Abstract for: A Case Study of the Value-driven Feedback System for Quality Culture Improvements in the Project-based Organizations

Project-based organizations (PBO) refer to a variety of organizational forms that involve the creation of temporary systems for the performance of project tasks. In recent decades, PBOs have received increasing attentions as an emerging organizational form. Previous studies have demonstrated that PBO has its characteristic so that managerial polices for the organizations should be specifically reinvestigated. One of the management challenges comes from the nature of short- term project businesses that doesn’t encourage long-term and organizational quality culture developments. Compared with the conventional concept of top-down total quality management empowered by top manager’s support and leadership, this paper introduces the bottom-up and self-motivated approach to improve organizational quality culture and performance. Systems thinking is employed in this paper to explore a total quality assurance system with value-driven reinforcing feedback systems and its real practices in Taiwan. Effectiveness of the proposed quality policy as well as the lessons learned from the case study are also discussed for supporting the development of total quality management philosophy in PBOs.