Abstract

It has been said that academia has lagged behind practice in the development of quality management methods and philosophies, yet academia has done a good job of propagating these concepts. Now academic research has developed two new concepts that will influence the future of quality management - organizational context and contingency theory. Organizational context concerns business related factors and variables that influence the adoption of quality approaches. Contingency theory recognizes that business contexts are unique and require different approaches in response to varying business needs. These two concepts are important to understanding how to implement quality processes, because one size does not fit all.