TQM For Accounting
TQM For Accounting
TQM For Accounting
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318707680_The_Concept_of_Total_Quali
ty_Management_In_Accounting
Irina PROTOPOPESCU
Corina IOANAS
Iulia JIANU
Adriana Florina POPA
Gabriel RADU
The Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest
ABSTRACT:
While most executives rely on their reasoning and on the idea promoted by the modern
management concepts, it is generally accepted that the possibility of assessing the economic
benefits either in advance or even retrospectively is almost impossible. This paper intends to
present a model for explaining and predicting the management decisions using the accounting
information. For serving this purpose, we bring to attention the concept of the Total Quality
Management, analyzing it from an organizational perspective. The developments, the
application and the assessment of Total Quality Management techniques inside the enterprise
result in a more effective utilization of specific knowledge in decision making leading to an
increased efficiency an in the same time the improvement of quality and performance. The
concept proposed to analysis is not new, what is new is its connection to accounting as a
relevant provider of information.
KEYWORDS
The starting point I our study is to present the concept of quality. Garvin proposes five
different approaches of the quality concept (Garvin D.A., Competing on the eight dimension
of quality, Harvard Business Review, No 11-12/1987):
1. According to the first approach, the quality can’t be precisely defined, it is both absolute
and universally recognizable, a mark of high achievement. Quality is synonymous with
superiority or excellence.
2. The second approach considers the quality a function of a specific, measurable variable,
differences in quality reflecting the differences in the quality of some attributes of the
product.
3. A third approach defines the quality starting from the client’s satisfaction. Therefore,
quality is defined as fitness for intended use, or how well the product performs its intended
function. This kind of approach is very important from the managerial point of view,
underlying the client’s importance. Basing its analysis on the strategy of improving the
offered value to the client, Bounds realizes a comparison between the old and the new
approach regarding this strategy (Bounds G., Yorks L., Adams M., Ranney G., Beyond total
quality management. Toward the emerging paradigm, New York, Mc Graw-Hill
International Editions, 1994):
4. The fourth approach places the quality concept next to those of cost, price and value.
Developing this aspect we can associate the concept of quality with the one of performance:
the enterprise shows performance if it is profitable, competitive and able to offer quality to
its clients (Jianu I., Evaluarea, prezentarea şi analiza performanţei întreprinderii, Ed.
CECCAR, Bucharest, 2007).
An enterprise is profitable when it sets a sale price higher than the cost of the product. In
order to be competitive, the enterprise must set this price under the value atributed to the
product by the client. Still, the profitability and the competitivity ensures performance only
for the shareholders. For the enterprise to be performant also for its clients, it must provide
quality products. Inside the enterprise price policy, the required price by the producer stands
between the inferior level of the costs and the higher one of the estimated value, acceptable
by the buyers. Setting a price under the unitary cost goes to the impossibility of the
economical survival of the enterprise, the same as setting the cost over the value estimated
by the buyers brings the cease of sales and the disappearance of the demand.
5. The fifth approach follows the definition of the quality from the producer’s point of view.
Quality is the desirable outcome of engineering and manufacturing practice, or
conformance to specifications.
The philosophy of the TQM system is based on the following quality vision – the quality
perceived by the client. In our attempt of explaining this concept, we must pay attention to the
following definitions:
• The quality is the compliance with the needs – meaning that in order to achieve a certain
level of quality, a company must set at first the specific needs of the segment of consumers,
for whom the product or the service are designed and then the entire activity must be
subordinated to the achievement of this purpose (Crosby P., Quality Is Free, McGraw-Hill,
New York 1979).
• The quality is the ability of usage – the accent is placed on the product or service usage, but
also on the client’s satisfaction. (Juran J., Quality Control Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New
York 1974).
The company can’t exist without clients, that’s why it must use all the necessary means for
satisfying their needs. In this regard, the president of Procter&Gamble shows that total
quality means to have specific knowledge and to use them for transforming the clients’ needs
in new products and new approaches in business. Based on this definition we can define the
quality as the degree of satisfaction given to the clients by a product or a service.
Stanciu I. associates the TQM concept with the „excellent” grade and proposes a new scale of
quality, presented by us in this study (Stanciu I., Managementul calitătii totale, Ed. Cartea
Universitară , Bucharest 2003):
The zone of total quality 3 EXCELENT The client is very satisfied, he refuses
to go to another competitor
The zone of client inveigling 2 VERY GOOD The client is satisfied, but another
competitor can attract him.
The zone of indifference 1 GOOD The client is undecided, but the
company does not win him.
The red zone 0 ACCEPTABLE The client is critical, he is demanding,
openly complaining and chooses
another competitor.
The excellence in quality consists of the company’s ability to obtain profit, in the same time
with assuring the satisfaction of the clients’ needs and with achieving the “no defects”
objective: no scraps, no repairs, no inventory, no production delays, no payments delays, no
faulting, no complains, no reception errors, no returns, no unfavorable publicity, no reasoning
errors, no accidents, no contempt (Crosby P., Quality is free, McGraw-Hill, New York 1979).
Accordingly, the key concepts of TQM are: excellence, the overcoming the clients’ needs, no
defects.
Dale B. proposes four strategies of developments of the quality management (Dale B., Total
Quality Management: An Overview - Managing Quality, Prentice Hall, New York 1994): the
inspection, the quality control, the quality assurance and the management of the total quality.
The inspection refers to activities like the measurement, the examination, the testing of one or
many characteristics of the product or the service for comparison with the specific
requirements in order to assure the accordance.
The quality control contains the techniques and the operational activities used for
accomplishing the quality requirements, among which we can mention: the change of quality
responsibility from the controlling department to the production one, as well as the
appearance of mechanisms of gathering of information for analyzing them in order to improve
the products and processes.
The quality assurance represents the planned and systematically realized activities, necessary
to offer an adequate level of confidence that a product or a service satisfies the quality
requirements. We talk about prevention of errors, demission of their causes in order to
achieve the necessary level of trust, the measurements of the quality costs and so on.
The total quality management involves the global appliance of the management principles in
side the company. We can notice here that the word “all” used in relation with the total
quality management doesn’t refer to the quality definition of “the totality of the features and
characteristics of a product that contribute to the satisfying the explicit and implicit needs”,
but to “the management”.
The companies admit that the quality of management is as important as the management of
quality, this concept being named “the Big Q” or “managing for quality in all organizational
processes”.
The system of standards ISO 9000 was firstly published in 1987. These standards provide a
general conceptual and methodological framework of systematic approach of the quality,
inside which the Quality management is defined as a set of actions of the general
management function which determines the quality policy, aims and responsibilities and
realized them within the framework of quality by planning, control, ensuring and improving
the quality.
The reviewing of ISO 9000 in 2005 leaded to the following definition of the quality
management: coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regard to
quality. By certifying the quality system by a approved body, respecting the ISO 9000
standards give the clients the required degree of certainty that the quality requirements are
respected. All the factors that can influence the technological process are considered: the
environment, the management, the people, the raw materials and other consumables.
The main reasons invocated by the companies that adopted ISO 9000 are: the assertion to the
client, the positive perception of the company regarding the quality improvements and the
decrease of costs, as well as the marketing image obtained as a result of the acknowledgement
of the above mentioned standard. Presently, three new directions of development of the
standards system: the improvement of the quality management; the continuous improvement;
the clients’ expectations and the feedback from the market (Young W.K.C., The Values of
TQM In the Revised ISO 9000 Quality System, International Journal of Quality and Reliability
Management, nr. 2, 1997).
Quality management represents both a philosophy and a method of management, designed to
provide evidence that a specified standards of quality has been met and is being continuously
improved. Quality management includes all the activities that managers carry out in an effort
to implement their quality policy and quality objectives. These activities include: quality
planning, quality control, quality assurance, quality improvement, quality management
system, quality audits, quality tools (ISO 9000). According to this standard, the management
quality is based on eight principles (http://www.iso.org/iso/fr/iso9000-
14000/understand/qmp.html):
1. Customer focus: organizations depend on their customers and therefore should
understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and
strive to exceed customer expectations;
2. Leadership: leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They
should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can became fully
involved in achieving the organization’s objectives;
3. Involvement of people: people at all levels are the essence of an organization and their
full involvement enables their abilities to be esed for the organization’s benefit;
4. Process approach: a desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related
resources are managed as a process;
5. System approach to management: identifying, understanding and managing interrelated
processes as a system contribute to the organization’s and efficiency in achieving its
objectives;
6. Continual improvement: continual improvement of the organization’s overall
performance should be a permanent objective of the organization;
7. Factual approach to decision making: effective decisions are based on the analysis of data
and information;
8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships: an organization and its suppliers are
interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to
create value.
What is TQM? On short, it is a new philosophy of running the business, the only way of
surviving in the competitors fight, an assembly of techniques and methods used in order to
increase the competitiveness of a company, by continuously improving the quality of the
products and the services. If the others can, why can’t we? This was the question raised by
the American companies in the ’80 as a consequence of their removal from the market by the
Japanese ones, due to the quality of products. The paradox of the Japanese miracle appeared
because of the knowledge about the quality transmitted in the ’50 by two American savants,
when they set the program of the economic boom of Japan after the war. The accent was
placed on the high quality of the products.
The concept of total quality management was developed by the Naval Air Systems Command
to describe the Japanese-style approach to quality improvement and became popular with the
businesses in the USA during the 1980s (Paunescu C., Quality Management, Ed. ASE,
Bucharest 2006). Therefore, the total quality management is defined as a management
approach that tries to achieve and sustain long-term organizational success by:
- Encouraging employee feedback and participation;
- Satisfying customer needs and expectations;
- Respecting societal values and beliefs; and
- Obeying governmental statutes and regulations.
Studying the British quality standards, Rusu B. identifies the following TQM definitions
(Rusu B., Managementul calităţii totale în firmele mici şi mijlocii, Ed. Economica, Bucharest
2001):
- A management philosophy, that includes all the activities through which the needs and
expectations of the clients, of the community and the objectives of the organization are
fulfilled in the most efficient way and with the lowest costs, by maximizing the potential of
all the employees by a continuous effort of improvement – BS 4778;
- A management philosophy and the associated practices inside the company, focused on the
optimal development of the human and material resources of an organization in order to
achieve its objectives – BS 7850;
We can observe from the previous definitions that the total quality management doesn’t only
follow the client’s gratification, but also the achievement of the company’s objectives, which
refer to the interests of other actors involved: shareholders, employees, community.
TQM is a powerful long-term strategy used by the company for a continuous improvement of
the products and services quality, as well as of the ability of the management to satisfy the
clients’ needs and, in the same time, to create appropriate terms for increasing the
productivity and the profit (Stanciu I., Managementul calitătii totale, Ed. Cartea Universitară ,
Bucharest 2003). At the same time, the author considers that TQM is based on five
principles:
1. The management through realizable and long-term objectives, expressed by measurable,
inherent and accepted indicators by the entire personnel inside the company;
2. The compliance in all the developed activities (marketing – design – development –
execution - delivery) with the explicit and implicit requirements of the clients;
3. The prevention of the possible defects;
4. The adoption of the “no defects ”doctrine;
5. The quality measurement by splitting the costs in prevention costs, evaluation costs and
retrieval costs (before and after delivery at the client).
TQM refers both to the technical and social aspects. Technically speaking, the necessary
conditions must be created for providing a high level of quality. Socially speaking, the
training and the motivation of the employees must be assured. The employees’ training
assumes the accumulation of knowledge and skills for using the TQM tools. The motivation
means that every individual follows five things: the payment, the professional improvement,
the working environment, the consideration and the work interest (Levering R., Moskowitz
M., The 100 Best Companies to Work For In America, Currency Doubleday, New York
1993).
If the profit represents approximately 10-15% from the turnover, the weight of the non-quality
costs is 25% for the manufacturing companies and almost 40% for the services providers
(Crosby P., Quality is free, McGraw-Hill, New York 1979). The non-quality costs can be
measured and unmeasured, examples being easy to be given in this regard.
The measurable costs of the non-quality could be:
- The cost of repeating the wrongly done works;
- The discounts granted for minor defects;
- The cost of the refused products for non-quality;
- The cost of the errors inside the orders;
- The cost of lawsuits started by clients for damages provoked by products sold with defects;
- The expenses and investments done for the evaluation of the product quality in order to
detect the errors;
- The cost of reporting higher inventories of raw materials for a quick correction of the effects
of low quality production.
As non-measurable costs of the non-quality we can mention:
- The loss of an order, a client or a market as a negative result of the sale of low quality
products;
- Reorganizations decided for adapting the inefficient activities.
The TQM must identify these costs inside the company and adopt decisions for eliminating
them. That’s why the distinction between the measurable or non-measurable non-quality costs
has little relevance.
4. TQM IN ACCOUNTING
The Management of Total Quality is management system based on human resources that
consists of a continuous progress on the client’s behalf, at the lowest cost. The term of
“client” is generally used here: the clients are the entities or the persons, which use the
product or the service. In this regard, the final consumer is the essential client and the seller is
a client as well. Inside the company every service is “client” on one side and “supplier” for
other services on the other side. In the same way, every employee is “client” and also
“supplier” for his colleagues. Being guided by this logic, accounting is the one that provides a
service and the users of the accounting information are the “clients”.
Information has a cost, and one kind of information may be more costly to provide than
another. Thus cost is an important factor in the choice of alternative sources of information.
As accounting has the purpose to offer useful information for decision-making, it has to
provide valuable ones. Valuable information is an accounting sense is that which relates to the
decisions taken by users of such information. And these decisions are likely to vary from user
to user. If we refer to financial accounting, among the users of the information we mention:
- The shareholders, which are interested by the profitability of the company, as well as of it’s
ability of paying dividends or to increase the value of a share;
- The banks and the suppliers, which firstly analyze the ability of the company to honor its
short-term liabilities;
- The government, which is interested in the information related to the computation of the
taxes.
Along with these users we must not forget the employees and the public in general.
TQM in accounting implies the integration of the variable “environment” in the financial and
managerial accounting that will lead to a new accounting. We take the right to name it as the
green accounting. The term of “green accounting” can be used in different contexts and with
various senses.
- In the context of the national accounting, the green accounting is called the accounting of
the natural resources and has a macroeconomic dimension. It provides information about
the consumption, the quantity and the quality of the natural resources, redeemable or not;
- In the context of the financial accounting, the green accounting refers to the financial
estimation and reporting of the environmental costs and the related liabilities, accordingly to
the accounting standards;
- In the context of the managerial accounting, the green accounting is oriented towards the
providing of necessary information for the economic decisions regarding the investments,
the production level and structure, starting from the environmental costs associated to an
organization/department/production line/system.
The accounting professionals, no matter if they are accountants, controllers, financial auditors
or regulators, show interest to this new “revolution” that will change the content of their
mission, their practices and the perimeter of their responsibility in the close future.
The definition of this accounting implies more levels (Lafontaine J-P, Les techniques de
comptabilité environnementale, entre innovations comptables et innovations managériales,
Revue Comptabilité, Contrôle, Audit, May 2003). According to the first level, the green
accounting has the role of systematically taking into consideration the facts related to the
protection and the reconstruction of the natural environment, by respecting the traditional role
of accounting of considering the flows and the risks related to the natural environment, in
order to communicate the users a fair value of the company. This limited role already raises
many practical problems, because the relations between the company and its natural
environment are complex and always refer to the ecology notion. According to the second
level, the green accounting overcomes the traditional mission of recording the flows and the
risks and of presenting them in the financial statements. It should consider not only the
recording of the company’s activities already produced consequences on the natural
environment, but also the administration of the taken actions in order to avoid such incidents.
The third level increases the action field and considers the green accounting much more than
a passive instrument of recording the immediate or future flows, certain or potential. It is also
considered a lever of instigation of the company to activities and strategies of the sustainable
development. Currently, there are question marks about the relation between the above-
presented definitions and the accounting. The answer is affirmative for two reasons: firstly,
they are part of an accounting information system and secondly, the accounting professionals
show interest in them.
Green accounting is dedicated to the external users, but also to the internal administration of
the company. The external green accounting implies the disclosure of the information about
the natural environment inside the financial statements (by introducing a green position in the
balance sheet, in the income statement or in the explanatory notes), the intermediary
managerial balances (by determining the net current value that takes into consideration the
natural resources consumption) the annual activity reports and specific reports regarding the
natural environment, that refers to the improvement of the information provided to users and
that should be regulated or standardized.
The voluntary publishing of some information related to the natural environment can be
considered an element of the accounting policy of the company. A distinct report on the
natural environment can be included in the annual report for example, presenting the
company’s policy related to the environment, its objectives in figures, the means of appliance,
the obtained results and the commitments in the field of environment protection (Antheaume
N., Le rapport environnement/ développement durable, Revue Francaise de Comptabilité,
June 2003).
The European recommendation 2001/680/CE enounces the users of this report as follows
(www.europa.eu.int): the local communities, the clients, the employees, the financial
institutions, the investors, the insurance companies, as well as other social groups, like the
consumers, their representative bodies, as well as the nongovernmental organizations that
operate in the natural environment field. Countries like Denmark and France impose or are on
the edge of imposing the content of the environment report. The European listed companies
have to present this report. While the internal communication in the environmental maters
allow the employees sensitization to the objectives of the company’s environment, the
external communication of the information show a prove of the preoccupation of the company
towards the interested external parties, offering as well a responsible image of the company
with favorable impact at the end on the products and services provided.
The internal green accounting has the main objective to provide usefull information for
decision-making. For instance, the eco balance sheet allows the measurement of the product
impact during its entire life time on the environment (Paugam R., Peut-on additionner les
pollution?, Revue Francaise de Comptabilite, June 2003).
The price and the products mix decisions impose the knowledge of the environment cost
allocation between products on one side and the manufacturing processes on the other side.
Choosing the mix of products need the correct estimation of the demand, the production
constrains and of the product profitability. The choice of the cheaper raw materials can imply
high environmental costs (usage authorizations, surveillance, scrap elimination) that can make
them expensive. Therefore, the company can decide to take an antipollution measure,
expenses at a first sight, but less burdensome at the use. The cost of the environment
protection should be included in the price of the product, which will lead to its increase. If its
competitors don’t apply the same environmental measures, the company could have an
unfavorable position, due to the higher prices. Ignoring the these costs restrict the managers in
the decisions taken, because they are not aware of the potential of obtaining a “clean”
production in the increase of the profit
In this study we underlined the increased importance of the TQM concept inside the
company. We presented different ways of applying the above-mentioned concept. We showed
as well that a change of the accounting system as a result of the appliance of a total quality
management would bring to faster adoption of the “clean” and ecological production
technologies. From the studies realized internationally results that, despite the increased
number of companies that consider that the impact of the activities on the environment is
extremely important, very few companies have a well set system which can allow the clear
identification and the performance measurement from an ecologic point of view.
REFERENCES
Bounds G., Yorks L., Adams M., Ranney G., Beyond Total Quality Management. Toward the emerging
paradigm, New York, Mc Graw-Hill International Editions, 1994
Dale B., Total Quality Management: An Overview - Managing Quality, Prentice Hall, New York 1994
Decock Good C., Georges L., Gestion des ressources humaines et performance économique: une étude
du bilan social, Revue Comptabilite, controle and audit, November 2003
Garvin D.A., Competing On the Eight Dimension of Quality, Harvard Business Review, Nr. 11-
12/1987
Jianu I., Evaluarea, prezentarea şi analiza performanţei întreprinderii, Ed. CECCAR, Bucharest 2007
Levering R., Moskowitz M., The 100 Best Companies to Work For In America, Currency Doubleday,
New York 1993
Paugam R., Peut-on additionner les pollution?, Revue Francaise de Comptabilite, June 2003
Rusu B., Managementul calităţii totale în firmele mici şi mijlocii, Ed. Economica, Bucharest 2001
Stanciu I., Managementul calitătii totale, Ed. Cartea Universitară , , Bucharest 2003
Young W.K.C., The Values of TQM In the Revised ISO 9000 Quality System, International Journal of
Quality and Reliability Management, nr. 2, 1997
http://www.iso.org/iso/fr/iso9000-14000/understand/qmp.html