2014 Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 1-19
Two data sets of worldwide field research on high performance manufacturing plants, taken before and after an interval of 10 years in the end of the 20th century, are analyzed. A contribution of intra-organizational communication activities to quality-creating performance at a manufacturer is investigated. A two-step approach is tried; a static analysis and then a trial analysis of time-dependent phenomena are performed. The first part is to reinforce the preceding static studies on the “parallel gap phenomenon” in intra-organizational communication and quality-creating performance. The second part is a trial study to analyze the time-dependent behaviors of intra-organizational communication activities and qualitycreating performance for 24 Japanese plants. Static and dynamic features are clearly observed; the quality-creating performance significantly depends on the intra-organizational communication activities at manufacturers. A good state of intra-organizational communication may lead an effective management of the quality-creating activities in organizations to achieve the high level performance.