Employee Training, Quality Management and the Performance of Australian and New Zealand Manufacturers

The paper examines the relationship between employee training and quality management practice by analysing data from a large cross-sectional study of Australian and New Zealand manufacturers. The paper examines two hypotheses that are used to explain the impact of training upon organizational performance the task effectiveness hypothesis and the strategic effectiveness hypothesis. Multiple regression analysis is used to test these hypotheses and to examine the impact of training and quality upon productivity, customer satisfaction and employee morale. Some support is found for both hypotheses of training effectiveness but employee training is found to have a more significant impact upon organizational performance when combined with Total Quality Management. The implications of this finding for the implementation of quality management programs are discussed and some further questions are posed for future research in this area.