TQM
TQM
This paper aims to review the literature of Total Quality Management (TQM) and organizational
performance. Indeed, in any organization, the concept of development is considered to be the
most important element that every part of the organization is seeking to speed up and elevate its
quality. It is usually that organizations seek to reach the optimum level of performance and
support employees with all the tools and ideas to generate a better performance and a more
suitable environment for them to work better and harder. This arises from the fact that
organizations are aware of the fact that a better performance can lead to a better customer
satisfaction and to a lower cost. With the emergence of total quality management techniques and
in accordance with the idea of a better performance leads to a better customer satisfaction,
organizations have started to combine the Total Quality Management standards and the
performance development ideas knowing that fathering between the two may reach to a place of
enhanced performance.
Introduction
Every day, the expectations of the customers are developing and elevating, and it has been an
organization's dream to meet its customers' expectation in terms of the quality of the
product/service that it presents. Not to mention the density of competitiveness that is taking place
between producers and service providers which has helped in intensifying the concept of higher
quality and better performance. From that point, organizations have begun looking for more
efficient and sustainable systems to reach the level of higher quality in accordance with the better
performance that appeared to be attached to the high quality in many ways.
Along with the competitive and the ongoing trials to reach the level of good quality, and within
the deep understanding that the good quality is somehow attached to the good performance of
both the employees and the organization; the concept of quality has taken a spread reputation of
being the healing tool to many of the organizational flaws. Loffler (2013) defined the concept of
quality in his study as the level of satisfaction that customers hold on a certain product/service, in
another meaning, the author has taken the concept of quality from the customers' perception
which is basically every organization's aim. Another study by Pryor and others (2010) defined
quality as the ability of a certain product/service to achieve the implied or stated requirements
and be able to satisfy customers and the quality in that case has to be tested and judged before it
reaches the customer from the first place. Another definition for quality was brought by
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Goetschand Davis (2014) which stated that quality is the state of conformity of the previously set
requirements within the product/service. What this definition presented is the idea of conformity,
which is somewhat related to process of testing, trying and focusing the results of the
product/service before it reaches the end user.
This paper reviews literature on Total Quality Management and organisational performance.
First, concepts of quality, and total quality management are explored alongside the history and
evolution of Total Quality Management with a view to provide the context of the study. Next, the
TQM practices/principles are explored as revealed in the academic literature with references the
impact of these practices are suggested in previous studies. This is in recognition that TQM
principles and practices form an integral part of TQM and implementation of these principles and
practices may impact the project/organization performance. Worth noting is that TQM practices
are also important to firms that aim at achieving organizational performance. As will be
demonstrated in the literature review, the successful implementation of TQM practices or
principles may facilitate the airline’s quest to achieve improved performance. Next the paper
explores the implementation of TQM practices in various airlines and the link between TQM
practices and project performance as revealed from the literature. In particular, it discusses the
possible link between TQM practices and organizational performance as revealed in the previous
literature.
What is Quality
A definition for quality was brought by Goetschand Davis (2014) which stated that quality is the
state of conformity of the previously set requirements within the product/service. What this
definition presented is the idea of conformity, which is somewhat related to process of testing,
trying and focusing the results of the product/service before it reaches the end user.
Total quality management as a managerial term is considered to be the natural extension of the
implemented effort in developing the service/product and enhancing it which started with
Frederick Taylor and the way he management to form performance improvement principles, and
followed by Max Webber and his hierarchal formation of the bureaucratic theory within the field
of tack distribution and the idea ended with Mayo and his friends in the humanitarian relations
which have founded the connection between the performance and the satisfaction of the workers
within the work environment not to mention the nature of the relations between the workers and
their managers. This idea have helped from the first place in articulating the relation between the
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performance from one side and the leadership style from the other and reached to the Japanese
intellectuals who found the basics of the total quality management and the best ways to improve
it.
The use of the concept of quality is traced back to World War II. It was first used in Japanese
Industry following the breakdown of their Telecom network. The Japanese industry and the
American Allied forces held that the key reason for the breakdown of the telecom
communication was because of low quality of Japanese telephone network (Benavides-Velasco
et al., 2014). In response, the two made efforts to apply rectify the problem by applying modern
methods of managing quality i.e., quality inspection. For this reason, monitoring activities were
made to be exclusive tasks of functional and additional hierarchical units with quality inspection
becoming a purely technical function (Yağar, 2007). This way, quality inspection was meant to
help detect high quality and acceptable products and allow them to pass while stopping
unacceptable low quality products. The quality of production was determined by the percentage
of products that were acceptable (Kahreh et al., 2014). Quality products were those considered to
conform to requirement. These were specified technical characteristics that were used to define
the requirements of a quality product. Quality inspection did not have implication for
productivity since it solely focused on the final outcome or product. Technical specified
standards and norms were the key management instruments used as the basis for conducting
quality inspection (Green, 2012). In post-war Japan, Western Europe and the U.S., quality
inspection played an important role of creating common industrial standards and norms.
However, the shortcoming of the process of quality inspection was that it was impossible to
conduct total quality inspection of all products. Conclusions made from small samples were also
not seen as truly representative of all the products (Al-Zoubi, 2012). Consequently, quality was
inaccurate because the percentage of detecting defective products using the quality inspection
method was low. To overcome this shortcoming, quality inspection was advanced into statistical
quality control. Deming (a U.S., quality expert) strongly influenced this transitioning from
quality inspection to statistical quality control. Deming believed that variation problems and the
causes of variation needed to be considered. In particular, Deming distinguished between random
mistakes such as bad quality input factors and systematic mistakes committed by machines and
people (Harrington et al., 2012). The statistical methods (i.e., sampling methods) were suggested
as the key management instruments. Armaments were produced in large numbers in Great
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Britain and the U.S., during the World War II and this encourage the use of statistical quality
control. However, statistical quality control required specialized inspection departments and
focused on final products. The early statistical quality control systems were characterized by an
environment of “basic needs era”. As such, the priority in this era was fulfilling the basic needs
and individuals goals (Ashley, 2008). This was made possible with the production of goods on
large scale. The price of products on markets was a decisively a competitive parameter. The key
function of producers in terms of quality was producing a quality product at a minimum cost.
The concept of quality control and quality was only adequate for search goods or goods for
which the consumer could investigate their characteristics before purchasing them. An example
of goods that could fall into the search goods was the Ford Tin Lizz (Bhatand Rajashekhar,
2009). Quality from this producer-oriented perspective was defined as features of a service or
good corresponding to certain predetermined description of service or good to be produced. In
this sense, quality was considered an objective concept as the quality was judged based on
quantifiable figures. Product quality was assessed based on specialized functional divisions,
which from the worker’s perspective is the third-party assessment. It was also a static view in
which technical conformance was emphasized (Ashley, 2008).
The meaning of quality changed to quality as “fitness for use” in 1950s following the change in
the environmental conditions. During this period, organizations were required to manage
external systems not internal systems. The new definition of quality meant the organization
meeting various customers’ objectives (Vassilakis and Besseris, 2009). To achieve this, the
quality management started focusing on quality assurance, which involves focusing on
preventing quality problems via systematic and planned activities (Madar, 2015). The focus was
now on the production process rather than the end product. Quality improvement occurs by
conducting a root cause analysis, which is aimed at continuously raising the quality of the
product and to adapting to customers’ changing needs. Customers’ behaviours are determined by
creating a critical attitude toward the technical progress and increasing material well-being in the
“growth era” (Lazur et al., 2013). Markets are characterized by shorter product cycles and
globalization.
Low prices are not considered sufficient to help attract customers. Quality has become the
strategic goal and competitive parameter for companies. The types of products produced also
changed. The service sector became larger but at the expense of experience goods becoming
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more important. Experience goods are goods that are too expensive, impracticable, and too
impossible to investigate before purchasing. This has implication for judging quality which is a
function of individual expectations and perceptions (Al-qahtani, and Al-methheb, 2013). This
vision of consumer-oriented and subjective quality measures quality as fitness for use at the
effect-level. For the system-oriented quality assurance, it was assumed that it was everybody’s
job to maintain quality. In practice, the practice and responsibility of quality assurance shifted to
top management from the inspection departments. Thus, from the operational level perspective,
the assessment concept may be referred to as the third-party assessment (Vassilakis and Besseris,
2009).
Market research uses methods like quality function deployment and plays an important role in
companywide-quality-control (Koh and Low 2008). Companywide-quality-control suggests that
all functional employees and divisions are responsible for meeting requirements for customers in
a production process. In this management system, quality is a key success factors and a strategic
business issue for long-term competitiveness. The change in the external environment may
explain the evolution of the concept of quality as a technical term serving the technical function
to the strategic business function (Madar, 2015). The “quality era” is characterized by
competition through quality and the general awareness and consciousness of quality among
customers. Today, the service economy is a subjective concept because it is not based on
standardized production processes rather on personal company-customer relationships.
Comprehensive quality management concepts such as company-wide-quality-control combine
the customer-oriented quality assurance and the producer-oriented quality control concepts and
introduce the ides of customer-orientation into the production process. Quality assessment
process is based on self assessment since it requires customer requirements to be met at all
production process phases with every employee ensuring products have all the quality
specifications required. In the literature, the TQM and company-wide-quality-control are
described as being synonymous. There are important differences even though the emphasis and
approach is similar (Kohand Low, 2008). Company-wide-quality control concept was introduced
in 1968 by Ishikawa. Ike Juran’s quality, the quality requirements of quality in Ishikawa are
translated into technical specifications and derived from individual needs. However, customer-
orientation refers to both the internal and external customer with the whole company being
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interpreted as consisting of a network of customer-relationships (Al-qahtani and Al-methheb,
2013).
Understanding Total Quality Management
The basic characteristics of TQM are shown to include customer focus, people-come-first
approach, leadership of the management, permanent improvement, use of information and
analysis, strategic and quality planning, employee training, supplier integration, full
participation, and team work (Sureshchandar et al., 2001).
Total quality management is one of the most popular and durable management concepts
(Benavides-Velasco et al., 2014). QM is a collection of principles, techniques. n today’s
businesses there is a growing recognition with in the manufacturing sector that isolated
improvements in particular aspects of business are no longer adequate and that a holistic strategy
is needed to bring competitive advantage in the market place and this can only be achieved by
adaptation of total quality management which is not just concerned with services and process
development and customer delivery but also with the relationship with suppliers, customers,
commercial and managerial processes and the contribution of all employees no matter where
ever they work in the organization processes, and best practices that over time have been proven
effective (Shan et al., 2013).
Total Quality Management (TQM) has evolved in four stages: Quality Inspection, Quality
Control, Quality Assurance and Total Quality Management. Quality management has been part
of human activities as long as one can recall. However, the first evident quality management to
be applied in the practice occurred in 1910s in Ford Motor Company in its production of the “T”
model car. Ford Company employed teams of inspectors to test or compare product in
accordance with the project standards (Ali, 2008). Inspectors compared the product to the set
project standards in all stages covering production delivery and process (Ali, 2008). The aim of
conducting the inspection was to separate poor quality products detected by inspectors from
acceptable quality products and either scrapping, reworking or selling them off as lower quality
at lower prices. The second stage of quality and TQM development came as a result of industrial
advancements. This stage was controlled through written specification, supervised skills, and
standardization and measurement. As manufacturing systems increasing became complex during
the World War II, inspectors started verifying quality. Inspection by statistical quality control
was developed as efforts aimed at separating the acceptable quality products from low quality
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unacceptable products (Mandaliya, 2013). The acceptance of sampling techniques and
development of control charts by Shewhart and Dodge-Roming in 1924-1931 helped further
advance TQM. Shewhart and Dodge-Roming demonstrated that quality control could be used to
separate and distinguish two types of variations in processes: variations due to random causes
and variations due to special or assignable causes. Shewhart indicated that it was possible to
make the process to function predictably through separating variation occurring due to special
causes. Shewhart further designed a control chart aimed at lowering evidence of non-
conformance and monitoring process control. The third level (i.e., quality assurance) of
development was the stage at which quality assurance consisted of all previous stages. This
provided sufficient evidence that either a service or product could satisfy the needs of customers.
Other activities including the using of cost of quality, auditing of quality systems, the
development of process control, and comprehensive quality manuals were developed in order to
help progress further to quality assurance era from quality control era of TQM. The emphasis of
change at this stage was on detecting activities and preventing poor quality. The last and final
stage was TQM. This stage involved understanding quality management concepts and principles
and implementing them in all aspects of the business. Table (1) highlights the evolution of total
quality management as a concept. There are ten major dimensions of quality management;
employees training, higher management commitment and assistance, quality of organization,
participation of employees, supplier quality management, continuous support, leadership,
enhancement in quality procedures, focus on customers, analysis and information, satisfaction of
employees, use of statistical techniques (Laohavichien et al., 2011). According to Zhang, et al.
(2012), there are eight dimensions of quality management practices. All the dimensions
elaborated were almost the same as identified by Lakhal and others (2006), except cross
functional quality teams. The role of cross functional quality teams is to create bonding between
employees working at different departments in the organization. We have used higher
management commitment, leadership, training and development, employees’ satisfaction and
enhancement in quality procedures in this study.
Higher Management Commitment
Top management support or higher management commitment exemplifies circumstances
involving the top management playing an active role in the functioning of the organization.
Teams’ formulation and dynamic leadership are the key attributes of top management support or
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higher management commitment. The commitment level of the top management shows how the
top management officials participate in the function of the firm at various levels. Moreover, by
job description, the top level officials are required to support employees in achieving the
organizational objectives.
TQM is the West’s answer to Japan’s company-wide quality control (CWQC). TQM’s
forerunner, TQC, had never been seen as anything other than the special responsibility of the
quality department. Management at all levels and in all departments just could not see that ‘total
quality’ can only be achieved with the active participation of management. A vital task for any
management is to outline quality goals, quality policies and quality plans in accordance with the
four sides of the TQM pyramid. This is extremely important –so important in fact that, in many
firms, top management (the board of directors) ought to review the firm’s quality goals and
policies and if necessary reformulate them so that they conform to the four sides of the TQM
pyramid. Just as important, these goals and policies should be clear and meaningful to all
employees I the firm. It is extremely important, for example, that the firm’s quality goals signal
to employees that the firm’s principal task is to satisfy its external customers and that this can
only be achieved if the firm is able to exceed customers’ expectations. This is discussed in
greater depth below.
The firm’s quality goals five all employees a clear indication of what is going to be achieved
concerning quality. The firm’s quality policies, on the other hand, describe in more detail how
employees are to achieve the goal. Quality goals and quality policies must be followed by
meaningful action plans. Experience from firms which have understood and realized the TQM
vision shows that firms ought to concentrate on short-term plans (one-year plans) and long-term
plans, the latter often being three-year plans which are revised annually in connection with an
annual quality audit.
Enhancement of the Quality Procedures
Quality procedural enhancement is a phenomena the altering of the functioning of the
organization’s conventional practices. Quality procedures can be upheld by following the
international quality standards. International quality standards such as ISO enable organizations
to systematically civilize their functioning (Flanigan, 2012). Improvement in quality procedures
lead to increased profitability and increased sales (Flanigan, 2012).
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Leadership
Leadership is cited as the most dominant and acknowledged dimensions of TQM strategy (Hitt
and Ireland, 2002; Aldmour et al., 2017). According to Hitt and Ireland (2002), the success of an
organization is largely determined by the ability of leaders to utilize both human and social
capital to create a competitive advantage. In view of Serin (2004), the top management
commitment and the organization’s leadership contribute towards the successful implementation
of the organizational program. Management leadership is largely based on teamwork spirit,
effective communication, participative decision making process, effective training of employees
and employee empowerment. The literature on TQM recognizes the relationship between the
firm performance and management leadership (Fuentes-Fuentes, and Lloréns-Montes, 2004).
Yağar (2007) holds that leadership plays an important role in quality improvement activities.
Senior executives are required to create clear and visible expectations and values. They are
required to “walk the talk” and demonstrate personal involvement in management and in quality
improvement activities. Leaders play a role during the implementation of QM (quality
management) systems in a firm. They provide vision, purpose and direction to employee and
foster business performance. Sureshchandar and others (2001) suggest that top management
commitment and leadership is the most crucial and critical prerequisites for organizational
success when implementing TQM. According to them top management commitment and
leadership offer the focal points for the hopes, energies, and people’s aspirations in organization
that implement TQM. Özgör (2008) stated that leadership is singled out at the key driver and
building block in various models including EFQM, Australian Quality Criteria Framework, and
the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. According to İnce (2007), in modern times top
management commitment and leadership is a condition for the successful implementation of
TQM in an organization. According to Aydın (2007), leadership helps managers to establish a
long-term partnership and relationship with stakeholders, customers and employees. Zehir and
Sadıkoğlu (2012) believe that the TQM implementation starts and ends with the top
management. Sadıkoğlu and Zehir (2010) support this view claiming that a good leader to lead
the organization to the successful implementation of TQM should be one who can facilitate
problem solving, foster teamwork, focus employees’ enthusiasm and attention on continuous
improvement, become an orchestrator and facilitator of group activities, gain follower
acceptance and recognition and be a facilitator and enabler of teams. Supporting Aydın, Üçüncü,
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and Taşdemir (2010), Rahman and Bullock (2005) assert that outstanding leaders may contribute
towards total quality management by functioning as cheerleaders, visible advocates, risk taker,
facilitators, and consensus builders, high energy visionaries, as key factors to stimulate an
innovative environment, and find other choices by logically analyzing alternatives. Rahman, and
Bullock (2005) emphasize that effective leadership is required to help an organization establish a
high performance delivery process and high performing culture that is necessary to create and
meet customer satisfaction requirements.
In view of Kannan and Tan (2005) the management arranges, controls, and does things right. On
the other hand, leadership sets the vision, unleashes energy, and does the right thing. This view is
also shared by Vanichchinchai and Igel (2011) who assert that the management has the
overriding role of providing consistency and order to institutions; while the leadership produces
change. Shahin (2011) sees leadership as the social influence process that involve an individual
influencing team members to voluntarily participate in a process with a view to meeting the
organizational objectives. Zhang, Linderman and Schroeder (2012) believes that successful
leaders vigorously exploit opportunities, anticipate change, correct poor performance, motive
followers to achieve high level of productivity, and lead the organization towards achieving its
objectives. Leaders should strive to improve performance, bring and inculcate the idea of
workmanship in worker, increase output and improve performance. This suggests that leaders
play an important role in ensuring that values and shared beliefs permeate throughout the
organization by demonstrating commitment to execution of task. They should show concern and
interact with other employees and promote core values of the organization. It is the responsibility
of leaders to effect changes needed to re-align an institution. This suggests that top management
commitment and leadership is driving force toward successful implementation of TQM.
Training and Development
The training and development sessions are of great meaning for the organizations. Employees are
major stake holders in the organization and their role in business functioning cannot be
neglected.
Providing them with adequate training and development measures cannot be sidelined. Firms
throughout the world focus on the training and development paradigm as several success stories
have been recorded after invading training and development session in the organizations. Quality
management implication cannot be initiated successfully if there are no prior training and
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development sessions held by the company. Training sessions also help employees to look upon
the bigger picture and help in bringing change into the organization (Phillips, 2012).
TQM Dimensions and Practices
Studies have identified that some of the TQM dimensions are regarded as the soft variables,
behavioural, intangible and consisting of human resource focus, customer focus, and leadership.
According to Lazur et al. (2013), these dimensions are invisible and directly impact on the firm’s
performance. According to Shanmuganathan et al. (2013), there are six dimensions used by most
researchers to evaluate TQM: information and analysis, customer focus, strategic planning,
leadership, people management, and process management (Prajogo and Sohal, 2003). Curkovic
etal. (2000) identified top management support, employee empowerment, and customer focus as
the most successful TQM dimensions. For Shenawy et al. (2007) (see also Hoang et al., 2006)
there is no single study that has explicated the main dimension of TQM and that this
inconsistency makes it difficult to identify the actual dimensions of TQM. However, for majority
of researchers, the most significant TQM dimensions include continuous improvement, customer
focus, top management support, and employee involvement (Prajogo and Sohal, 2003; McAdam
and Amstrong, 2001). Also, Information Systems (IS) and information processing are crucial of
applying electronic services (Altamony et al., 2012; Karajeh and Maqableh, 2014; Alenezi et al.,
2015, 2017; Tarhini et al., 2015; Khwaldeh et al., 2017; Tarhini et al., 2017a, b; Yassien and
Mufleh, 2017; Kanaan and Masa'deh, 2018), which in turn enhance organizational performance.
How TQM Influences Organizations' Performance
Studies seeking to determine the relationship between the organizational performance and TQM
have found mixed results with some demonstrating that certain elements/principles of TQM may
positively impact on the organizational innovative and financial performance. TQM is an
effective method of reaching what is ideal and for attaining perfection. It is a philosophy
consisting of principles aimed at improving the organization’s performance. It is the human
resource operation and quantitative method aimed at improving all processes in a firm. It is
aimed at helping the firm meet customers’ current and future expectations. It is applied as a
technical tool, and management technique to help improve the organization performance.
Fotopoulus and Psomas (2009) and Kumar et al., (2009) demonstrated the potential impact of
soft TQM practices including strategic quality planning, leadership, employee involvement and
management, customer focus, supplier management, process management, customer satisfaction,
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customer focus, and continuous improvement on quality management results expressed in terms
of market benefits (i.e., improved competitive position, increased profits, increased sales and
improved performance). Sadikoglw and Zehir (2009) and Brun (2010) studied the relationship
between organizational innovation and employees’ performance with total quality management
practices. The results show that different total quality management practices such as; training,
employee management, process management, leadership, supplier management, continuous
improvement, and customer focus have positive impact on employee performance, firm
performance and firm innovative performance.
In another study, Joiner (2007) examined the relationship between the implementation of TM
and organizational performance with co-worker support as the mediating variable. The result
supports the relationship between organizational performance and the implementation of TQM
practices.
It was concluded that organization support and co-worker support moderate the relationship
between organizational performance and TQM implementation. Citing preliminary evidence,
Joiner (2007) further indicated that firms that implement TQM may have a competitive
advantage over those that do not implement TQM. He also observed that organizations that
involve and motivates employees to work toward achieving quality output; focuses on
continuous improvement; and on satisfying needs of customers are more likely to outperform
those firms that do not focus on satisfying customer needs.
Raja, Bodla and Malik (2011) investigated the effect of TQM practices on an organizational
performance in manufacturing firms in Pakistan. In particular, Raja, Bodla and Malik (2011)
investigated the effect of TQM practices on customer satisfaction, product quality performance,
and financial performance. Results suggested that one of the TQM practices (i.e., top
management commitment) affect TQM implementation and that it affect the business
performance of manufacturing firms. Mehmood, Qadeer and Ahmad (2014) investigated the
relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance. They also focused on
investigating four TQM dimensions (employee involvement, customer focus, top management
support, and continuous improvement) as predictors of organizational performance. Regression
analysis revealed that employee involvement and continuous improvement are statistically
significantly positively related to organizational performance. Results of relationship between
top management support and customer focus were found to be not statistically significant. Aliyu
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(2016) investigated the relationship between three of the TQM management practices (i.e.,
management leadership, continuous improvement and customer focus) in Small and medium
Enterprises. The results of the study suggested that management leadership may significantly
impact on business performance of small and medium enterprises. The relationship between
continuous improvement and customer focus and business performance were not significant.
Akgün, et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between TQM and financial performance in
Turkish firms with business innovativeness and organizational learning capability mediating the
relationship between the two constructs. Their results suggest that the relationship between TQM
and financial performance is mediated by business innovativeness and organizational learning
capability.
In another study, Kurt and Zehir (2015) investigated the relationship between TQM, cost
leadership strategy, and financial performance. Their results suggest that there is a relationship
between TQM practices and financial performance. Other studies (e.g., Soltani et al., 2010;
Bayati, 2007; Salaheldin, 2009) investigated the effect of incompatibility of orientation of middle
and senior managers on TQM practices. They sought to find out the perception of senior
managers and middle level managers regarding the TQM practices and its impacts and
effectiveness. They observed that TQM largely driven by quality control approach and the
inspection approach. They also noted that TQM is still seen as based on cultural procedures and
dominated with high bureaucratic procedures, and that managers tend to focus more on control
rather than on longterm continuous improvement.
Total Quality Management in Airlines Enterprises
Many Airline enterprises across the world have implementing TQM practices in combination
with other strategies in a bid to achieve organization’s goal, and to improve the company’s
economic performance. TQM tool is believed to have the capability of bringing organizational
processes under statistical analysis. It focuses on quality and can enable a firm to achieve
significant gains in its business performance. Lazur et al. (2013) believe that TQM airline
enterprise can use TQM as a business strategy and an effective methodology to foster
improvements in the process and product variation. Lazur et al. (2013) believe that airlines may
benefits greatly from TQM implementation because it has been suggested that the aviation
industry needs control and cost reduction without losing focus on service and product safety.
Lazur et al. (2013) argue that that TQM emphasizes reducing wastes from operations, eradicating
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defects, reducing service and product costs, reducing development cycle times, benchmarking
and challenging quantified goals. Indeed, the implementation of TQM in several airline
enterprises including British Airways, Nigerian Airline, Delta Airline, and Etihad Airlines has
been documented.
Conclusion
The importance of the study can be summarized in the following point; TQM standards mean a
better customer satisfaction, and better customer satisfaction leads to more customers purchase,
this mean for the organization more income, which apparently every organization is looking for,
and highlighting the relationship between TQM implementation and performance may clarify the
nature of influence that TQM standards may have on organization, that way an organization may
apply TQM with a prior knowledge of what is coming next.
Quality management involves augmenting eminence in services and products. Quality
Management is the process of augmenting eminence in product and services; it also suggests the
means of achieving it. It is well defined framework that advocates management processes in a
flow. Quality assurance and control enable the management to enhance procedural structures and
its stream. In today’s business, the roots of quality management are well infiltrated in the
organization endeavours (Flanigan, 2012). According to Gul et al. (2012), total quality
management is a business approach aiming at providing quality products to achieve customer
satisfaction.
TQM is widely regarded as the systematic quality improvement method for the firm-wide
management that is aimed at improving organizational performance in terms of customer
satisfaction, profitability, quality and productivity. According to Ali (2008), TQM is an
integrated set of practices and management philosophy that emphasizes meeting customers’
requirements, long-range thinking, continuous improvement, reducing work, improving
employees’ involvement, process design, teamwork, and competitive benchmarking (Osman, and
Ali, 2009). TQM is a very complex management method that puts emphasis on the quality
management in all dimensions of the organizational life. It goes beyond quality management and
it is also a method of strategic management and it is a management philosophy for all of the
organization activities. There are many different forms and interpretations of TQM.
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