 revolutionised manufacturing. This led to theestablishment of mass manufacturing which was set in large factories employing armies of people.
Unfortunately, along with the great number of positive developments brought by the Industrial
Revolution (e.g. technological advancements, an increase in material wealth), there were also
aspects of people’s lives that were impacted negatively. Specifically, quality craftsmanship slowly
disappeared and the desire for an increase in factories’ production output led to a stream of poor
quality products: quality was no longer built into the product. At the same time, inspection
remained the sole guarantor of quality (Flood, 1993, p.6). Unlike in the past – i.e. before theIndustrial Revolution – when production volumes were low, the inspection method began
revealing a great number of drawbacks during the rise of the mass-manufacturing era.
As the need for more effective operations management became evident, a number ofimportant developments in the world of manufacturing took place during the early 20th century.
First, the concept of Scientific Management (also known as Taylorism) was introduced in 1911 in
the U.S. by Frederick Taylor (Fisher and Nair, 2009; Beckford, 2010). Taylor’s Scientific(approach to) Management was, in fact, one of the (if not the) most significant developments
within the management field during the early 20th century. Among the great number of novelties
that Scientific Management introduced, inspection against well-defined product specifications andearly detection of problems in the product became central to manufacturing. This shift in focus led
to the emergence of a separate inspection department and a further decline in the importance ofcraftsmanship. Second, World War I (WWI) (and later on, WWII) strengthened the need for mass
production even more. Importantly, by the end of WWI, it had already become apparent that(product) quality was central to the allies’ success. Thus, during the Inter-war Period 4, the mosteconomically advanced nations (e.g. Great Britain) began forming associations and institutes tomaintain and nurture quality manufacturing.
The evolution of QM continued with the introduction of statistical methods into the
manufacturing discipline between the 1920s and 1930s 5 (Flood, 1993; Fisher and Nair, 2009). This
gave rise to a new approach to quality manufacturing – Statistical Quality Control (SQC) - whichushered the Quality Control (QC) Era. SQC gave Taylor’s Scientific Management theory a muchsounder scientific footing (Flood, 1993) and had a substantial impact on the war-time efforts inboth the U.K., and (especially) the U.S. where the approach was developed (Trevor, 1986). At thesame time, while SQC is believed to have been the corner stone of the quality revolution in theearly 20th century (Trevor, 1986; Beckford, 2010; Koura, 2012), a certain stream in the QM
literature argues that another management approach had already made (much more) significant
The period between the late 18th and early 19th century is argued as the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The period between World War I and World War II.
5
Western Electric’s Dr. Walter Shewhart employed statistical techniques to control processes for the first time inorder to minimise defective output.
3
4

contributions to the QM discipline in Europe by the time. The Bata Management System developedby the Czech industrialist Thomas Bata, although significantly under-presented in the QM
literature, had introduced fundamental changes in the management philosophy by the late 1920s(Fisher, 2009). Notwithstanding these claims, the broad QM literature agrees that the actual quality
revolution began after the end of WWII, and ironically, it emerged in one of the defeated nations– Japan.
As one of the most severely affected major powers, Japan came out of WWII in a dire state;
the country suffered from a severe scarcity of labour, as well as completely devastated industry
and infrastructure. According to Koura (2012), more than 80% of the industrial facilities weredestroyed, and production was at 10% of the pre-war level. To secure social order and peace, theAmericans, who had taken over Japan’s post-war reconstruction, had to overcome a substantial
challenge as there were no widely circulated newspapers, travelling around the country wasdifficult, and the telephone and radio broadcast systems were severely damaged (Fisher, 2009).
This extremely unfavourable situation and the need to communicate a series of edicts to theJapanese people prompted the quality movement in Japan. Ultimately, improving the quality of
the communications equipment in the country became the top priority of the Allied Forces. Thus,
under the guidance of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces (SCAP), (some of) the mostprominent American quality gurus at the time were brought to Japan.
In less than ten years – during the 1950s, Sarasohn, Protzman, Deming, Juran, andFeigenbaum 6 introduced thousands of Japanese managers and engineers to the most prominent
QM approaches, systems, and tools at the time, including the Quality Control Activity System, thePlan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle (also known as the Deming Cycle), and Total Quality Control(TQC). While some of these novelties (from the perspective of Japanese management) had alreadyfound profound application in the U.S., Feigenbaum’s TQC concept was a relatively new idea evenfor the Americans which sought to elevate the level of quality management from the factory to theentire organisation. During this period, QC was advanced as part of business management. Overall,according to Koura (2012), due to the wide spread of statistical quality control (SQC), the 1950s
were known as the SQC era in Japan 7.
Feigenbaum’s TQC concept became the basis of the Japanese TQC – an era that began in
the 1960s (Koura, 2012) and that coincided with the Japanese Economic Miracle – the period
during which the Japanese economy enjoyed an annual growth of 10%. During those years, theJapanese took QM to a new level and introduced a number of ground-breaking QM concepts
including the Zero Defect and the Quality Control Circles (QC Circles). These concepts becameso successful that by the late 1970s, they had already crossed national boundaries and were
Sarasohn, Protzman, Deming, Juran, and Feigenbaum are referred to as some of the most prominent QM gurus of
all time.
7
The SQC Era had already started in the U.S. and the U.K. during WWII.
6

introduced in the U.S., and later on in China and South Korea (Koura, 2012). The advancement ofJapanese QC practices as best practices was further boosted by the country’s economic progress in 1970, Japan became the world’s second largest economy after the U.S. During the same period,
computer technologies were introduced into the manufacturing industry. Along with thesedevelopments, new concepts including “New Seven Management Tools” and “Quality Function
Deployment” were pioneered (Pecht and Boulton, 1995).
In the 1980s, a new term for quality control and management was cited for the first time –Total Quality Management (TQM) (Phan et al., 2011; Koura, 2012). This new approach to QM,
which was developed by the Japanese on the basis of American QM doctrines such as TQC,
introduced leadership commitment (e.g. top management leadership) as central to the pursuit ofexcellent product quality (Phan et al., 2011). Defined as an organisation-wide approach to quality
improvement that involves everyone from the shop floor all the way to top management, TQM
quickly became one of the most viable management concepts of the 1990s (Schonberger, 1994;
Dahlgaard et al., 1998; Zhang and Xia, 2013). Specifically, given the quality manufacturing
success of Japanese enterprises, TQM was advanced internationally as a “best practice”.
Companies around the world rushed to adopt TQM as part of their pursuit of business excellence.
While some attempts did not meet the desired success (e.g. Federal Express, Wallace Corporation),many organizations reported higher employee participation, reduced waste, and increased
customer satisfaction (e.g. Xerox, Motorola) among other benefits as part of the TQM
implementation (Powell, 1995, Evans and Lindsay, 2001; Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009; Georgiev
and Ohtaki, 2019).
One of the last steps of the evolution of QM that had a profound impact on the global
quality movement was the development of national quality awards. While the Japanese had alreadyestablished their own quality award by the early 1950s – the Deming Prize, it was not until the late1980s when the rest of the advanced nations began considering similar ideas. Thus, in 1988, theMalcolm Baldrige Quality Award was introduced in the U.S. with the main idea to encourage local
companies improve their competitiveness. In response, a similar award was developed in Europe
in 1991 – the European Quality Award, which was later on renamed to the EFQM (the European
Foundation for Quality Management) Excellence Award. Overall, the various quality awards
around the world established universal frameworks for successful (T)QM implementation and theirultimate goal was to encourage more companies to adopt QM principles (Fisher and Nair, 2009).

3. Quality Management and Human Resource Management
A closer examination of the evolution of QM as a management concept reveals an interesting
paradigm shift. Specifically, human resources had a much greater impact on product quality before
the Industrial Revolution than after it. The literature explains this divergence through the (natureof the) manufacturing style at the time (Flood, 1993; Beckford, 2010) – i.e. almost all items were
produced by hand by highly-skilled individuals known as artisans or craftsmen. Importantly, toguarantee the quality of their products, these highly-skilled artisans and craftsmen provided
extensive training and education to younger individuals – apprentices, who were willing toembrace themselves into the world of craftsmanship. Hence, the HR aspect of manufacturing wasof significant importance at the time (Flood, 1993; Beckford, 2010).
The advancement in technology achieved between the late 18th and early 19th century,
however, made workers become less dependent on personal skills and competencies and morereliant on machines (Flood, 1993; Fisher and Nair, 2009). In essence, mass manufacturing (broughtby the Industrial Revolution) removed the importance of people within the (product) quality
improvement process to a large degree. This shift in focus – from people to machines – was further
aggravated by the introduction of the Scientific Management theory in the early 1900s.
Notwithstanding the introduction of the concepts of division of labour (also known as work
specialisation), standardised methods of doing a job, as well as monetary incentives for workers
among other novelties, Taylor’s approach exhibited a number of drawbacks since its early adoption.
As Beckford (2010) notes, this approach would later on be recognised as the cause of many quality
problems.
Interestingly, the literature shows that the third of Taylor’s Four Principles of ScientificManagement called for selecting, training, teaching, and developing the worker – a central aspectof modern HRM. Unfortunately, this (third) principle and its HRM-related aspects were largely
driven by Taylor’s ultimate goal – an increase in production output through defining “the one bestway (for a worker) to perform a task”. In other words, Taylor was obsessed with the technical sideof (quality) manufacturing and he saw workers as merely a part of the bigger machine 8. Hence, his
approach is often referred to as the ‘machine’ approach today (Beckford, 2010). Ultimately,
Taylor’s Scientific (approach to) Management shifted the manufacturing focus even further awayfrom the importance of employees. The main drawbacks of Taylor’s approach, however, did notsurface until the mid-1950s 9 (as we will see in the latter part of this section). Specifically, as
manufacturing plants’ productivity continued to increase throughout the 19th century, Taylorism
found wide acceptance and support among the newly emerged industrialists around the world.
At the start of the 20th century, QM’s focus remained largely outside the HRM domain.
With the introduction of Statistical Quality Control (SQC) and the start of the SQC Era, most of
the manufacturing efforts were focused on introducing statistical analysis as part of the quality
improvement pursuit – i.e. plant managers paid little attention to HRD. At the same time, certain
authors contend that some interesting developments with reference to QM took place during thefirst two decades of the last century. Specifically, Thomas Bata, through his Bata Management
System, had already introduced several fundamental changes in management philosophy (some of
Taylor’s constrained perception of workers’ role was largely influenced by his background – he was an engineer
by profession, and as such he focused on the mechanical side of management.
9
Aside from some major drawbacks, many of Taylor’s guidelines and techniques focusing on improving production
efficiency are still used in organisations today.
8which were argued to be HRD-related) at his European factories as part of quality manufacturing(Fisher and Nair, 2009). Unfortunately, the Bata Management System and its contributions tomanagement theory and QM in particular had not made it beyond the walls of Bata’s factories;
thus, its vision and ideas (especially those related to QM’s relationship to HRD) remained obscure
to the rest of the world.
During the inter-war and wartime years, SQC saw the development and use of sampling
plans for inspection, statistical control charts of manufacturing processes, and other novelties(Fisher and Nair, 2009; Koura, 2012). These new concepts as part of the QC movement continued
to focus on the technical side of quality manufacturing. My synthesis, however, shows that whilethese claims in the QM literature are undeniable, by the second half of the 20th century, certain
QM gurus had already started propagating largely unconventional views pertaining to QM. For
instance, the memoirs of Sarasohn – one of the best American radio engineers at the time – revealthat his course on quality control in the late 1940s focused on conceptualising the entire
management function and all of its related components as a system, thus seeing statistics as merely
a tool (Fisher, 2009). “I did not want these people (Japanese managers and engineers) to be fixatedon the mechanics of statistics” – from Sarasohn’s memoirs (Fisher, 2009, p.29). It is, therefore,
fair to say that the importance of the human factor within the manufacturing process began toresurface again around the late 1940s, I argue.
In the following decade – the 1950s, thanks to Juran’s concept(s), QC was slowly advanced
as part of business management (Koura, 2012). The literature, however, fails to address how muchthe importance of HR within the manufacturing process grew during these years. Nevertheless,given that QC started more often to be linked to the concept of management, the impact of humanresources must have been given further attention, I contend. The development of QM as amanagement concept continued with the introduction of the quality control circles (QC circles) inthe early 1960s. In fact, this was one of the most significant steps in broadening the QM concept
with relationship to HRM until then. The core idea behind QC circles was to organise volunteer
groups of workers who would meet to discuss ways to improve aspects of the manufacturing
process(s) that had an impact on product quality, and make presentations to management with theirideas (Trevor, 1986). This was a substantial shift in the field of QM as it called for employee
involvement and empowerment – two of the main HRM constructs. Furthermore, QC circles
boosted employee motivation as workers began to feel more involved and heard. Most importantly,
from focusing on issues only related to the production process, the QC circle concept evolved toinclude all aspects of the organisation – i.e. the focus on continuous improvement spread to otherfunctional areas (e.g. marketing, sales).
The inception of the TQC concept in the late 1960s was another pivotal step in the evolutionof QM (Trevor, 1986; Fisher and Nair, 2009). Interestingly, however, the literature reveals asignificant discrepancy in the way the term “total quality” was conceptualised in the West and theEast. Specifically, from an American standpoint (visualising the ideas of Feigenbaum), TQC
conceptualised quality control as the overall management of quality at every stage of the
production process (Trevor, 1986). The Japanese, on the other hand, through the ideas of Ishikawa,
discussed TQC as a company-wide quality approach that involved everyone, from top management
to the shop floor workers, in quality control. By the late 1970s – prior to the introduction of TQM,
the Japanese had already began propagating the notion that in TQC, the first and foremost concern
should be with the quality of people (Imai, 1986). At the same time, given that flexible
manufacturing systems (FMS) and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) became a major
objective for many of the big manufacturing firms during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, a focus on
the technical side of QM continued to dominate internationally.
The Japanese conceptualisation of TQC gave rise to TQM – the pinnacle of the QM
evolution, which was introduced in the 1980s (Phan et al., 2011; Koura, 2012). While its
predecessor - TQC – had already crafted the idea of elevating the level of quality managementfrom the factory to the entire organisation, TQM brought this notion a step further. Specifically,
besides the central premise that “quality is everyone’s business”, TQM introduced (for the firsttime ever) leadership commitment (e.g. top management leadership) as yet another crucial aspectof the pursuit of excellent product quality (Phan et al., 2011). Essentially, the rhetoric of TQM
with its focus on top management involvement and leadership, and empowerment implied that
employment practices in companies embracing the TQM approach are not the same with those inorganisations predominantly structured on Taylorist principles (Monks et al., 1997). Thus, theimportance of the human factor within the manufacturing process began drawing further attention
among QM researchers and practitioners. Moreover, due to Japan’s unprecedented post-war
economic growth, not just TQM, but also (other) Japanese traditional management practices wereadvanced internationally as “best practices”. This was another significant development in theevolution of QM, especially with reference to its relationship to HRM, as I explain below.
From the perspective of HRM, (1) life-time employment, (2) seniority-based promotion
and salary, and (3) company-trade unions - described as the three pillars of Japanese HRM today– started gaining popularity overseas during the 1980s and 1990s (Aoki et al., 2014). Importantly,
in the pursuit of learning from the Japanese, QM-related research revealed that there exist
institutional complimentaries between HRM practices and production systems of Japanesecompanies, which is why the Japanese became so successful at quality manufacturing (Aoki et al.,2014). As Imai (1986) notes, an organisation that is able to build quality into its people is alreadyhalfway toward producing quality products (see Figure 1.) Thus, while TQM’s focus was
predominantly technical (e.g. QC tools and techniques) until then, it started to shift significantly
towards TQM’s more abstract side. 10 For instance, total-quality approaches such as TQM started
being looked at from the perspective of a driver of unique organisational culture that nurtures
10

Later on, the technical side and the abstract side were referred to as the hard side and the soft side, respectively.

willingness to share knowledge, egalitarian communication, common sense, consideration,
empathy, and kindness (Deming, 1986; Wilkinson, 1992; Beckford, 2010)
Figure 1. Quality Management Model (Source: Rao et al., 1999)

The importance of the non-technical aspects of modern QM approaches was also significantly
emphasised within the national quality award frameworks that started developing since the late1980s. In the case of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award, for instance, the human resources
domain was given the third most important consideration after customer focus and satisfaction,and quality and operational results (Juran and Godfrey, 1999). The same is valid for almost allother quality awards including the Deming Prize, the EFQM Excellence Award and the UK
Business Excellence Award. Overall, research shows that both national and regional quality
awards relate directly to HRM (Hart and Schlesinger, 1991; Juran and Godfrey, 1999;
Wickramasinghe, 2012).
By the late 1990s, TQM implementation outside Japan was already facing significant
challenges – i.e. many foreign companies including internationally renowned ones such as Xerox
had reported TQM-implementation failures (Evans and Lindsay, 2001). Following thesedevelopments, research into QM shifted its focus towards defining the things that must go well inorder to ensure successful TQM implementation (Wilkinson, 1992; Oakland, 2000; Evans andLindsay, 2001), or the so-called critical success factors (CSFs) for TQM implementation. This was
yet another notable development in the evolution of QM, especially with reference to its
relationship to HRM, I argue. Specifically, even though a consensus on what the real factors are
has not been reached (Samson and Terziovski, 1999; Conca et al., 2004; Hietschold et al., 2014;
Georgiev and Ohtaki, 2019), most QM researchers and practitioners agree(d) that the CSFs for

TQM implementation can be categorised in two main groups – (1) hard factors and (2) soft factors.
Overall, the hard factors relate to production techniques (e.g. statistical process control and Pareto
analysis), whereas the soft factors are defined as intangible and difficult to measure aspects thatmust be addressed as long-term issues (e.g. top management involvement and employee
empowerment) (Wilkinson, 1992; Rahman and Bullock, 2005; Bou-Llusar et al., 2009; Mogdil
and Sharma, 2017). I present a summary of these factors in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of hard and soft TQM elements

TQM Constructs
Hard Factors

Soft Factors

Advanced manufacturing system(s)Benchmarking
JIT principles
Process management
Statistical process control techniques
Zero defect mentality

Top management leadership
Employee involvement
Employee empowerment
Employee training
Teamwork and communication
Customer focus
Supplier relationships

Source(s): Dow et al. (1999); Rahman and Bullock (2005); Gadenne and Sharma (2009); Sisnuhadi (2014); Zengat al. (2017); Georgiev and Ohtaki (2019)

Consequent research into TQM’s critical success factors revealed that the soft CSFs are morecritical to successful TQM implementation in comparison with the hard ones (Pegels, 1994;
Samson and Terziovski, 1999; Rahman, 2004; Calvo-Mora et al., 2013). Moreover, the recent(post-2000) literature agrees that the soft CSFs are predominantly HR driven – i.e. they emphasise
the management of human resources in the organisation (Wilkinson et al., 1991; Oakland, 2000;
Rahman and Bullock, 2005; Dubey et al, 2015; Arunchalam and Palanichami, 2017). As
Schonberger (1994) notes, companies that are advanced in TQM have undergone substantialchanges pertaining to their human resources. For instance, in these organisations, the word “worker”
is often abolished; instead, employees are referred to as “associates”. Bosses and specialists, on
the other hand, are given the title of “facilitators”. Overall, empirical analysis of companies thathave successful implemented total-quality approaches such as TQM has showed that theseapproaches exert a great deal of influence onto the HR department (Monks et al., 1997).
Today, the QM literature argues that successful TQM requires substantial changes in HRM– i.e. the HR practices should be seen as necessary, interlocking elements of the total-quality
package (Schonberger, 1994; Monks et al., 1997; Daoud Abu-Doleh, 2012). Most importantly,
TQM, Lean and the rest of the modern QM approaches are now recognised as socio-technicalsystems that require a flexible, engaged, and dedicated workforce (Evans and Lindsay, 2001; Shahand Ward, 2007; Youssef et al., 2014). Regardless of these advancements ppertaining to theevolution of QM as a management concept, the number of studies that have sought to further
understand the nature and complexity of the soft side of TQM remains limited (Georgiev andGeorgiev, 2019). Moreover, it seems that QM practices have drawn much more attention within
the HRM literature than the other way around – HRM practices within the QM literature. In fact,
since the 1990s, the HRM literature talks of TQHRM (Total Quality Human Resource
Management) - a term that seeks to differentiate between traditional HRM and HRM practices
associated with TQM organisations (Bowen at al., 1992; Cardy and Dobbins, 1996; Daoud AbuDoleh, 2012). Unfortunately, QM researchers (and practitioners) seem to have shown very little
interest in this – the TQHRM – concept since its inception. Overall, these (current) limitations in
the QM literature represent a significant drawback, which may explain (at least to some degree)
the ongoing TQM implementation failures around the world, I argue.

4. Conclusions and Implications
This paper sought to re-examine and synthesise how QM as a management concept has evolved
to consider the importance of HRM as part of the quality manufacturing pursuit. To address thisperennial research question, I conducted a systematic review of the literature using two of thelargest academic libraries on the Internet. Based on forty peer-reviewed articles, as well as sevenbooks, I showed that the evolution of QM has been rather controversial in terms of recognising
HRM’s importance to quality manufacturing. Specifically, this study revealed a significant shift
away from HRM since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and a consequent revitalisation of its(HRM’s) importance within the QM context from the 1950s onwards. Given these developments,
I showed that over the last half a decade, studies of the relationship between QM and HRM haveconsiderably grown in number. Moreover, today, the bulk of the research works pertinent to theimportance of HRM to quality manufacturing argues that HRM is probably the single mostimportant factor for successful implementation of modern QM approaches such as TQM. At thesame time, even though a much greater attention to HR practices might be expected in the QM
literature (following recent research developments and claims), my synthesis shows that this is not
the case. Notably, it seems that while HR practices have been often ignored in the QM literature,
QM practices have drawn much more attention in HRM-related studies.
This study aids both QM researchers and practitioners in comprehending the complex
evolution of QM as a management concept and its relationship to HRM. Moreover, from anacademic standpoint, the paper speaks of the continuous, significant gap in the QM literature
pertaining to the soft side of QM, in general and the importance of HRM to quality manufacturing,in particular. On the practical side, I call for the attention of top managers who are considered themain driver of successful (T)QM implementation (Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009; Calvo-Mora etal., 2013). First, I encourage them to move away from supervisory approaches towards employeeempowerment. Second, I urge top management to ensure the continuous and comprehensive
involvement of their HR specialists in the (T)QM implementation process. In a similar vein,(T)QM consultants and specialists should not ignore the soft side of modern QM approaches aspart of the implementation process. In fact, the soft side, which is predominantly HR-driven, has
to be given higher priority as I showed. Particular attention should also be paid to the employees
from the production department, as they are most often focused on the technical side of (T)QM
which often affects their consideration of the soft – HR-related – side of quality manufacturing.

5. Limitations and Further ResearchThis study is not without limitations. Specifically, it is important to take into consideration thefact that this paper uses data from the initial stage of my systematic literature review only. In otherwords, this study has not addressed the entire QM literature pertaining to the importance of
HRM/HRD to quality manufacturing. At the same time, in order to obtain reliable and valid
findings, I have also included a number of studies from the HRM literature that have addressed
modern QM approaches and their impact on HRM/ HRD.
Regarding possible paths for future research, I argue that a deeper understanding of the
HRM practices undertaken by Japanese manufacturing firms is needed to better understand therelationship between QM and HRM. This proposition is primarily based on the fact that previous
research has already revealed the existence of institutional complimentaries between HRM
practices and production systems of Japanese companies; however, these complimentaries havebeen understudied. Moreover, given that the contemporary QM literature continues to ignore theimportance of HRM, I also urge consequent QM-related research to turn to the HRM literature
which, according to this synthesis, seems to have paid much more attention to modern QM
approaches such as TQM. Finally, even though not significantly relevant, it would be interesting
to have a more profound understanding of the fundamental changes in management philosophy
that the Bata Management System have elicited. In particular, a desk researcher analysis of the
QM initiatives at Bata’s factories may yield interesting insights into the HRD aspect(s) of his
management system.

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