TQM as business strategy: a meta-analysis review

Abstract

There is no doubt in the fact that organisations worldwide are currently in the era of total quality management (TQM), but whether it is making a real impact on these organisations' bottom-line remains a much-debated topic in both academic and management forums. In this direction, the study conducted a meta-analytical investigation of the association of TQM practices with firm's performance from the TQM literature by adopting the heuristic approach (Hunter and Schmidt, 1990). The study also examined the role of moderating factors in influencing this association. For the meta-analytical review, 12 empirical studies that had examined the link between TQM practices and firm's performance were sampled. The study adopted the 'random-effects' model using weighted mean of raw correlation coefficient as a measure of the size of the effect. The results showed the existence of association between the TQM practices and the firm's performance and existence of moderators impacting this association.