The Xerox company, in the 1980s, experienced the sort of problems faced by many companies in a changing economy--sharply declining market share and declining profits. The company addressed its problems with a management change, altering the leadership style and the way the leadership viewed the business climate and addressed business problems and issues. The result was a more successful operation. Other companies have used similar strategies to reshape management for a leadership structure more dedicated to quality than to responding to crises. Part of this effort included downsizing the workforce, and this was one of the first Fortune 500 companies to undertake this strategy. It involved a shift in the corporate culture in several ways, some deliberate, some a function of the move itself, and some simply a consequence.
Rank Xerox is part of the multinational parent company, Xerox Corp., and both faced a decline in profits after having been the market leader in plain paper copiers. The company was not prepared for the influx of competition from Japan. Xerox decided on a survival strategy involving quality improvement both as a marketing goal and as a process for internal change, and this approach has helped revitalize Xerox's approach to marketing, human resource management, and operations around the world. The method undertaken is called leadership through quality, and it corresponds to a management approach known as total quality management (TQM). In this regard, Xerox has succeeded against an increase in competition from Japan by borrowing certain management ideas from Japan and turning them to new use.
Another approach used early to respond to the competitive crisis was a joint union/management initiative called Quality of Work Life, an employee involvement strategy designed in imitation of Japanese quality circle concepts. Under this process, Xerox employees participated in influencing their work activities and w...