Analyzing the effectiveness of quality management practices in China Sarah Jinhui Wu n , Dongli Zhang Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University, 441 E. Fordham Rd., Bronx, NY 10458, United States article info Article history: Received 7 November 2011 Accepted 9 February 2013 Keywords: Quality management practices Exploitation Exploration National culture abstract This study examines the effectiveness of different quality management practices in firms operating in China. Following March’s framework, quality management practices are organized by two orientations—exploration vs. exploitation. We investigate whether exploitative-oriented quality practices are more effective than exploratory-oriented quality practices or vice versa in China. Data were collected from quality managers of companies located in seven areas in China. Structural equation models were used to assess the effectiveness of explorative quality practices and exploitative quality practices on multiple performance dimensions. Overall, exploratory-oriented practices contribute more towards most of performance goals than exploitative-oriented practices. We further explain the research findings from the national culture perspective in the sense that the current Chinese national culture profile is dramatically different from the traditional wisdom, particularly in power distance. The results provide an insightful guideline for quality managers to allocate scarce resources to make quality practices more effective in operations sites in China. It offers a new focus of launching quality management practices in a specific cultural environment. & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Quality management (QM) practices have long been argued as being conceptually interdependent (Anderson et al., 1998; Flynn et al., 1994), yet empirical studies showed that the effects of some practices are significant while those of others are minimal (Dow et al., 1999; Foster, 2006; Powell, 1995; Sousa and Voss, 2008). Though this should not be interpreted as meaning one set of practices should be chosen over another, it in fact, may suggest that some QM practices are more effective than others under certain conditions and there exists a strategic focus in QM implementation. Recent studies (Flynn and Saladin, 2006; Kull and Wacker, 2010; Metters, 2010; Naor et al., 2010) have drawn attention to national culture as a factor to influence QM effectiveness and to explain performance disparity. National culture is developed as a result of shared experiences of inhabitants of a nation, including educational, governmental and legal systems, family structure, religious patterns, literature, architecture, and scientific theories (Hofstede, 1994a, 1994b). Scholars argued that many QM implementations have failed because of the ignorance of culture factors (Flynn and Saladin, 2006; Kull and Wacker, 2010; Zhao et al., 2007). Motivated by the potential influence from national culture per- spective, we take the approach recommended by Metters (2010) by looking deeply into a specific culture to explore whether certain QM practices are more or less effective. China caught our attention for three reasons. First, China has long been viewed of having a different cultural environment as compared to the Western countries where most quality management studies have been conducted (Metters, 2010). Second, the magnitude and rapidity of change in China’s economic development is historically unprecedented and such economic development might have shaped the Chinese culture in one way or another. Yet, none of the literature provided an updated view of Chinese culture and the inferences based on the old cultural profile may be irrelevant or even misleading. Thus, studying this specific environment will provide more insights into how to effec- tively implement QM from a cultural perspective. Finally, as more and more foreign companies seek supply chain partners and locate their production sites in China, it is crucial to understand the Chinese culture and the corresponding implications to quality management practices to ensure a company to achieve its performance objectives. The purpose of this study is to explore which type of quality management practices contribute more towards the desired operational performance goals for firms operating in China. In order to achieve the maximum benefit of quality practices, companies need to understand the different purposes of QM practices. Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to QM may not lead to optimal outcomes; and thus different companies may need different approaches to manage their quality programs. Given that quality management is essentially a continuous improvement program with learning as its core, March’s (1991) framework provides a useful lens to distinguish quality manage- ment practices into exploitative-oriented and explorative-oriented Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe Int. J. Production Economics 0925-5273/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2013.02.015 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 718 817 4156; fax: þ1 718 817 5544. E-mail addresses: jiwu@fordham.edu (S.J. Wu), dzhang@fordham.edu (D. Zhang). Please cite this article as: Wu, S.J., Zhang, D., Analyzing the effectiveness of quality management practices in China. International Journal of Production Economics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2013.02.015i Int. J. Production Economics ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]