The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, competitive strategies -cost leadership and differentiation-and firm performance in the Palestinian economy. Within this study total quality management has been conceptualized as soft and hard practices, in congruence with the literature. An empirical analysis based upon an extensive validation process was applied to refine TQM, competitive strategies and financial performance scales. Data were collected through surveying 202 in Palestinian industrial small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Structural Equation Modeling was carried out to test the anticipated relationships. Results derived from this study show that TQM practices have indirect, positive and significant relationship with financial performance through competitive strategies. In addition, a direct, positive and significant relationship between competitive strategies and financial performance was observed. Results derived from this study might help managers to implement TQM practices in order to effectively allocate resources and improve financial performance.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between quality ambidexterity, competitive strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, and focus), and firm performance in Palestinian industry, and to analyze the combination of quality exploitation and quality exploration (quality ambidexterity) associated with different levels of each competitive strategy.
Design/methodology/approach -Using data collected through a survey of 205Palestinian industrial firms, the study conducted Structural Equation Modeling to test the proposed relationships. Additional statistical analyses were applied to the combinations of quality exploitation and quality exploration for each competitive strategy.
Findings -The results show a positive and significant relationship between quality ambidexterity and three competitive strategies, and between competitive strategies and financial performance, focus strategy excepted. Balanced combination with similar levels of quality exploitation and quality exploration is found to be more suitable for higher levels of competitive strategies implementation, whereas an excess of quality exploration over quality exploitation is associated with lower levels of strategies implementation.Research limitations/implications -Although Palestine has two regions, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, all survey respondents were from the West Bank. may help managers to implement quality exploitation and quality exploration practices in order to allocate resources effectively and ultimately improve financial performance.
The process capability index (PCI) evaluates the ability of a process to produce items with certain quality requirements. The PCI depends on the process standard deviation, which is usually unknown and estimated by using the sample standard deviation. The construction of confidence intervals for the PCI is also an important topic. The usual estimator of the PCI and its corresponding confidence interval are based on various assumptions, such as normality, the fact that the process is under control, or samples selected from infinite populations. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical properties of estimators of the PCI, and analyze numerically the effect on confidence intervals when such assumptions are not satisfied, since these situations may arise in practice.
La aparición de datos faltantes es un problema común en la mayoría de las encuestas llevadas a cabo en distintos ámbitos. Una técnica tradicional y muy conocida para el tratamiento de datos faltantes es la imputación. La mayoría de los estudios relacionados con los métodos de imputación se centran en el problema de la estimación de la media y su varianza y están basados en diseños muestrales simples tales como el muestreo aleatorio simple. En este trabajo se describen los métodos de imputación más conocidos y se plantean bajo el contexto de un diseño muestral general y para el caso de diferentes mecanismos de respuesta. Mediante estudios de simulación Monte Carlo basados en datos reales extraídos del ámbito de la economía y la empresa, analizamos las propiedades de varios métodos de imputación en la estimación de otros parámetros que también son utilizados con frecuencia en la práctica, como son las funciones de distribución y los cuantiles. Con el fin de que los métodos de imputación descritos en este trabajo se puedan implementar y usar con mayor facilidad, se proporcionan sus códigos en los lenguajes de programación R y Splus.
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