Abstract
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.
