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The purpose of this paper is to examine the multi-level relationship between people-related total quality management (TQM) practices and employee job satisfaction. The authors draw upon organizational climate theory to hypothesize that TQM is related to job satisfaction at the individual employee level, as well as at the organizational level in the form of shared perceptions of TQM practices in the workplace.

Multi-level modelling was used to test the study hypotheses. The sample was drawn from 201 employees working in 23 organizations in Australia.

The findings show that people-related TQM practices are positively related to job satisfaction at both individual and organizational levels, with a stronger effect on employee attitudes observed at the organizational level.

The statistically significant multi-level relationship between people-related TQM practices and job satisfaction extends the findings of previous studies conducted only at the individual level; thus, supporting the sustainability of TQM as a management principle at a company-wide level.

The findings broadly support the implementation of people-related TQM practices as part of a strategy of creating a “high performance” climate in organizations, which in turn, will likely to positively affect both individual and organizational performance.

From a wider social perspective, the implementation of TQM practices as a company-wide initiative could facilitate greater corporate social responsibility of the organization. Such practices as training, involving, and empowering employees can promote social commitment by valuing employees as one important stakeholder.

This is the first empirical study to the best of the author’s knowledge that uses multi-level modelling to examine the relationship between TQM practices and employee attitudes such as job satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between people-related total quality management (PTQM) practices and employee work attitudes, as well as the impact of the specific PTQM practices on work attitudes in the context of the Sri Lankan apparel industry.

The five PTQM practices included top management commitment, employee empowerment, training, employee involvement and teamwork. Employee work attitudes comprised of job satisfaction, affective commitment, job involvement and turnover intention. Data collected from the machine operator-level employees in the top 100 apparel exporters in Sri Lanka were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings suggest that the PTQM practices were significant drivers of job involvement but not of job satisfaction, affective commitment and turnover intentions. It was also found that teamwork, training and employee involvement were the most important PTQM practices towards employee work attitudes. Top management commitment drove affective commitment and job involvement, while employee empowerment was important only for job involvement.

The research only considered the top 100 export- apparel manufacturers in Sri Lanka; hence, care has to be taken for the findings to represent the entire manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka.

Based on the perceptions of floor level employees, which is scarcely investigated in the PTQM domain, the paper presents an interesting and unique perspective on the relationship between the PTQM practices and employee work attitudes, challenging majority of previous research findings. Besides making theoretical contributions, the findings offer valuable insights into the management of Sri Lankan apparel companies by highlighting the PTQM practices, which need to be strengthened.

The authors investigate the role of people-related Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, specifically metaperceptions, in hearing care students' vocational decision-making. In Italy, audiologists are health professionals and must hold a degree in hearing care. They operate according to clinical principles but must also develop marketing and commercial skills. While employers take these aspects for granted, the expectations of hearing care students often differ from reality. Thus, the authors aim to investigate the vocational expectations of hearing care students.

A survey was distributed to 600 hearing care students. Multiple regression analysis with bootstrapped confidence intervals was employed to test the hypotheses.

Students who perceived audiology as their calling were more interested in the clinical aspects than the marketing and commercial aspects of audiology. Moreover, those desiring a meaningful career path in audiology were more interested in becoming a store owner or franchisee.

Universities and recruiters should consider the influence of relevant others' metaperceptions on students' self-perceptions of their aptitudes for different careers. Universities should assist students to identify aptitudes that are relevant to career-related decision-making. In this context, people-related TQM can help students avoid incorrect aspirations and expectations.

This study is the first to investigate the role of metaperceptions from a people-related TQM perspective. Metaperceptions play a crucial role in determining the correct course of study as well as job satisfaction and expectations.

Soft total quality management (TQM) aspects are the facets of TQM that mainly concern with the management of human resource in a way to achieve the results of employees' job satisfaction. Based on this approach, the objective of this research is to examine the relationship between the most popular five soft TQM aspects and employees' job satisfaction in “ISO 9001” certified Sudanese oil companies.

Data were collected through questionnaires from employees across a total of five Sudanese oil companies owned by the government, and adopting an ISO-9001 quality program. The total population of the study consists of 1,505 permanent employees, while the sample size was 253 employees, determined by adopting a stratified random sampling technique. The multiple regression model was adopted for data analysis.

The results showed that the construct of soft TQM aspects including “top management commitment”, “employee empowerment”, “teamwork”, “training and education” and “employee involvement” explain 74% in the variance of employees' job satisfaction. Results showed positive association between soft TQM aspects and employees' job satisfaction at the 5% significance level. It was also found that each individual variable of the five soft TQM aspects has a significant positive association with employees' job satisfaction. Meanwhile, the results indicated that the most important soft TQM aspect in explaining the variability of employees' job satisfaction was the “employee empowerment” with the highest correlation coefficient (β) of (0.189).

The study recommends that in order to achieve their primary goal of employees' satisfaction, HR practitioners within organizations adopting total quality programs should align their practice in such a way to enhance soft aspects of TQM. Policy makers and top management in order to gain long-term infrastructural benefits obtained from employees' job satisfaction should show a visible support to TQM programs and allocate necessary resources to train their staff in the quality management system that enhance their empowerment and involvement. The study also recommends that since soft aspects of TQM raise their job satisfaction, employees should support and conform to quality management systems within their organizations.

The paper focuses on soft TQM aspects’ practical implementation. The findings make a significant contribution by using ISO-certified governmental Sudanese oil companies and tested the hypothesized model entails the impact of soft TQM implementation and employees' job satisfaction.

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.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived effects between soft management practices, employee behaviours and the implementation of digital technologies in manufacturing plants, as well as how these relate to the emergence of digital waste.

This paper uses case-based research. Data was collected in two large manufacturing companies based in Norway and Sweden through semi-structured interviews with two management representatives and four shop-floor employees. The data was used to evaluate 29 variables describing lean- and total quality management (TQM)-associated employee behaviours and soft management practices, in light of digital transformation.

The results suggest that several variables were positively influenced by the digital transformation process. These were top management leadership, middle management involvement, employee education, corporate social responsibility focus, innovation, knowledge sharing, work-family balance, psychological capital, job satisfaction and career commitment. Training employees, creativity, discretionary effort, turnover intention and proactivity appear to be negatively influenced by digital transformation The findings also indicate that several soft management practices and employee behaviours were not only influenced by manufacturing digitalization but also themselves influenced the process. The potential for digital waste creation was also detected in several variables, including reward and recognition and training employees.

Managers, practitioners and academics may learn about the importance of certain managerial practices and employees’ behavioural needs during the digital transformation process. The findings may help in prioritizing TQM and soft lean management practices and certain employee behaviours during the digital transformation and in creating awareness of digital waste.

This study builds on several existing studies discussing the impact of digital transformation on soft management practices and employee behaviours. It provides insights from a lean and TQM angle and offers a means of prioritizing certain practices and behaviours during a digital transformation. This study also highlights the significance of digital waste.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between total quality management (TQM), employee outcomes and performance. Moreover, how environmental uncertainty (EU) influences the relationship between employee outcomes and performance is regarded in the context of automobile part manufacturing and suppliers of Iran. Four theories namely resource-based view theory, ability, motivation, opportunity framework, contingency theory and quality management theory have been adopted in this research.

A research project is conducted in 191 automobile part manufacturing and suppliers plants using the questionnaire method. Confirmatory factor analysis is applied to assess the reliability and validity of the measurement instrument. The correlations between latent constructs are examined through partial least squares method.

The results show positive relationship between TQM, employee outcome and performance. The EU also moderates the relationship between employee outcome and performance.

It is recommended that some contextual factors such as culture be noticed in future research studies. Data were collected from Iranian automobile part manufacturing and suppliers plants, which may limit the generalization of results to other organizations in other countries.

In this paper, some beneficial insights are addressed to assist managers in recognizing the organizational problems, which weaken implementing TQM, employee outcomes and the effect of EU on organizations.

By improving the quality of management practices and employee outcomes, the society gains benefits such as customer satisfaction.

This study contributes to the TQM advance and human resource management literature and provides better foundations for employee outcomes improvement through TQM practices in the Middle East. By investigating the effect of EU, this study fills the current gap in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze if and how country- and sector-related contingency factors affect the implementation of TQM practices and various performance measures within a TQM-performance relationships model framework.

The authors used data from 156 firms in Turkey and 132 firms in North Cyprus (NC) to test the model relationships by utilizing multiple group structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study finds support for both the universal and the contingency argument within the context of country and sector analyses. Although our findings suggest no differences across the two countries, the authors find evidence for differences across sectors in terms of their TQM practices and performance outcomes. In the case of NC firms, the direct effects of TQM on human resource results and customer results constituted the missing linkages in the performance excellence framework.

This study suffers from the same limitations common to all survey research. However, it contributes strongly to the limited TQM contingency research by providing new findings and insights. This study must be replicated in different countries and other types of contextual factors must be used to determine if and how they moderate the model relationships. Other theories are also needed to better explain some of the relationships.

There needs to be a more holistic approach to quality management and increased institutional support for quality initiatives in developing countries. Through proper alignment and integration of their different components, organizations can realize maximum improvement in their business results. Understanding the sector level contingencies before implementing a performance excellence model is also recommended.

The study has several social, economic and policy implications, including the need to improve employees’ work environment to improve their lives and prevent brain drain; to pass legislation to improve lax consumer laws; to found quality institutes to promote the education, training, qualification and professional development of employees working in the various sectors of the economy; and for government and employers to realize the importance of valuing stakeholders and delivering value and results to them to ensure long-term success.

This is one of the few studies in TQM contingency research that tests various relationships among TQM and business results by using country and sector as contingency factors.

Total quality management (TQM) has long been viewed as a strategy to attain business excellence. However, it is relatively a new concept in the context of emerging economies. Particularly, this is far beyond the reality in the context of African countries, in general. The purpose of this paper is to study the current state of TQM implementation in the manufacturing industry of Ethiopia (MIE). The study also focuses on several comparisons, between large and medium companies, and ISO and non-ISO companies with regard to the adoption of TQM practices.

The study draws on top- and middle-level managers from sample companies. Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire. After testing scale reliability and validity, descriptive and factor analysis were used for the data analysis.

The findings, in general, indicated that Ethiopian manufacturers have implemented TQM at a moderate level (grand mean value of 2.86 on 0–5 scale). It is revealed that ISO companies are significantly adopted TQM practices than non-ISO companies, whereas no difference was found between large and medium companies.

Given the importance of understanding TQM and paucity of research on the topic in Ethiopia, the study provides practical insights and groundwork that can guide practitioners to understand the drivers of TQM in the region. Particularly, the study is useful to plan corrective actions on practices that are likely to obstruct TQM implementation in the MIE. Moreover, the study adds to the empirical literature that may yield important insights on TQM for under-researched emerging economies, particularly for the eastern part of Africa, where nations share similar cross-cultural norms, economic, social and ethnic settings.

This paper aims to present a vital strand that is part and parcel of an informed discussion towards the adoption of labour-friendly practices (LFP). This study is intended to examine the influence of LFP on five dimensions: job performance (JP), employee satisfaction (ES), corporate governance (CG), customer satisfaction (CS) and organizational performance (OP).

The study was conducted on top and middle-level management personnel in several companies across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A total of 1,000 questionnaires was distributed personally and via email of which 366 usable responses were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM).

The results reinforce the premise that LFP positively and significantly influences value maximization.

This paper affirmed that what is good for the employees (or other stakeholders) is also good for shareholders, but within the constraints of an ideal context, where the shareholders subscribe to strict ethical principles and the stakeholders act with their moral agency intact. Thus, the discussion of LFP comprises not just about what is satisfying for the employees but also what is conducive for optimal value creation. The empirical findings were, however, more compatible within the agency theory framework because of the non-instrumentality that was observed too ideal and philosophical for the stakeholder theory of value creation.