The Role of Quality Practices in Service Organizations

Many organizations use quality management to improve firm performance, but the results do not always come quickly. Research in the manufacturing sector has found that different organizational characteristics, such as firm size and the degree of capital intensity, influence the perceived benefits of quality management. Uses data from 281 firms that work with quality management to investigate the role of quality practices in service organizations. The results of our investigations support that the relationship between quality practices and business performance is dependent on firm size. In addition provides insight into how the business results are influenced by individual quality practices such as employee management, process orientation and customer orientation, depending on firm size.

[1]  J. Dean,et al.  MANAGEMENT THEORY AND TOTAL QUALITY: IMPROVING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE THROUGH THEORY DEVELOPMENT , 1994 .

[2]  J. Hackman,et al.  Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and Practical Issues , 1995 .

[3]  Robert Tibshirani,et al.  An Introduction to the Bootstrap , 1994 .

[4]  Leslie M. Marx,et al.  Process Variation as a Determinant of Service Quality and Bank Performance: Evidence from the Retail Banking Study , 1997 .

[5]  B. Klefsjö,et al.  TQM as a management system consisting of values, techniques and tools , 2000 .

[6]  K. B. Hendricks,et al.  Does Implementing an Effective TQM Program Actually Improve Operating Performance? Empirical Evidence from Firms That Have Won Quality Awards , 1997 .

[7]  D. Larcker,et al.  The Performance Effects of Process Management Techniques , 1997 .

[8]  Richard Reed,et al.  An application of Thompson's typology to TQM in service firms , 2000 .

[9]  Jens J. Dahlgaard,et al.  Fundamentals of Total Quality Management: Process analysis and improvement , 1997 .

[10]  Leslie M. Marx,et al.  Process Variation As a Determinant of Bank Performance: Evidence From the Retail Banking Study , 1999 .

[11]  François Bergeron,et al.  Determinants of Business Process Reengineering Success in Small and Large Enterprises: An Empirical Study in the Canadian Context , 1998 .

[12]  K. B. Hendricks,et al.  Firm characteristics, total quality management, and financial performance , 2001 .

[13]  Jens J. Dahlgaard,et al.  Fundamentals of Total Quality Management , 2005 .

[14]  John C. Narver,et al.  The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability , 1990 .

[15]  J.P. Rooney,et al.  Customer satisfaction , 1994, Proceedings of Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS).

[16]  C. Fornell,et al.  Customer Satisfaction, Market Share, and Profitability: Findings from Sweden , 1994 .

[17]  Wynne W. Chin.  The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling. , 1998 .

[18]  Sanjay L. Ahire,et al.  Quality Management in Large vs Small Firms , 1996 .

[19]  M. Frohlich.  Techniques for improving response rates in OM survey research , 2002 .

[20]  B. Bergman,et al.  Quality from Customer Needs to Customer Satisfaction , 1994 .

[21]  A. Gustafsson,et al.  Improving Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Profit : An Integrated Measurement and Management System , 2000 .

[22]  B. Edvardsson,et al.  The effects of satisfaction and loyalty on profits and growth: Products versus services , 2000 .

[23]  Anders Gustafsson,et al.  Bridging the Quality-Satisfaction Gap , 1997 .

[24]  Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp,et al.  Quality guidance: a consumer based approach to food quality improvement using Partial Least Squares. , 1996 .

[25]  Thomas H. Davenport,et al.  Managing in the New World of Process , 1994 .

[26]  K. Narasimhan.  Quality from Customer Needs to Customer Satisfaction , 2003 .

[27]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  The effects of organizational context on quality management: An empirical investigation , 1991 .

[28]  T. C. Powell.  Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage , 1995 .

[29]  Michael D. Johnson.  Customer Orientation and Market Action , 1997 .

[30]  Michelle T. Iaffaldano,et al.  Job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. , 1985 .

[31]  John Hulland,et al.  Use of partial least squares (PLS) in strategic management research: a review of four recent studies , 1999 .

[32]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Market orientation: The construct, research propositions, and managerial implications. , 1990 .