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The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership styles and their impact on TQM focus within Indian firms.

The empirical data for this study were drawn from a survey of 111 firms in India to examine the validity and reliability of the independent constructs (leadership styles: transformational, servant, adaptive, rational and kinesthetic); and two dependent constructs (TQM focus: continuous improvement and innovation). The data were analyzed employing correlation and multiple regression analysis to identify the influence of leadership styles on TQM focus.

The results of the study revealed that six of the nine hypotheses have a significant and positive relationship with TQM focus; one hypothesis is partial while rest two hypotheses are not associated with TQM focus. It is also found that leadership styles are more inclined to continuous improvement and perceived as dominant TQM practices than innovation.

This study used only two major variables, continuous improvement and innovation, as the outcome of TQM focus, but the outcomes are not limited. TQM focus is also related to other variables such as customer focus, product quality, employee involvement, benchmarking, etc. Future research should be extended by using other variables as the outcome of TQM focus.

The results can be beneficial for the current organization’s leaders to achieve appropriate leadership styles for effective and TQM focus. Moreover, this paper also attempts to inspire researchers to include the TQM focus in studying the effect of the leaders on TQM focus while implementing it effectively in the organizations.

Aims to examine the role of total quality management (TQM) towards enhancing customer satisfaction.

Using meta‐analysis, existing research studies on TQM and customer satisfaction were quantified, summarized, and tested for moderators to clarify TQM impact.

It is found that TQM substantially increases customer satisfaction across diverse industrial and cultural settings.

This research broadens the scope of TQM applicability across varied industrial and cultural settings to achieve higher customer focus, increased customer satisfaction, and stresses the need for more meta‐analytic studies on the subject.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the influence of a total quality management (TQM) programme on the level of focus in project management practices.

Prior literature was used to develop a construct indicating the degree of focus on customers, time/cost/quality (iron/golden triangle) and other stakeholders. A questionnaire was mailed to a random selection of UK organizations to obtain data on the degree of focus and on whether a TQM programme existed.

The results from an analysis of completed questionnaires show that those in organizations with a TQM programme in place are more customer‐focused in their project management practices than those in organizations with no TQM programme. No such relationship was found between the level of iron/golden triangle and other stakeholder focus and a TQM programme.

Given the exploratory nature of the research reported in this paper there is the opportunity for further work on larger populations to confirm the generalizability of the findings. Also, this research has highlighted an association between the level of focus of project management practice and the existence of a TQM programme, and this requires further investigation in terms of confirming suggested cause and effect relationships.

The existence of a link between a TQM programme and customer‐focused project management practice provides a potential route for those looking to improve project performance through placing a greater emphasis on satisfying the customer. The absence of a link between TQM and a focus on other stakeholders suggest that the elements of TQM that facilitate an increase in customer‐focus are not able to overcome the barriers to high levels of stakeholder‐focus on project management practice.

The exploratory research in this paper focuses on the link between TQM and an area of operational practices, namely, project management‐related, that has received limited attention in prior studies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide sector-specific empirical evidence on the comparative evaluation of total productive maintenance (TPM) and total quality management (TQM) approaches, implemented exclusively and collectively on improving manufacturing business performance.

This paper develops a multi-sector analysis framework to comparatively assess the synergistic and standalone effect of TPM and TQM improvement approaches. A total of 231 manufacturing organizations from food and beverages, textiles and electrical and electronics sectors have been extensively surveyed. These firms were further clustered into TPM focus, TQM focus and integrated TPM×TQM on the basis of their primary manufacturing strategy. Comparative assessment of these three manufacturing approaches has been evaluated using t-test statistics.

This paper highlights that adoption of integrated TPM×TQM approach is beneficial for food and beverages and electrical and electronics sectors. However, this supposition is rejected for firms operating in the textile sector.

The findings of this research are still exploratory. Future research using countrywide and cross-country approach can be undertaken to statistically generalize the findings of the present research. In-depth case studies are needed to further validate the findings of the study empirically.

The result of this study help managers and practitioners to make manufacturing strategic decision based on the nature of their operating business sector regarding adoption of TPM and TQM practices, which will further revive their firm’s competitiveness.

Every operating sector embraces a diversity of manufacturing activities based upon their competing priorities. This paper makes an attempt to present a multi-sectoral evaluation of joint implementation and effect of manufacturing programs.

Studies on total quality management (TQM) implementation among construction enterprises in Nigeria have used few TQM constructs and variables and yielded fragmented results. This study adopts comprehensive TQM constructs and variables for comparison with the previous studies to establish the critical variables for effective TQM practices in Nigeria.

Data collection from a stratified sample of Nigerian construction practitioners with practical or theoretical knowledge of TQM, using web-based questionnaires consisting of twelve validated TQM implementation constructs and 65 variables. 72 home and overseas practicing professionals participated (21% response rate) using nonprobability sampling techniques. Following acceptable Cronbach's alpha reliability values equal to 0.7, the author/s rank-ordered the twelve TQM constructs and 65 TQM variables. Then, they computed the z-scores and the percentiles to identify the TQM critical variables – 75th percentiles and above, contrasted with the threshold normalized values equal to 0.5. Furthermore, Pareto analysis determined the 20% “vital many” responsible for 80% of the problem.

Customer focus, top management commitment and supplier quality management were the top-25% constructs, while employee involvement, statistical process control and design quality management were the bottom-25% constructs. Thirteen TQM critical variables emerged from the top-25% constructs.

Top management to involve employees to be customer-focused and driven toward suppliers' quality management system. Priority should be given to implementing the critical variables advanced in this study.

This study juxtaposes the results of similar studies for consistency to advance the critical success factors.

The main purpose of this study is to understand how collective operational practices are adapted or stimulated by a firm's competitive strategy.

This study employed a data set drawn from 124 plant managers and directors of Indian manufacturing firms. Multiple regression was used to examine the impact of operational practices of lean, total quality management (TQM) and supply chain management (SCM) within competitive clusters of cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy.

Results of the study show that the pattern of impact of operational practices on firm's performance varies according to type of the competitive strategy employed. All the three competitive strategy clusters have reported that TQM is the most important trigger for Indian manufacturing firms with relative effect of TQM practices on firm's performance being higher than that of lean and SCM practices.

Cross-sectional data from Indian manufacturing firms were used, and it would be interesting to test the analytical framework of the study for more sectors and countries. Future studies can take a longitudinal research approach to strengthen the findings of the study.

The findings explain how operational practices are aligned with competitive strategies for practitioners so that they can assign limited resources to build diverse operational capabilities based on their strategic choices.

Although very few classical studies are reported in various contexts involving competitive strategy, operational practices and firm's performance, no existing study focuses on how these three domains are linked together in the context of Indian manufacturing sector.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the existing literature that relates leadership style to total quality management (TQM) focus. Specifically, the study evaluates whether and how leadership style may affect the implementation of TQM practices.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from employees of different organizations operating in the manufacturing (n = 156) and service sectors (n = 147). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses as well as structural equation modeling were adopted to test the hypothesized research model.

The results revealed that transformational leadership has a positive impact in the implementation of TQM practices (e.g., customer focus, process management, human resource management, strategic planning and learning). It was also found that, regardless of industry type, manufacturing or service, transformational leadership has a significantly positive influence on TQM practices. In addition, it was noted that manufacturing companies showed a higher level of TQM practices than did service companies.

This study represents, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the first empirical examination of the relationship between transformational leadership and TQM in the service and manufacturing industries, with the goal of determining the differences between these two sectors. The study's conclusions may be useful for service and manufacturing organizations in achieving more effective leadership in the implementation of TQM.

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.

Culture is considered as one of the variables that influence the total quality management (TQM) adoption process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between cultural dimensions and the strategy of the firms in TQM implementation. These relationships are the subject of prior research. Furthermore, the authors make a comparative analysis of cultural dimensions on strategic choices of the firms, i.e. innovators, prospectors and defenders in TQM implementation.

From the existing literature review on TQM practices and organizational culture, 14 cultural dimensions were employed with organizational strategy in this present study. By using survey data collection method, 111 Indian firms were selected. The authors considered three strategy parameters and six structural attributes to identify the strategy of the firms, namely innovators, prospectors and defenders identified using cluster analysis. Furthermore, the relationship between organizational culture and strategy was examined using one-way ANOVA approach.

The results of the study revealed that eleven of the fourteen hypotheses supported which relating the cultural dimensions to TQM implementation with the strategic orientation. With the help of significant related values of cultural dimensions to the particular strategic firms, it is also found that implementation of TQM is easy or not. Some of the organizations with a particular strategic orientation will be able to implement TQM easily and successfully but some organizations will have difficulty to implement it successfully.

The firms hold their importance with respect to the different strategic orientation toward the various aspects of organizational cultures and TQM approaches in its implementation. Managerially, due to increased business competitiveness and economic pressures, top management sees the way in adopting TQM practices to achieve a competitive advantage. Apparently, it is evident that matching of TQM practices for a different strategy of the firms with various cultural dimensions leads to the smooth functioning of the organization. This study helps to the current organizations in implementing TQM with their respective culture.

This research can be useful for three strategic firms, namely innovators, prospectors and defenders to achieve effective implementation of TQM practices with consideration and understanding of the advantage of each culture dimension. The framework of the current study represents the effectiveness in assessing the TQM practices in individual cultural dimensions and its significant role.