THE IMPACT OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT ON EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND HOW THIS AFFECTS JOB SATISFACTION

Abstract The concept of quality has been in existence since the concept of Taylorism championed the attainment of quality through inspection (Connor, 1998). A boom of this concept in the nineties brought about the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement, while the creation of the Baldrige award has motivated more firms to adopt the practice of TQM in their operations. TQM requires the involvement of every employee in the organization. It also involves the use of teamwork for continuous improvement. This paper seeks to investigate how employee involvement and teamwork affects the concept of quality and how this relates to the employee job satisfaction in the Ghanaian context. The analysis of data from 40 employees in four different companies supported the predictive relationships of Total Quality Management, Teamwork, Employee Involvement and Job Satisfaction. An interview of the operations managers of the four firms were used to validate this data. In an attempt to find the relationship between the said variables, the study established a discrepancy between available literature and what actually exists in the Ghanaian context. In conclusion, TQM success was significantly related to Employee Involvement and Job Satisfaction but not Teamwork.