The Quality Management System as a Driver of Organizational Culture: An Empirical Study in the Portuguese Textile Industry

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Portuguese textile industry in which way quality culture influences the organization's performance. Thus, it was created an investigation model made up of three hypotheses. The aim was to obtain the interconnection among "error detection culture, error anticipation culture, creative culture, and continuous improvement, and finally performance". Methodology/Approach: A questionnaire tested before in similar studies (Cameron and Sine, 1999; Costa, 2008; Leal, Roldan and Acedo, 2002), was sent to 71 companies. The questionnaire was structured in three sections. The geographic area chosen for analysis was the North of Portugal. Were received 60 valid answers, which represents a sample with a percentage of 84.5% of useful answers. Findings: The results show that the existence of strong interconnections for the "error detection culture negatively influences performance" and for the "creative culture and continuous improvement" positively influences performance. Many companies of this research are managed according to reactive quality cultures. They are still oriented by values and attributes that should be improved in the paradigm of quality management. Research Limitation/implication: The study is limited to a geographic area, designated Northern Portugal. Originality/Value of paper: From the obtained results it was found the existence of a dominant quality culture (the error detection culture). This means that Portuguese textile industries, and others industries in another countries, with the "error detection culture", are oriented by quality values which must be improved.