the realtionship between the total quality management practices and operational performance

“The Relationship between Total Quality Management and Operational Performance”
Main Learning Points
The article is an excellent exploration of total quality management (TQM), its elements and how they translate to or affect the performance of organizations. The concept of total quality management, from the article, began in 1980 in Japan and has since gained popularity among many industrialized nations like the United States [1]. From the article, TQM has seven significant components. These components include Leadership, Customer Focus, Management of people, process improvement, utilization of information and analysis, and Quality and Strategic Planning [1]. The research reviewed existing literature on TQM and how various companies have fared after incorporating TQM in the operations of their organization. The available literature indicated that many businesses have had reasonable successes after adopting total quality management. “However, an equally large number of companies have” experienced failure or stagnation even after implementing total quality management [1].
The study then sets out to investigate the level of influence TQM, and its elements have on the performance of an organization. The study comes up with two research questions to help accomplish this task. The first research question is on whether the TQM elements are a valid and reliable measure for the prediction of the performance of an organization [1]. The second and final research question used in the study inquired about which TQM elements have the greatest impact on the performance of an organization.

The findings indicate that TQM is indeed a useful tool in influencing the performance of an organization. The study also concludes that the main reason why the approach is not satisfactory for every organization is that of errors in implementation. Out of the six elements of TQM that were used in the study, customer focus, leadership, and management of people appear to have the greatest impact on the performance of organizations.
Critical Analysis
From the article, the study had an interesting revelation on the elements of TQM that had the strongest impact on the performance of institutions were the “soft factors” like leadership, management of people, and customer focus [1]. The study also revealed that the more analysis oriented elements like strategic planning, information and analysis, and process analysis had no significant impact on the performances of the organizations involved in the study. However, the TQM process, as a whole, is a crucial process and none of its elements should be ignored [2]. The research might have concluded that the three soft factors are the most significant performance predictors for organizations; however, the remaining three are still important and with witty implementation, might yield positive results for any firm. To this respect, I agree with the author of the article when he identifies the top three performance predictors and points out that the rest are still important aspects even if they are not as important as the top three. In other words, one cannot say that implementing the entire process, including the remaining three can lead to poorer results than applying just the top three. Like the researcher concludes, the faults emerge from the implementation process adopted by an organization and not the TQM elements themselves. Therefore, I agree with all of the parts and findings of the article.
The research involved a sample of 1200 companies selected from the Australian and New Zealand manufacturing industry. These researchers arrived at this number after an elaborate process that involved sending questionnaires to 4000 different firms and waiting for their response. Those that responded were further shortlisted based on the completion of their responses. The response rate was low, but the final sample was still big enough if compared to other similar studies that have been done in the past. The ideas of sending the questionnaire via mail was a good one as emails can easily and cheaply be reproduced to all the relevant stakeholders of any process. This method would be useful in almost any industry. The findings of the article on which elements of TQM are more helpful in improving the performance of an organization were flexible elements which were not unique to just the firms that took part in the study. In fact, none of the TQM elements are specific to one industry; maybe just the implementation process might vary from industry to industry. That said, the findings of the article can be applied to any other industry. It does not discuss implementation; it only discusses the impact of the various elements of the performance of organizations.
Practical Implications
As mentioned in the section above, total quality management is a process that cuts across the board. The parts of the process themselves are not specific to one industry or region [2]. Even the implementation does not have significant variations from industry to industry. Therefore, if employees in Europe or America appreciate the input of TQM towards boosting their overall work moral, it is highly likely that the employees from the GCC region would think the same. Therefore, if a majority of the hundreds of firms involved in this study agree that management of people, customer focus, and leadership are the strongest predictors of performance, it would do no harm for any firm to try to concentrate on these three elements. However, while focusing on the top three predictors, one should not neglect the other three, they might just be what sets the firm apart from everyone else who just concentrate on the top three. In a nutshell, regardless of the region or industry, the findings of this article are appropriate for all firms including those in the GCC region.
Future Directions
The study was a cross-sectional one; that is, it was done for a particular point of time. Therefore, all the findings do not take into account the variations of the different elements with time. There is a high likelihood that most of the firms that participated in the survey were in different phases of the implementation of total quality management. The article suggests that further studies should refine their constructs to make them more specific to certain elements that seem to be unclear in this paper [1]. The author of the article also suggests that future studies should be longitudinal in nature. In other words, he suggests that all the elements mentioned above should be examined over a given period to see if there is any variation in the finding as time goes by. Deeper case studies which provide more detail on the impacts of the elements of TQM and how these elements can be further strengthened are also areas that future studies should look into. Like I said, I do agree with all the sections of the paper. Therefore, I would not subtract any future recommendation that has been suggested by the article’s author. However, in addition to the author’s suggestions, I would recommend future studies on whether the three weak elements can be strengthened or replaced with more substantial ones.
References
[1]A. Curry and N. Kadasah, “Focusing on key elements of TQM – evaluation for sustainability,” The TQM Magazine, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 207–216, 2002.
[2] D. Samson and M. Terziovski, “The relationship between total quality management practices and operational performance,” Journal of Operations Management, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 393–409, 1999.