| Popis: |
This chapter aims to provide conceptual tools for the analysis and management of quality in small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). To obtain this objective we have, firstly, examined the different approaches in the field of quality management (QM), from the stages corresponding to inspection and to statistical quality control, up to strategic quality management. Secondly, as a framework for placing some of the approaches to QM, we have revised the core characteristics of four approaches to strategic management: the entrepreneurial school, design school, strategic planning school and the learning school. The contents of these four approaches to strategic thought and the extent to which they intervene in each case, constitute the strategic framework of the model of quality analysis and management that we present under ‘contingencies, organization and strategies: second model’. Thirdly, we carry out an analysis of the factors that condition the functioning of a company — contingency factors — relating them to two fundamental design variables: level of centralization and degree of formalization-standardization. This all forms a theoretic framework, that integrates concepts that are dispersed in different thematic fields, allowing us to have a comprehensive view of the contents of the different approaches and of management tools. |
