Technique for pre‐implementation assessment in total quality programs

This paper shows that the current quality literature does not consider all factors that affect quality program implementations. Employee perceptions of quality differ across organizational levels. It is clear that these differing perceptions of quality affect the success of a quality program implementation. Therefore, we propose the use of Q methodology as an effective method for understanding the perceptions of those individuals who will be taking part in a quality program implementation as well as for identifying supplemental training needs. In addition, we give an actual example of how this method can be used in a quality program implementation. This research is important because it shows the need for pre‐implementation assessment within the company and a generalizable tool that readily accomplishes this task.