I am a full-time academic and experienced researcher who has worked at a top business school in the UK. I have held a number of consultancy positions in companies in which I have worked as a Senior Research Consultant, providing reports for FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies.

"TQM gives HRM the opportunity to play a more strategic role in the organisation": discuss.

According to Cole (1998), Total Quality Management (TQM) became increasingly adopted and institutionalised during the 1980s despite TQM programmes being, "totally divorced from any strategic corporate initiatives" (Cole, 1998, p. 70). Whilst there has been much debate on the success of TQM between proponents (Becker, 1993; Wilkinson et al., 1994; Hendricks & Singhal, 1999; Zairi, 1999) and critics (Binney, 1992; Brown, 1993), there is growing evidence of its links with strategy, as well as its strategic importance (Powell, 1995; Bennett & Kerr, 1996; Hermel, 1997). The links between TQM and strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) have also received much attention (Clinton et al., 1984; Wilkinson et al., 1991; Simmons et al., 1995), whilst the SHRM literature has focused on two prominent models of SHRM, the "matching" and "resource-based" models (Bratton and Gold, 1999). In order to understand the opportunity TQM might offer HRM in playing a more strategic role in organisations four key questions must be addressed: First, what does strategic management mean to organisations in today's turbulent environmental context? Second, how does the literature on SHRM help to explain how HRM fits within this competitive environment? Third, what are the characteristics of TQM and what is its relationship with SHRM? Finally, does this evidence suggest that TQM will provide HRM with an opportunity to play a more strategic role in the organisation?

What does strategic management mean to organisations in today's turbulent environmental context?
According to Stacey (1993), firms have moved from a state of stable equilibrium, where success required harmony, consistency, stability and regularity, to a position far-from-equilibrium. Here, "successful organisations operate in states of bounded instability" (Stacey, 1993, p. 246), embracing the strategic paradox of maintaining consistency and stability in daily operations, whilst continually innovating to remain dynamic enough to be successful over time. With this change in organisational reality, the focus of competitive strategy is also changing.

There is now greater acceptance that organisations can no longer simply rely on the prescriptive Porterian (1985) view of strategic management, which is, "to establish a profitable and sustainable position against the forces that determine industry competition" (p. 1). In addition, organisations should adopt both a resource-based view (Barney, 1991) and a relational-based view (Dyer and Singh, 1998). The resource-based view recognises that organisations build competitive advantage through, "accumulating resources and capabilities that are rare, valuable, non-substitutable, and difficult to imitate" (Dyer and Singh, 1998, p. 660), whilst the relational-based view suggests that organisations should embrace co-operative strategies and strategic alliances to agglomerate resources across organisational boundaries (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Embracing these strategies will help organisations identify a profitable industry position that mitigates against the negative effects of market structure (Douglas and Ryman, 2003.

Whether as strategists we adhere to the prescriptive or descriptive school of thought, Bratton and Gold (1999) suggest that the strategic management process contains five phases that are similar although slightly more encompassing than the five strategic planning steps discussed by McKenna and Beech (1995). These are organisational direction, environmental analysis, strategic formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation (Bratton and Gold, 1999). Where SHRM resides within this process depends upon the model of SHRM, whether matching or resource-based, which an organisation subscribes to.

How does the literature on SHRM help to explain how HRM fits within this competitive environment?
Strategic HRM permeates, and is determined by, all levels of strategy, whether at the corporate, business, or functional-level (Purcell and Ahlstrand, 1989). However, the role that HRM plays within the strategic process may differ between organisations. Its links with business strategy can be seen in terms of Hydd and Oppenheim's (1990) proactive-reactive continuum, in which the HRM practitioner is either integrated into the strategy process (proactive) or is an outsider, devising policies and practices to complement strategy at the corporate and business level (reactive). This leads us to the matching and resource-based models of SHRM.

The "matching" model of SHRM fits with the Porterian view of strategy and the reactive role of HRM. Here, SHRM must, stimulate and reinforce different employee role behaviours" (Bratton and Gold, 1999, p. 47), which fit with a particular generic competitive strategy, whether "low cost", "differentiation" or "focus" (Porter, 1980; 1985), by matching an organisation's "five Ps": the philosophy, policies, programs, practices and processes of the organisation. According to this view, organisations that fail to match competitive strategy with their internal HRM strategy will experience, "role conflict and ambiguity that can interfere with individual performance and organisational effectiveness" (Schuler, 1989, p. 164). This view of SHRM can be criticised for many of the same reasons as traditional strategic management, where organisations operated under conditions of stable equilibrium, in that its approach is highly rational, assuming that people can simply be, "deployed, developed, motivated and controlled" (Bra tton and Gold, 1999, p. 49) as the external environmental demands. However, continually striving to "match" can lead to "excessive fit", undermining a firm's ability to innovate, and prepare itself and respond to open-ended change situations, where knowledge of external shocks is simply unknowable (Stacey, 1993). This leads us to the resource-based model of SHRM, underpinned by the resource-based view of the firm, discussed earlier.

The resource-based model of SHRM places greater emphasis on the "soft" view of HRM (Bratton and Gold, 1999). Under this model, SHRM is proactive, and central in aligning business strategy and improving organisational performance over the long-term (Cappelli and Singh, 1992; Purcell, 1995; Kamoche, 1996). Employees are seen as a "human assets" rather than a cost to the organisation (Bratton and Gold, 1995). Here, HRM helps to leverage the tacit knowledge residing in employees, which represents a core competence that, "can form the basis of competitive advantages" (Lei et al., 1996). The function of HRM is to help build core competences through continual "workplace learning" practiced at the individual, group and organisational level (Spikes, 1995), which can further reinforce "cultural control" (Legge, 1995).

This initial understand of strategic management and SHRM is essential to a wider understanding of the influence TQM might have on HRM within the strategy process because of the role TQM plays in the strategy process. According to Leonard and McAdam's (2002) "strategic", "tactical" and "operational" level categorisation of the link between TQM and the strategy process, TQM permeates all five levels outlined by Bratton and Gold (1995), discussed earlier. The relationship between strategic management, SHRM and TQM is therefore intertwined. In order to discuss this relationship further, the characteristics of TQM and its effects on the HRM function are addressed.

What are the characteristics of TQM and what is its relationship with SHRM?
In essence, TQM is, "a company-wide perspective that strives for customer satisfaction by seeking zero defects in products and services" (Clinton et al., 1984, p.10). The TQM philosophy focuses on quality as a business imperative in which all employees are charged with satisfying customer needs, whether these customer groups are internal or external to the organisation (Clinton et al., 1984; Wilkinson et al., 1991; Ho, 1999). Such an approach comprises both "hard" and "soft" aspects, the former emphasising the employment of production, process, procedural and statistical-based techniques to improve the satisfaction of customers, whilst the latter focuses on creating customer focus within the workforce (Wilkinson et al., 1991).

According to Wilkinson (1992), implementing TQM within an organisation has extensive implications for HRM. He emphasises that TQM requires "self-control, autonomy and creativity among employees…calling for greater active co-operation rather than mere compliance" (p. 323). Whilst this may be necessary if TQM is to be successfully implemented, Seddon (1989) notes that support for TQM initiatives tends to diminish with time as a result of management failure. This failure results from a focus on the harder aspects of TQM, such as cost control and production performance, at the expense of the softer aspects. This ignores the importance that managing employee values and behaviours has on TQM success because of the critical need to install a TQM culture throughout the organisation (Wilkinson, 1992; Blackburn and Benson, 1995).

According to Blackburn and Benson (1995), if TQM is to be successful, the HR function should construct a blueprint of TQM through which its activities can be guided. Such a blueprint should consist of four main tasks: writing of an HR mission statement, benchmarking HR policies against leading TQM organisations, identifying internal and external customer needs, and re-engineering work processes. Here, the strategic intent underlying TQM becomes apparent in terms of its external and internal organisational focus. More broadly, TQM and HRM are strategic in terms of their wide organisational scope (Deming, 1986; Guest, 1989; Schuler, 1992), which suggests that, "individual policies and practices should be linked to overall management strategy" (Simmons et al., 1995, p. 75). More closely, the links between SHRM and TQM can be analysed under four functional areas (Simmons et al., 1995): work organisation; planning and staffing; performance appraisal and remuneration; and training and development. These are addressed next.

In terms of work organisation, SHRM and TQM are closely linked. Both SHRM and TQM focus on the value derived from teams and flexible working practices, job analysis and job redesign (Rothwell and Kazanas, 1989; Saunders and Preston, 1994). TQM aims to identify and eliminate bottlenecks and irrelevant work practices, and streamline procedures by examining job content and work systems. In order to do this, HR managers and specialists need to become empowered to, "initiate programs and commit resources that increase the department's responsiveness" (Blackburn and Benson, 1995, p. 70). Here human resource planning and staffing play a strategic role in ensuring recruitment and selection procedures source individuals whose goals and values fit with the TQM philosophy, and whose attributes suggest they will be suited to a flexible, team-based environment. As part of this recruitment and selection process, TQM requires HR specialists to work closely with line managers, where HRM plays a more decentralised, strategic role. Such a relationship is necessary in order to ensure employees are properly trained in TQM techniques, and monitored and rewarded appropriately (Blackburn and Benson, 1995). Indeed, a number of TQM supporters point to the danger of performance appraisal leading employees away from practicing appropriate TQM behaviours (Scherkenbach, 1985; Deming, 1986; Walton, 1990). This further highlights the critical role SHRM must play in ensuring that the HR system is compatible with TQM so that employees are rewarded for the right behaviours.

Does this evidence suggest that TQM will provide HRM with an opportunity to play a more strategic role in the organisation?
For an organisation to compete successfully, it is clear that it must consider both the external, Porterian view of the firm, as well as the internal, resource-based and relational-based views. This has an impact on the role HRM plays in an organisation's strategy process. On the one hand, organisations can choose whether HRM is to play a strategic role at the functional level, being reactive to corporate strategy, which fits with the matching model of SHRM. Alternatively, organisations may prefer HRM to play an all-encompassing, proactive role in which it becomes highly integrated into corporate strategy, underscored by the resource-based model of SHRM. This choice will determine the extent to which TQM provides HRM with an opportunity to play a more strategic role in the organisation. After all, TQM affects the strategy process at all levels. In terms of HRM, it impacts upon an organisation's culture, as well as its work organisation; staffing and planning; performance appraisal and remuneration; and training and development policies and practices. Organisations that fail to embrace the softer side of TQM see their initiatives lose momentum and interest. As such, if organisations are to successfully implement TQM, which may lead to some form of competitive advantage, they cannot only practice SHRM at the reactive, functional level. Instead, TQM requires organisations, or to put it another way, presents them with an opportunity, to play a more proactive, integrative role in the strategy process through corporate, business and functional levels.

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