“…They include leadership, HR, relationship with partners and quality culture. The items used to operationalize these four soft TQM variables in this study were adopted from several studies of Powell (1995), EFQM (2003), EQA (1994), Hong and Satit (2005), Jones (2004), Wilkinson et al (1992), Li (2000), Reid and Crisp (2007), Woods (1998), Minjoon et al (2006), Laohavichien et al (2011). By adapting the items to operationalize the soft TQM variables, the validation and the generalizability of the construct could be assured.…”