Quality management and employee commitment illustrated with examples from Dutch health care.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the relationship between quality management and employee commitment.


METHODS
Analysis of the state of affairs with respect to (T)QM programs in The Netherlands based on the literature and interviews with key informants.


RESULTS
Description of an approach that tries to integrate employee commitment and quality management based on the concept of employees' psychological contracts with their organization (ideas about mutual obligations between them and their employer).


CONCLUSIONS
The interviews with key informants provide limited information: the study is done in only one country. Research in a broader context and on a larger scale would give a more general overview.


CONCLUSIONS
The crucial factor in making quality management work can better be described by "quality fails when employees' psychological contracts are neglected" than by "quality fails when the system fails".


CONCLUSIONS
This paper highlights the essential relationship between quality management and employee commitment and offers suggestions on how to approach this issue.
Schalk
René
R
Department of Organization Studies, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Van Dijk
Wim
W
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D013222:State Medicine; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration*