Total quality management (TQM) is an approach to management embracing both social and technical dimensions aimed at achieving excellent results, which needs to be put into practice through a specific framework. Nowadays, quality award models, such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, are used as a guide to TQM implementation by a large number of organizations. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of empirical research confirming whether these models clearly reflect the main premises of TQM. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which the EFQM Excellence Model captures the main assumptions involved in the TQM concept, that is, the distinction between technical and social TQM issues, the holistic interpretation of TQM in the firm, and the causal linkage between TQM procedures and organizational performance. Based on responses collected from managers of 446 Spanish companies by means of a structured questionnaire, we find that: (a) social and technical dimensions are embedded in the model; (b) both dimensions are intercorrelated; (c) they jointly enhance results. These findings support the EFQM Excellence Model as an operational framework for TQM, and also reinforce the results obtained in previous studies for the MBNQA, suggesting that quality award models really are TQM frameworks.

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high per

This paper draws on the Organisational Growth and Development (OGD) lifecycle model to extend understanding of congruence or 'best fit' theory within strategic human resource management (SHRM) debates on the relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and performance. With reference to management control theory, economies of scale and the availability of specialist managerial skills, the paper hypothesises that while an HPWS-performance relationship might exist in small, medium-sized and large firms, the relationship will be stronger in large firms than in both small and medium-sized firms, and stronger in medium-sized firms than in small firms. Analysis of data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey demonstrates, however, that there is no association between HPWS and workplace performance in mediumsized firms, in contrast to the positive relationship between HPWS and performance found in large firms and between HPWS and labour productivity in small firms. KeywordsHPWS, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), performance, best fit, organisational growth and development

During the last decades, research on human resource management (HRM) has focused on examining the mechanisms that explain the effects of HR practices on employee performance. Drawing on the AMO model, our study constructs an integrative model to analyze the contribution of employees’ abilities, motivation and opportunities (employee AMO) to participate in the relationship between HRM and employee performance. In doing so, we test a multilevel model that analyzes the top-down influence of three HR bundles (skill-, motivation-, and opportunity-enhancing) on employee AMO, and the bottom-up contribution of these three employee-related variables on their collective performance. We use matched data from 83 HR managers, 83 R&D managers and 262 R&D employees in a sample of Spanish firms. Our results provide evidence that the skill-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR bundles increase both employee abilities and motivation; the opportunity-enhancing HR bundle also contributes to increasing employee opportunities to participate.

Drawing on the contextual perspective (Johns, 2006), this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self-efficacy and flexible role orientation (Parker, 2000). Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self-efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.