Factors Influencing the Use of Quality Costs in TQM Environments: Evidence from Japan

44 Pages Posted: 6 Aug 2009 Last revised: 13 Jan 2010

See all articles by Takehisa Kajiwara

Takehisa Kajiwara

Kobe University - Graduate School of Business Administration

Date Written: December 2009

Abstract

This paper examined some of the factors that influence the use of quality costs in TQM (Total Quality Management) environments by using survey data collected from Japanese manufacturing firms. The management accounting and quality management literatures suggest that TQM requires a greater emphasis on nonfinancial performance measures, such as defect rates, cycle time, and customer satisfaction, in order to identify the sources of defects, monitor the consequences of improvement activities, communicate strategic goals, and motivate employees to improve the quality of products and process. Some argue that traditional management accounting practices based on mainly financial performance data are too slow and aggregated to support TQM practices and nonfinancial performance measures should be emphasized to overcome the shortcomings of traditional financial based performance measures. Contrary to previous study, this study indicates that quality costs are used in particular situations even in TQM environments. Specifically, the results show that firms with high degree of quality risk, shortened product development cycles, inspections and interdependence among units are likely to use quality costs in TQM environments. This study contributes to existing literatures by providing empirical evidence on the factors influencing the use of quality costs in TQM environments. The results of this study provide a new insight about the choice of performance measures in TQM environments.

Keywords: Total quality management, quality costs, conformance costs, nonconformance costs

JEL Classification: M46, M41, M47

Suggested Citation

Kajiwara, Takehisa, Factors Influencing the Use of Quality Costs in TQM Environments: Evidence from Japan (December 2009). AAA 2010 Management Accounting Section (MAS) Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1444763 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1444763

Takehisa Kajiwara (Contact Author)

Kobe University - Graduate School of Business Administration ( email )

2-1,Rokkodai,, Nada-ku
Kobe, 657-8501
Japan
+81-78-803-6988 (Phone)
+81-78-803-6988 (Fax)

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