Managing performance in quality management: A two-level study of employee perceptions and workplace performance | Emerald Insight

This paper illustrates how control in quality management can be effective. Although the merits of performance management are subject to ongoing debate, arguments in the literature have tended to focus on performance appraisal. Analyses of economy-wide data linking performance management practices, within quality management, to employee perceptions of work conditions, well-being and aggregate performance are rare.

The use of practices in workplaces is inconsistent with a unified performance management approach. Distinct outcomes are expected from separate components in performance management and some may be contingent on workplace size. For example, within quality planning, strategy dissemination is positively associated with workplace productivity; targets are negatively associated with perceptions of job demands and positively correlated with job satisfaction, which in turn can increase workplace productivity. With respect to information and analysis: keeping and analysing records, or monitoring employee performance via appraisals that assess training needs, are positively associated with workplace productivity and quality.

The purpose of this paper is to address potential effects of the control element in quality management. First, behavioural theories on how elements of performance management can affect organisational performance are examined. Second, theoretical models on how perceptions of work conditions may impact well-being and performance are considered. Direct and indirect pathways from performance management to productivity/quality are inferred.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), the Economic and Social Research Council, the Commission for Employment and Skills and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research as the originators of the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS) data. The Data Archive at the University of Essex is acknowledged as the distributor of the data and the National Centre for Social Research as the conductor of the survey fieldwork. None of these organisations bears any responsibility for the analysis and interpretation of the data in this study. The authors are grateful for the support from the Universitat Jaume I (Ref. UJI-B2017-21), and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain and FEDER (ECO2015-66671-P) (MINECO/FEDER) and PGC2018-099040-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE).