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Presents a complete and comprehensive review of the literature concerning the relationship between information technologies (IT) and total quality management (TQM) and examines the key issues. The examination is made against a number of dimensions of TQM including customer and supplier relationships, workforce management, process flow management and quality data and reporting. Issues concerning the impact that IT is having on these TQM dimensions are highlighted and future potential issues are raised.

Supply chain management is an increasingly important organizational concern, and proper management of supplier relationships constitutes one essential element of supply chain success. However, there is little empirical research that has tested the effect of supplier development on performance. The main objective is to analyze the effect of supplier development practices with different levels of implementation complexity on the firm's purchasing performance.

Three supplier development constructs were defined: basic supplier development, moderate supplier development, and advanced supplier development. Three structural models were hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling through field research on a sample of 306 manufacturing companies in Spain.

Identified important interrelationships among the various supplier development practices, basic, moderate, and advanced. Also indicated that the implementation of supplier development practices significantly contributes to the prediction of purchasing performance.

The use of a single key informant could be seen as a potential limitation of the study. The study was a cross‐sectional and descriptive sample of the manufacturing industry at a given point in time. A more stringent test of the relationships between the different levels of supplier development and performance requires a longitudinal study, or field experiment.

This study focused on supplier development practices and revealed how involving suppliers in supplier development activities is important and may help buyers to increase their purchasing performance. The findings from the structural analysis should provide practicing managers with insights on how these practices and their benefits are related in terms of purchasing performance, thus affecting their ability to make better sourcing decisions.

Fills an important gap in the purchasing literature with respect to the area of supplier development. While there is much written about supplier development based on conceptual and case study research, this study is unique in that it is the first attempt to empirically model the relationships between different levels of supplier development and their impact on purchasing performance using a comprehensive set of practices.

The importance of benchmarking in the achievement of better results in the purchasing function and in overall business performance has been widely asserted in literature. However, few studies have addressed the implementation of benchmarking in the supply function and its impact on purchasing and business performance. Data was collected from 306 companies and structural equations modeling was used to develop valid and reliable instruments for benchmarking, purchasing performance and business performance. The results showed a significant positive impact of benchmarking on purchasing performance and an indirect positive effect on business performance. Implications of the findings for purchasing managers are also discussed.

The focus of this paper is to trace the origins of the term TQM and clarify the different definitions employed by academics and practitioners. Feigenbaum and Ishikawa are perhaps the greatest contributors to the development of the term. The other recognised quality management gurus such as Crosby, Deming and Juran have shaped the dimensions, practices and mechanism which underpin the concept, but it is noted that none of these three actually uses the TQM term. TQM started to be used in the mid‐1980s and only became a recognised part of the quality‐related language in the late 1980s. The paper also analyses the key dimensions of TQM and traces their origins.

Standardization of materials (i.e. replacement of several materials/components by a single component that has all the functionalities of the materials/components it replaces) is one important purchasing department decision. The primary objective of this study is to examine empirically the impact of standardization of materials and purchasing procedures (standardization in purchasing) on purchasing and business performance.

To address our research problem, a survey instrument was developed and a structural model was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling. Data were collected from a field research on a sample of 306 manufacturing companies in Spain.

The results of this research indicate that standardization in purchasing has a significant positive effect on both purchasing and business performance. Thus, standardizing materials and purchasing procedures is important and may help firms to meet their materials expenditure targets, and increase the quality of materials, on‐time delivery from suppliers, inventory performance, as well as business performance.

One of the limitations of the study is that the use of a single key informant could be seen as a potential limitation of the study. The study was a cross‐sectional and descriptive sample of the manufacturing industry at a given point in time. A more stringent test of the relationships between standardization in purchasing and performance requires a longitudinal study, or field experiment.

The empirically validated positive relation of standardization in purchasing to firms' performance, such as that documented in this study, can be very useful for the managers who take the initiative in standardization to promote and obtain the resources needed for the adoption of standardization of materials and purchasing procedures. Standardization in purchasing has, as this study shows, much to offer firms that wish to improve their performance.

Because there is a lack of empirical evidence about the impact of standardization of materials and purchasing procedures (standardization in purchasing) on purchasing and business performance, this paper filled an important gap in the purchasing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how quality culture influences the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and secondary school students’ perceived service quality (PSQ).

The authors underpin research to analyse the effect of quality culture and TQM practices on PSQ. The sample included questionnaires completed by 268 teachers and 559 students from 56 secondary schools in the Murcia Region (Spain). The proposed model comprises an exogenous construct (quality culture) and three endogenous ones (two constructs represent the TQM model’s infrastructure practices and core practices, whereas one represents PSQ), and specifies the relations among them. The authors used the variance-based structural equation modeling technique and the partial least squares estimation method to test the hypotheses.

Its empirical analysis reveals that the quality culture influences the effectiveness of QM practices by suggesting a significant strong effect on infrastructure and core quality practices. In turn, the analysis reveals that these two QM aspects differently have an impact on PSQ. Finally, the mediation analysis results reveal the indirect significant impact of the quality culture on PSQ through the mediator effect of QM practices.

The main contribution of this work is to theoretically explain and empirically prove some mechanisms by which education centers can develop and implement a total quality initiative. The findings provide ideas for management teams about how to personalize TQM practices to achieve optimum performance outcomes.

ISO 9001 is applied by hundreds of thousands of companies throughout the world. For this reason, its effect on company results has been extensively studied. However, the results of those studies are inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. More in-depth research, with a new approach, is therefore necessary. The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether ISO 9001-certified companies suffered the effects of the financial and economic crisis of 2007–2008 to a lesser degree than non-certified ones.

A set of 179 companies certified by ISO 9001:2008 and 154 non-certified ones were analysed, as well as the accounting figures for net sales and operating income (EBIT: earnings before interest and taxes) from 2004 to 2012.

Companies from the industry and services sectors showed different results. Certified industrial companies achieved better outcomes than their non-certified counterparts. However, the deviations in outcomes were not significant for services companies.

One limitation of this study is that companies’ official results are not always their true results. Another limitation is that having to do with the criteria followed to suppress extreme cases, which is always subjective. Furthermore, the implications of the results could be of use for those managers who are responsible for implementing ISO 9001 and for deciding whether obtaining the ISO 9001 certification would be beneficial to their companies.

This study constitutes a new approach for the assessment of the benefits of the ISO 9001 certification.

Despite the widespread use of excellence models as a self-assessment tool in the past two decades, little is known about the underlying logic behind the way that promoting organizations give weight to their criteria, and whether these scores align with business reality. This paper aims to analyze whether these scores coincide with the vision of managers and the real situation of business today.

This paper uses three different methods and two kinds of data to review the evolution of scores on criteria in excellence models since their creation and empirically analyses and compares the results with the vision of the managers.

The results show that the estimated weight of criteria in the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model (both directly perceived by managers and obtained with the statistical analysis) do not coincide with the value that the promoting organization has given to them, in its current version or in the previous versions.

This paper is focused exclusively on industrial companies so one discussion point that can serve as a basis for future research is to study whether there is any difference in the distribution of points between industrial organizations and services, or between private and public organizations.

The results show that, depending of the methodology used to evaluate the weight of each element of the excellence model, these weights could be different and are different from those proposed by EFQM. Therefore, if managers want to use the EFQM model of excellence for self-evaluation purposes, they should define their own weights for each element, in accordance with their own company characteristics. Leadership, strategy, people, partnership & resources and processes could have more or less importance in promoting the success of a business, according to the specific situation of each company.

This study has been made using three different methods and two kinds of data.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze e-procurement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and its relationship with top management support, IT obstacles and strategic purchasing and the effect of e-procurement on performance (procurement performance and business performance).

The hypotheses were tested using a sample of 199 managers from SMEs in manufacturing.

The results indicated a significant relationship between e-procurement in SMEs and top management support, IT obstacles and strategic purchasing. Similarly, the authors found a positive relationship between e-procurement and procurement process performance and business performance.

The findings stress to SME managers, the need to pay attention to top management support, IT obstacles and strategic purchasing when implementing e-procurement. Similarly, it provides evidence of the benefits of e-procurement on procurement process performance and business performance.

This study fills a gap in the literature regarding e-procurement in SMEs and its impact on performance. SMEs constitute a significant part of today’s economies and e-procurement can significantly impact the performance of these organizations.