Relating TQM, marketing and business performance: An exploratory study

Abstract

Total Quality Management (TQM) is perhaps the leading management approach that companies employ to improve their product and service quality with the aim of improving typical measures of business performance (e.g. increased profits, increased market share, reduced costs). However, consumer perception of quality not only results from an evaluation of the intrinsic quality attributes of the product (e.g. performance, reliability, durability) but is also affected by the marketing mix (e.g. price, advertising, warranties) adopted by the company selling the product. This paper offers a first attempt at cross-functional fertilization by examining the relationships between TQM, some marketing mix variables and measures of company performance by exploring the diverse multi-disciplinary literature and developing an explanatory framework, which is tested using non-parametric correlation and refined through an empirical study of Spanish manufacturing companies.The results show that the most important TQM dimensions are the system of employee relations and the use of quality management-related design tools. The results also indicate the existence of a relationship amongst price, advertising and warranties, but that these marketing variables were not related with TQM and that further research is required to include a wider definition of marketing strategy.

The effect of information technologies on TQM: An initial analysis

“…A list of information technologies was obtained based on previous literature [51,52,53,54,55] The TQM implementation construct was measured using a seven-item scale (see Appendix for measurement indicators) based on Martinez-Lorente's et al [56] TQM definition (see Figure 1). …”

IT use in supporting TQM initiatives: an empirical investigation

“…A first attempt at further investigation was undertaken by Torkzadeh and Doll (1999) who only reported on the perceived impact of IT on work, which is not the most recognised of several TQM dimensions that have appeared in the literature, see, for example, Martínez-Lorente et al (2000). More recently, Dewhurst et al (2003) investigated the influence of IT use on several key TQM dimensions through a multiple case study of 14 companies and proposed a framework linking: company characteristics (e.g.…”

A comparative study on cultural differences and quality practices – Korea, USA, Mexico, and Taiwan

“…Many researchers have developed dimensions of TQM (Rao et al, 1999a;Martinez-Lorente et al, 2000). Of various aspects of TQM, human beings should be still considered to be one of the most important factors in order to enhance quality.…”