V ALIDATION OF Q UALITY C ULTURE F RAMEWORK P ROPOSED F OR L IBYAN M ANUFACTURING C OMPANIES : L EADERSHIP V ARIABLE

: The paper validates the Leadership variable of the quality management system (QMS) framework proposed for Libyan manufacturing companies. Five Libyan companies participated in the validation process, and followed the implementation process for a period of six months. Self-assessment had been designed based on literature reviews and author previous researches. Pre-implementation leadership values obtained in this study less than 50% of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award scores (MBNQA), these scores reflect the need to concentrate on both senior leadership and governance and societal responsibilities to improve the leadership criterion. The leadership values obtained six months after-implementation ranges from 33 to 58%. Four companies have an effective systematic approach which is responsive to the basic requirements of the leadership item, and their position in leadership item is equivalent to companies who are in the early stages of deployment. Meanwhile, one company has an effective systematic approach which is well developed and responsive to the requirements of leadership item.


Introduction
Quality management systems (QMS) implementation programs have been considered by many researchers through several years, all have studied the issue from different points, and explored different point of views. Tata and Prasad [1] suggested four steps for QMS implementation, and advised companies planning to implement QMS to go through certain processes of diagnosing culture and structure, determine match between organisational culture / structure and QMS strategy, designing content of change, and deciding how to implement the change. Najeh and Kara-Zaitri [2] stated that applying self-assessment tools within manufacturing organisations is a crucial factor for QMS in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya. Another study conducted by Sayeh et al. [3] concluded that before thinking of implementing a QMS approach within Libyan manufacturing industries, it is advised to understand the dominant culture within the related organisations, this is in line with the findings of Bugdol [4] who stated that Polish companies including their organisational culture and current methods of human resources management should become a positive aspect of the continuing process of QMS implementation. In recent researches, the author found that Libyan national and organisational culture are not suitable for QMS implementation [5], and proposed a QMS framework includes the necessity for culture change [6], and suggested an implementation flowchart to be followed for successful results and a detailed pre-validation processes [7,8]. Chin and Dale [9], and Chin and Pun [10] achieved full implementation of their QMS framework in Chinese manufacturing companies within a twelve month period, where on the other hand, Ab Rahman and Tannock [11] validated their QMS framework in Malaysia within a six months period. Based on time limitations for this study, the author decided to conduct the validation processes within six months period, with an assessment procedure every three months of implementation. The author conducted an interview with a number of Libyan manufacturing companies managers [12], and requested the participants to participate in the quality culture implementation processes. The validation processes continued with five companies shown in Table 1, which completed the full implementation period of six months. All five companies participated in the validation processes are large size companies, and expected to be more able to adopt quality practices than smaller companies. The author presented the aim of conducting the case study to the top managers, and requested the top management of the five companies to assign a research coordinator to help the author in conducting the validation test. The top managers agreed and arranged a research coordinator to help conducting the study in their companies. It is advisable for organisations to carry out a simple self-assessment of their current status in terms of organisational performance and resources available before starting the implementation. According to their current status of quality practices, individual organisations can choose the appropriate starting point to implement quality culture. In facilitating the adoption of quality practices, companies need to assess their current status in terms of organisational performance and resources available. Chin and Dale [9] suggested a 5-level possible current QMS implementation status, which needs to be evaluated prior to QMS implementation and during different stages of implementation. The 5-levels are namely the unaware, uncommitted, initiators, improvers, and achievers, and suggested a scoring scheme for these levels as in Table 2. Organisations are considered unaware if they are not familiar with the basic concepts, practices, and tools and techniques of continuous improvement. Uncommitted organisations have some understanding of QMS, and may give impression that they have implemented QMS, but no real changes have been made. Organisations are considered initiators if they are aware of continuous improvement, and are in the earlier stages of putting the basic elements of QMS in place. They still need guidance in facilitating the QMS adoption process. Organisations that have made real progress and moving in the right direction of continuous improvement, but they still have a long way to go, they are considered to be

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improvers. These organisations are often vulnerable to short-term pressures and unexpected difficulties. Achievers are those organisations who have reached a point of QMS maturity, and attained the kind of culture, values, trust, relationship and employee involvement required to attain the internationally recognized standards or specific quality excellence awards [9,10].

Data Collection, Analysis and Results
A QMS self-assessment is designed based on the work of Ab Rahman and Tannock [11], Ab Rahman [13], Jung et al. [14] and Lau et al. [15]. The major aim of the assessment processes is to evaluate the company's quality practices status by company's management in different time intervals to diagnose the company's quality status and success. MBNQA [16] indicated that a process item leadership score of 50% represents an approach that meets the overall requirements of the item, and deployed consistently to most work units that has been through some cycles of improvement and learning, and addresses the key organisational needs. The author had suggested that all companies evaluate their companies simply by scoring the appropriate scale which represents the status of their companies prior to the implementation of the quality culture framework [7,17] .The main reason for this assessment was to diagnose the status of MBNQA Leadership criteria before quality culture implementation for comparison with afterimplementation results. Quality culture implementation process is implemented in the five chosen Libyan companies and results had been analysed and summarised in Table 3. First assessment represent preimplementation assessment which is conducted before starting the validation test, second assessment represent quality practices status of the company after three months of implementation and third assessment represent the company's final quality practices status after six months of implementation.
The mean values of the three assessments of leadership element in the five Libyan industrial companies are shown in Table 3. The values indicate that all five companies improved their leadership status by time. According to the assessment scores used in this study, the minimum possible score for leadership criterion is 24 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120. Through the analysis of feedback data from all five companies, as in Table  3, the author summarised the results and remarks in the following points:  Leadership pre-implementation assessment Companies OG1, OG2, CE2 and IS1, scored respectively values of 32, 32, 27 and 27 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represents respectively 27, 27, 23, and 23% on MBNQA scale. Since the percentage of leadership value in all four companies are less than 27.5, this means that it is apparent that companies OG1, OG2, CE2 and IS1 are in the beginning of a systematic approach to the basic requirements of the leadership item, and that the four companies position in leadership item is equivalent to companies who are in the early stages of deployment. Company CE3 has a greater and better leadership score value than the other four companies. It scored 46 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represents 38%. It is apparent that this company has an effective and systematic approach which is responsive to the basic requirements of leadership item, it seems also that some work units are in an equivalent position of early stages of deployment [16]. The author concludes from Table 3 and Figure 1 that all companies scores less than 50% of the MBNQA score. These scores reflect the need to concentrate on both senior leadership and governance and societal responsibilities to improve the leadership criterion.

 Leadership three months after-implementation
After three months of quality culture implementation, leadership criterion seems to be improving in all five companies with different rates. Company CE2 is improving with a slower rate than the other four companies, it scored 32 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represent 27%. Since the percentage of leadership value in this company is less than 27.5, this means that company CE2 is in the beginning of a systematic approach to the basic requirements of the leadership item, and that its position in leadership item is equivalent to companies who are in the early stages of deployment. Companies OG1, OG2, CE3 and IS1 scored respectively 38, 42, 53 and 37 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represents 32, 35, 44 and 31% respectively. It is apparent that these companies has an effective and systematic approach which is responsive to the basic requirements of leadership item, it seems also that some work units are in an equivalent position of early stages of deployment [16]. The author concludes from Table 3, Table 1 and the above discussion that all companies scores less than 50% of the MBNQA score, which means that all five companies did not meet the overall requirements of the item leadership. These scores reflect the need to concentrate on both senior leadership and governance and societal responsibilities to improve the leadership criterion.

 Leadership six months after-implementation
After six months of implementation, leadership criterion again seems to be improving in all five companies with different rates. Companies OG1, OG2, CE2 and IS1 scored respectively 53, 48, 40 and 48 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represents 43, 40, 33 and 40% respectively. Company CE3 is improving with a faster rate than the other four companies, it scored 69 out of the maximum MBNQA score of 120, which represent 58%. The author concludes from Table 3, Figure 1 and the above discussion that four companies scores less than 50% of the MBNQA score, these companies are OG1, OG2, CE2, and IS1, which means that these four companies did not meet the overall requirements of the item leadership.
Only company CE3 met the overall requirements of the item leadership with a MBNQA percent rate of 58% [16]. The author concludes from Table 3 and Figure 1 that four companies scores less than 50% of the MBNQA score, these companies are OG1, OG2, CE2, and IS1, which means that these four companies did not meet the overall requirements of the item leadership. Only company CE3 met the overall requirements of the item leadership with a MBNQA percent rate of 58% [16]. Similar researches in evaluating MBNQA leadership criteria have been conducted in different countries (e.g. China, USA, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore). These researches found a high score level in leadership criteria, which scored a range of 72 to 94% as been summarised in Table 4. Companies in these countries seem to have an effective systematic approach which is well developed and responsive to the multiple requirements of the leadership. The approach is well deployed with no significant gaps [16].