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Literature refers to the key factors of total quality management (TQM) based on studies carried out in individual countries. However, few studies focus on studying the TQM factors in service companies based on multinational data. The purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the key TQM factors and their impact on internal and external customer performance measures across different countries.

The research questions regarding the TQM factors and their effects were examined using a sample of service organisations from three countries (131 from Greece, 70 from Mexico and 151 from Spain). TQM factors and their impact on employee and customer satisfaction were analysed separately for each country. Exploratory factor analyses, coupled with multiple linear regression analyses, were conducted.

The key TQM factors identified are common among the three participating countries and can be summarised as follows: quality practices of top management, process management, employee quality management, customer focus, and employee knowledge and education. The adoption level of these five key factors of TQM varies across service organisations in different countries. The results also confirmed that some of the TQM elements are antecedents of customer- and employee-focused performance.

Multinational service organisations may use such an instrument to evaluate TQM implementation among worldwide operations and then benchmark their performance. In addition, an understanding of similarities and differences among countries would help managers around the world to address difficulties of TQM implementation related to the country culture.

Previous studies have compared key TQM factors across different countries in manufacturing, but overall, there has been a little attempt in the literature to analyse the adoption of TQM factors among service firms, as well the relationships between quality improvement and performance across different geographical regions.

Several authors in extant literature have shown concern towards lacuna in availability of standard constructs in supply chain management (SCM). These standard constructs can represent pillars of SCM excellence. However, frameworks on SCM excellence unlike its contemporary fields are very few. Thus the purpose of this paper is to develop a path analysis for proposed framework of SCM excellence in Indian manufacturing industry proposed by Soni and Kodali (2014) using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and structural equation modelling (SEM).

The ISM is performed on two exemplary cases of supply chain in Indian manufacturing industry. These cases were selected on the consideration of supply chain excellence index (SCEI), based on the results of an empirical study conducted by Soni and Kodali (2014) in Indian manufacturing industry. The focal manufacturing company which exhibited lowest and highest SCEI were selected as contenders for developing ISM. The relationships among pillars and constructs of SCM excellence framework are obtained from ISM, and later are subjected to statistical testing of model fit by using SEM. The input to SEM was the respondent’s data used in previous study.

The major findings revealed that ISM based on focal company having highest SCEI, is statistically fit for SCM excellence framework, and finally the structural models of the constructs for each pillar of SCM excellence are also formed by using path analysis.

The study offers a unique managerial approach for analysing the underlying relationships between pillars of SCM excellence. Researchers can use this study for developing frameworks in various realms of SCM excellence.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the interactions among different enablers of total quality management (TQM) and its outcome variables in service sector specific to Indian domestic airline industry. No study has been done regarding the implementation of TQM in Indian domestic aviation sector. To fill this gap interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) based quality framework model has been developed to understand the mutual interactions among the variables and to identify the driving and dependence power of these variables.

An ISM and TISM based approach have been used to study and analyze the interactions between identified variables.

In this research work, a total of 14 variables have been identified based on extensive literature review, brainstorming and experts opining from the Indian airline industry and academia. The result showed that top management commitment, training, continuous improvement, benchmarking, employee involvement and commitment have strong driving power and weak dependence power and are at the lowest level in hierarchy in the ISM and TISM model, while the outcome variables of TQM have low driving power but have high dependence power.

Top management must stress on variables having strong driving power for efficient implementation of TQM. By implementation of TISM model in the Indian airline industry, organizations would become more productive, competitive and would eventually become more profitable.

In this research work, ISM and TISM based quality framework structural model have been proposed for Indian domestic aviation industry which is a new effort in the area of TQM implementation in this sector.

The purpose of this paper is to generate awareness of contributions made by benchmarking toward building performance of Indian service industries in globally market. Ranking of Benchmarking is done on the basis of their application which give confidence for the managers to adopt in their Industries so that they may become best in their field.

Methodology consists of three phase: define, phase include definitions, factors of benchmarking as literature outcomes, questionnaire survey and outcome of survey. In the second phase, analysis of collected data and applications of multi-criteria decision-making approaches [technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and analytical network process (ANP)] are used. The last phase includes comparison of results which gives validation in similarities of ranking obtained.

The study identifies seven different benchmarking techniques used for service industries. Using TOPSIS and ANP approaches shows similarity that external benchmarking, performance benchmarking and internal benchmarking are the first three ranks that give basis for several critical success factors s, namely, planning, reliability, standardization, time behavior, usability, etc., as part of benchmarking using in service industries.

The limitation is the assumptions made by multi-criteria decision-making approaches which may effect the analysis of the study as these are taken theoretically.

This study is a first attempt to find similarities in both techniques while comparing benchmarking in Indian service industries.

The aim of this paper is to present an empirical assessment and strategic planning for measuring the impact of total quality management (TQM) practices on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and its effectiveness for business excellence. The authors investigate the present status of quality system in SMEs and find the thrust areas for TQM implementation in SMEs of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis. Also, it examines the effect of external environment on internal factors of SMEs by situation analysis. This study helps to develop a model for assessing the components of TQM in SMEs after identifying their weightage.

The qualitative and quantitative techniques have been used together for robust conclusions. The survey data has been collected through the properly designed questionnaire. After studying the present status of TQM in SMEs, situation analysis has been carried out for examining the effect of the external environment on internal factors of SMEs. The weightage of TQM critical success factors was calculated by pair-wise comparison method of analytical hierarchical process (AHP) analysis for framework development.

The study offers useful insights and guidelines for identification of the contribution of TQM critical factors in SMEs performance. It has been observed that the attribute understanding of customer need and its fulfillment ability has the highest priority, whereas supplier partnership and the ability to reduce waste having the least priority in SMEs. Validation study facilitates to channelize TQM initiatives, to improve environmental and operational performance.

The authors provide a comprehensive typology of TQM practices, and its performances on SMEs. This paper can increase the awareness of the significance of TQM strategy which could help managers of SMEs to have a better understanding of the benefits of implementing TQM and therefore unable patient satisfaction with their organizations.

To assess the state of supply chain management (SCM) research in India and to understand the research trends and methodologies used. The present study also aims to create a taxonomy of the subject areas researched in India.

The present study employed the systematic literature review methodology. Literature from 395 peer journal papers in 67 leading journals over a 20-year period (2000–2020 Quarter-1) was comprehensively reviewed and assessed.

SCM research in India started around the year 2000. The quantum of research was low (single digit) until 2010. There has been steady growth over the last decade, and over 50% of the total papers up until now has been published in the last four years. The present study created a three-tiered taxonomy of the subject areas and classified the papers as per it. The first tier (level-1) has seven categories (SCM strategy, network design, SCM processes and integration, IT systems, skills, performance measurement and others). A perusal of the newly created taxonomy revealed that, except for a few areas under level-1 categories (such as SCM processes and SCM strategy), the other level-1 categories have not seen much research. Similarly, there is little or no research in a large number of level-2 categories (such as outsourcing strategy, channel strategy, demand management, demand fulfillment, customer relationship management, integrated supply chain planning, new product development, returns, supply chain orientation, performance monitoring, performance improvement, SCM adoption process, SCM implementation issues and quantified benefits of SCM). Methodologically, the rigor of SCM research in India needs improvement.

A comprehensive taxonomy of SCM subject areas researched in India at three cascading levels was created for the first time in the present study. The taxonomy will help provide researchers with a clear understanding of the structure of the subject areas and help in identifying areas where research has been carried out and the subject areas where gaps exist for future research to proceed. The present study also provides an overview of the methodological rigor of SCM research in India and points out some of the limitations that researchers should avoid in future studies.