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Bringing Japanese Continuous Improvement Approaches to U.S. Manufacturing: The Roles of Process Orientation and Communications *
Author(s) -
Choi Thomas Y.,
Liker Jeffrey K.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5915.1995.tb01442.x
Subject(s) - process (computing) , sample (material) , orientation (vector space) , business , quality (philosophy) , process management , association (psychology) , variable (mathematics) , core (optical fiber) , key (lock) , computer science , operations management , industrial organization , telecommunications , economics , psychology , mathematics , computer security , mathematical analysis , philosophy , chemistry , geometry , epistemology , chromatography , psychotherapist , operating system
Continuous improvement (CI) has played a key role in Japan's quality management. U.S. companies have begun to adopt CI in recent years. This paper studies the implementation of CI in seven U.S. manufacturing companies. We view values as the core concept of culture that impacts CI effectiveness. Using both qualitative and quantitative data with a sample of seven companies, we observe empirically a relationship between process‐oriented values and CI effectiveness. We also find that communications involving workers is strongly associated with CI effectiveness. Finally, we find an association between process orientation and communication frequency, and argue that communications act as an intervening variable between process orientation and effectiveness.