Kordupleski, Raymond E., Rust, Ronald

Kordupleski, Raymond E., Rust, Ronald T. And Zahorik, Anthony J. (1998). Why improving quality doesn't improve quality (Or whatever happened to marketing?). California Management Review; 35(3). 82-95.

Fairly commenting on an investigator's research endeavor is a task that must be taken seriously. Although it is quite easy to have an opinion of another's research, it is something quite different to be able to evaluate the research activity in terms of topic specificity and soundness, intent or purpose, data analysis, and informational importance. When embarking upon a critical analysis of another's work the reviewer must, at all times, adhere to the basic principle of prudent evaluation; namely, evaluating the structure of the research upon which scientific conclusion are drawn. More specifically, the function of a research report (article) is to inform readers about the problem being investigated, the methods used to solve the problem, the results of the investigation, and the conclusions being inferred from the results. In essence the report is a critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses or limitations of a study. The printed manuscript is to inform the reader, as expeditiously as possible, what was done, the outcome of the doing, and the investigator's conclusion. The remainder of this review will be an analysis of a particular professional article wherein a marketing concept was presented and evaluated, namely quality programs and process improvement techniques.

When a manuscript is presented to the public or professional audience the first words a reader is drawn are those in the title of the article or report. Depending on what is included in the title will oftentimes determine whether or not a potential reader will read all that is contained in the manuscript. To this end the author or authors of a research report must, in the beginning, clearly define those concepts contained in the manuscript title. The authors claimed, by way of title, that the reporting of their information would be in the area of "quality" in marketing. Sometimes, however, a "catchy" title can become a significant enticement to spur the reader to read a manuscript regardless of how well or how poorly an article is written. Setting this aside, the thoroughness of overall content presentation is the most pivotal criteria for evaluating a professional journal article.

Kordupleski., Rust, and Zahorik, begin their presentation by informing the reader that many quality programs are oftentimes disastrous because those presenting the program fail to see the business world from a reality point-of-view, namely, "failing to look out the window." The authors firmly place blame on the failure of quality programs by placing too much emphasis on the internal process and not enough on the customer. With this thesis at the forefront the authors spend the rest of their presentation on informing the reader how internal process improvements can be linked directly to the external customer.

According to the authors most quality improvement programs are set up as market and customer driven, as well as customer oriented. However, failure of these quality improvement programs rests in a program's inadequacy to be customer oriented and more focused on a market driven orientation. The authors further their argument of quality improvement program failure by alerting the reader that failure is highly impacted by the omission of marketing personnel in the development of the program itself. According to the authors most quality improvement programs rest entirely upon the knowledge and input of quality control engineers, manufacturing individuals, operation managers and human resource personnel - all without the input of marketing sophisticates. The authors end their statement of quality improvement process failure by asking the question "Why are marketing people not more involved in quality improvement?"

Once the above question is presented by the authors, the reader is led to believe that a presentation will be made with respect to marketing's impact on quality improvement process programs. What follows, however, is a lengthy, and almost personal, discourse on customer oriented quality improvement programming without mention of specific marketing input. In fact from page 84 through 87 the word "marketing" fails to appear. The presentation becomes simply one of restating the basic intent of all quality improvement process programs, namely, issue, resources, data collection, and actions to be taken. Knowing that customer input is an exciting manner in which to get everyone involved in a quality improvement program should have been the focal point of the authors' written presentation.