TQM 23,5. The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful suggestions and comments.

Transcription

1 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at wwwemeraldinsightcom/ htm TQM 23,5 496 The impact of TQM implementation on the organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs Changiz Valmohammadi Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran The TQM Journal Vol 23 No 5, 2011 pp q Emerald Group Publishing Limited DOI / Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide reliable and valid constructs of total quality management (TQM) and a measurement instrument in the context of Iranian manufacturing small to medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) and to examine the effects of these seven TQM criteria, namely: leadership, process management, supplier, customer focus, employee management, communication and quality information system (QIS) and tools and techniques on the organizational performance of the Iranian manufacturing SMEs Design/methodology/approach In order to search the impact of TQM practices on Iranian manufacturing SMEs a questionnaire was developed and distributed to quality managers of 65 Iranian manufacturing SMEs, resulting in a response rate of 815 percent In particular, hypotheses were developed to evaluate the impact of TQM implementation on the organizational performance of the manufacturing SMEs Findings Statistical analysis revealed that a number of significant relationships between TQM practices and organizational performance of the manufacturing SMEs The result found that leadership plays an important role in enhancing organizational performance of the Iranian manufacturing SMEs; however, these organizations encounter some obstacles in fully utilizing some TQM criteria, namely tools and techniques and suppliers Research limitations/implications The sample is restricted to only a single region and manufacturing, so it would be strongly recommended that data be gathered from various parts of Iran including both manufacturing and service industries As the data in this study were collected from top managers of organizations on the basis of their subjective evaluations, objective performance indicators should also be employed in the analysis Originality/value This study has the potential to enhance the understanding of TQM practices impact on organizational performance of the Iranian manufacturing SMEs amongst researches and practitioners Also the research adds knowledge in the field of quality management within the context of developing countries and gives a particular focus on the Iran manufacturing SMEs; as a review of literature, has identified no studies that have undertaken a comprehensive analysis of TQM practices and organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs in the Iranian context Keywords Total quality management, Organizational performance, Small to medium-sized enterprises, Iran Paper type Research paper 1 Introduction TQM has continued to evolve over the past two decades and have seen many changes in its emphasis Much of the effort has been on understanding the TQM practices that The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful suggestions and comments

2 lead to superior quality and overall business performance (Feng et al, 2006) Numerous approaches to management of quality were suggested, in order to help companies improve efficiency and competitiveness through improvement of quality One of them most popular and most often recommended approaches is the philosophy of TQM a holistic approach that seeks to integrate all organizational functions to focus on meeting customer needs and organizational objectives (Kumar et al, 2009) Fortunately in Iran during the past couple of years, industries of the country have found out the importance of quality as a key strategic weapon to compete in national and international markets One of the evidence is the growing interest of the Iranian organizations including SMEs for implementing TQM in recent years Because as (Reed et al, 2000) proved, they know quality management is the main factor for gaining sustainable competitive advantage SMEs play a very crucial role to the economies of most emerging nations from the viewpoint of generating employment and economic growth They account for more than half of the employment and added value in most countries Studies by several researchers, like (Flynn et al, 1995; Froza and Flippini, 1998; Samson and Terziovski, 1999; Demirbag et al, 2006) have shown yielded favorable conclusion on the effect of TQM and organization performance results such as waste reduction, fewer process mistakes, financial improvements, and overall improvement of the quality of the product or the service TQM was also linked to improvements in customer satisfaction, better knowledge of the processes or improved relationships among employees However, conflicting reports have been published regarding the effectiveness of TQM programs and authors diverge in the way they perceive the links between quality management practices and performance, (LaKhal et al, 2006) Since there is no systematic empirical evidence regarding the extent of TQM implementation and its effect on performance of manufacturing SMEs in Iran, this paper based on an in-depth review of literature aims to identify criteria and their related elements for effective TQM implementation and also explores the impact of criteria on organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs in order to understand quality efforts in manufacturing small to medium-sized enterprises in a developing country The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 provides a review of the literature on TQM and organizational performance and their relationship Section 3 develops Research objectives and hypothesis formulation of the study In section 4 study design is presented Section 5 presents the results and survey analysis and finally in section 6 conclusion and recommendation is provided Iranian manufacturing SMEs Literature review of TQM and organizational performance In spite of the increase in research on TQM, many questions remain unanswered For instance, various components of TQM must be explored, and the impact of TQM on organizational performance must be analyzed (Mehra and Ranganathan, 2008) The Quality Management field increasingly searches for new ways to improve organizational performance Considering the literature review of TQM shows that for effective implementation of TQM a set of critical factors and elements are required to be considered Several writers such as (Saraph et al, 1989; Powell, 1995; Ahire et al, 1996) have attempted to define the different dimensions that shape TQM also (Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005) identified eight key TQM factors, of which leadership and information and analysis had the greatest direct impact on the other factors identified,

3 TQM 23,5 498 and in turn, these authors identified a range of significant association between these TQM factors and various operational and business performance measures Taguchi (1986) advocated the importance of product and process design in managing variation Ishikawa (1985) promoted the use of teams or quality circles and the seven original tools of quality in performance improvement Still others have emphasized a comprehensive systems view to improve organizational performance (Deming, 1986; Feigenbaum, 1991; Juran and Godfrey, 1999) These and other quality management practitioners seek to create change and improve organizational performance After decades of various performance improvement initiatives, the question becomes what are the underlying processes and practices that govern performance improvement? TQM implementation is believed to lead to company performance improvement Numerous studies indicate positive relation between TQM implementation and performance (Kumar et al, 2009) Various definitions have been rendered by various researchers and practitioner on TQM For example (Porter and Tanner, 2001) define TQM as a business process that focuses on improving the organization s effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness to customer s needs by actively involving people in process improvement activities Yang (2005) gives more detail by stating that TQM is an integrated management philosophy and a set of practices that emphasizes, among other things, continuous improvement, meeting customers requirements, reducing rework, long-range thinking, increased employee involvement and team-work, process redesign, competitive benchmarking, team-based problem-solving, constant measurement of results, and closer relationships with suppliers Also, there is a relatively large body of empirical studies that measure business performance by TQM criteria (Powell, 1995; Flynn et al, 1995; Wilson and Collier, 2000; Fynes and Voss, 2001; Montes et al, 2003; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Kumar et al, 2009) These studies explore a variety of theoretical and empirical issues If TQM plan is implemented properly, it produces impact on a wide range of areas including understanding customers needs, improved customer satisfaction, improved internal communication, better problem solving and fewer errors Huarng and Chen (2002) report evidence that TQM philosophy and TQM tools have a positive relationship with business performance of small and medium companies in Taiwan, ie the integration of TQM philosophy and tools positively influenced both cost reduction and business performance One of the earlier empirical studies in the quality management area that analyzed the TQM critical success factors (CSFs) in the SMEs was conducted by (Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000) Also (Demirbag et al, 2006) in a study on 500 Turkish textile SMEs investigated the relationship between the implementation of TQM practices and organizational performance and found that there is a strong positive relationship between TQM practices and non-financial performance of SMEs, while there is only weak influence of TQM practices on financial performance of SMEs With only a mediating effect of non-financial performance that the TQM practices has a strong positive impact on financial performance of SMEs The empirical findings from Rahman s study (2001) of 53 Australian SMEs found that the critical factors of the successful implementation of TQM are leadership, strategy and planning, employee empowerment and employee involvement, employee training and development, information and analysis and customer management A review of literature, however, has identified no studies that have undertaken a comprehensive and comparative analysis of TQM practices and organizational performance of

4 manufacturing SMEs in the Iranian context With this reasoning, there is a need for further research to establish a setting of reference to analyze the quality practices by Iranian manufacturing SMEs, therefore, the current situation of TQM implementation in Iranian manufacturing SMEs still remains unclear Owing to lack of empirical studies in the area of TQM implementation, it is difficult for Iranian manufacturing SMEs to obtain sufficient information to support their TQM implementation process As a result, Iranian manufacturing SMEs are experiencing numerous difficulties, and even failures in implementing TQM In this study based on an in-depth review, seven factors were identified to measure the extent of TQM implementation in Iranian manufacturing SME sector Table I presents the factors together with their sources A number of representative measurement elements or items were then carefully formulated on the basis of pertinent studies to reflect the meaning and scope of each A total of 46 elements were assigned to them This resulted in a survey instrument (see Appendix) to measure the extent of TQM implementation in Iranian manufacturing SME sector Its reliability and validity will be discussed later in the paper Iranian manufacturing SMEs Research objectives and hypothesis formulation In order to study the relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance, the criteria to measure organizational performance have to be established to provide outcome measures for the research hypotheses The definition of performance is not clear among researchers and academics Depending on the topic of study, different researchers have different indicators to measure firm performance Factors Researchers 1 Leadership (Saraph et al, 1989; Flynn et al, 1995; Black and Porter, 1996; Ahire et al, 1996; Tamimi, 1998; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Tari, 2005; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) 2 Process management (Saraph et al, 1989; Black and Porter, 1996; Flynn et al, 1995; Ahire et al, 1996; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Tari, 2005; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) 3 Customer focus (Flynn et al, 1995; Ahire et al, 1996; Black and Porter, 1996; Tamimi, 1998; Rahman, 2001; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Tari, 2005; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) 4 Communications and quality information systems (QIS) 5 Employee management and involvement (Saraph et al, 1989; Flynn et al, 1995; Black and Porter, 1996; Ahire et al, 1996; Tamimi, 1998; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Rahman, 2001; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) (Flynn et al, 1995; Black and Porter, 1996; Ahire et al, 1996; Tamimi, 1998; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Rahman, 2001; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) 6 Supplier management (Saraph et al, 1989; Black and Porter, 1996; Flynn et al, 1995; Ahire et al, 1996; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005; Tari, 2005; Demirbag et al, 2006; Salaheldin, 2009) 7 Tools and techniques (Ahire et al, 1996; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Bayazit, 2003; Ahmed and Hassan, 2003; Tari, 2005) Table I CSFs identified by researchers

5 TQM 23,5 500 (Fening et al, 2008) So the performance indicators for this study will include profitability, customer satisfaction, sales growth, employee morale, and market share Some of these performance measures have been used in previous studies (Lerner and Almor, 2002; Yusuf and Saffu, 2005) As was mentioned in the literature, despite the number of publications and the amount of research on the relationship between TQM and organizational performance, no empirical research has been carried out in Iran and there is very little known about management attitudes/perceptions in Iran towards this relationship Therefore, based on the analysis of past research, the purpose of this paper is twofold to identify the criteria and their related elements of TQM practices of the SMEs in the Iranian manufacturing sector; and to evaluate the impact of TQM criteria on the organizational performances of the manufacturing SMEs For this purpose and based on the identified criteria, the following are hypothesized: H1 Quality leadership positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H2 Process management positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H3 Customer focus positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H4 Communications& Quality Information Systems (QIS) positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H5 Employee focus positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H6 Supplier focus positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs H7 Tools and techniques positively impacts organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs 4 Study design 41 Reliability of the questionnaire The internal consistency method works quite well in field studies because it requires only one administration Further, it is the most general form of reliability estimation The internal consistency of a set of measurement items refers to the degree to which items in the set are homogeneous Internal consistency can be estimated using a reliability coefficient such as cronbach s alpha (Saraph et al, 1989) In this research cronbach s alpha was calculated separately for each criterion of the questionnaire The results are shown in Table II 42 Validation of the constructs The validity of a measure refers to the extent to which it measures what is intended to be measured Content validity is not evaluated numerically, it is subjectively judged by the researchers (Kaplan, 1987) It can be argued that because the measurement items were based on an extensive review of the literature on various TQM approaches the seven measures of the critical factors of TQM developed in this study have content validity

6 Criteria Number of items Cronbach s alpha Leadership Process management Customer focus Employee management Supplier Communications and QIS Tools and techniques Organizational performance Iranian manufacturing SMEs 501 Table II Reliability analysis Construct measures the extent to which the items in a scale all measure the same construct (Zhang et al, 2000) A measure has construct validity if it measures the theoretical construct or trait that it was designed to measure (Kaplan, 1987) Factor analysis is a procedure that relies on the use of correlations between data variables In this study each factor was individually tested for construct validity The usual approach is to factor analyze the set of items for each construct separately to check for unifactoriality or unidimensionality A factor is unifactorial if all its items estimate only one construct The number of cases in this study was rather small to perform a good factor analysis In this respect, many arbitrary rules of thumb exist that specify the required number of cases, but there is however, no absolute scientific answer to this issue (Edari, 2004) Nonetheless, the author felt that conducting the factor analysis was better than not performing any in order to give an indication of the construct validity of the critical factors The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was used to determine the appropriateness of the data sets for the factor analysis; a value greater than 05 represents an acceptable condition (Field, 2000) As can be seen in the second column of Table III, this requirement was met by all the factors Also, the column four shows that more than 58 percent of the variance of each set of items was accounted for by its respective factor In essence, all the tests conducted above proved that the constructs developed in this study were both reliable and valid Number of employees and position of respondents There is no consensus on the definition of SME, as variations exist between countries, sectors and even different governmental agencies within the same country (Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000) According to the definition of Iranian SMEs business administration, small and medium sized enterprises have less than 500 employees and in this study the Factors KMO value Factor loading Eigenvalue Percentage variance explained Leadership Process management Communications and QIS Employee management Customer focus Supplier Tools and techniques Table III Final results of factor analysis

7 TQM 23,5 502 majority of companies had between 150 and 250 employees (65 percent), 20 percent of the companies responded had less than 100 employees and 15 percent of the companies responded had between 250 and 450 employees The surveyed organizations consisted of organizations that had been involved in implementing TQM practices from initial stages to over ten years Organizations that did not have any quality programs were not considered, since the quality management practices of these organizations were likely to be unsophisticated or probably nonexistent The Profile of organizations involved in this study is shown in Table IV 5 Survey results and analysis Data for this study were collected using a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed to 65 manufacturing SMEs in the city of Tehran selected randomly from the database of Iran Small Business Administration 053 usable questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis representing a response rate of 815 percent from the sample Questions also included demographics such as number of workers employed, educational background of owner/manager, and female or male owner/manager, which is shown in Table V The distribution of the mean scores for these indicators and for all the seven criteria is divided in to three bonds, high (score 5 to 7), medium (3 to, 5) and low (1 to, 3), derived from the scales of the questionnaire Based on the calculations of the leadership criterion, 31 organizations out of the total organizations achieved the high score and only seven organizations obtained the low score This result shows that in comparison to other criteria these 31 organizations pay more attention to this criterion It is worth Type of industry Frequency Percent Table IV The profile of sample organizations Chemical 6 10 Plastic 5 9 Automotive Electronics and ICT 8 14 Mechanical 6 12 Pharmaceutical 4 7 Food 6 12 Textile 2 5 Others 3 6 Total usable sample Gender Position Number Educational background Number Table V Demographics of the respondents Male Quality manager 33 Graduate education 16 Manager/Owner 12 Undergraduate education 26 Secondary education 8 Female Quality manager 6 Graduate education 4 Manager/Owner 2 Undergraduate education 2 Secondary education 2 Total usable sample 53 53

8 noting that as (Antony and Kumar, 2005) state small companies are more agile, then it is much easier to buy-in management support and commitment, as opposed to large organizations On the other hand the tools and techniques criterion obtained the lowest mean score of 312 A total 29 organizations fell in the low band and 12 organizations in the high band Probably one of the reasons is that, they do not enough, pay attention to the effective use of tools and techniques which stems from the lack of design knowledge and experienced experts in the these organizations and scarcity of financial resources, so the powerful techniques related to design process, such as QFD, DOE, etc, are not employed The other relatively low rank criterion is suppliers, with mean score of 398, which stems from the fact that most Iranian organizations have no effective and strong mutual relationship with their suppliers and they employ traditional methods and approaches on material requirements planning and are unfamiliar with the new methods and thoughts of supply chain management Thus based on the policy of Iranian SMEs business administration whose main objective is the assistance and support of SMEs by giving financial assistance, it must redirect its focus on helping these firms to be introduced and trained to new methods and tools and techniques of TQM So they could be more capable of meeting customers needs and expectations, thereby increasing their market base which eventually goes to increase profit, customer satisfaction, market share and growth Table VI shows the mean and standard deviation of all criteria Iranian manufacturing SMEs Correlation analysis: relationships between the variables To test the hypotheses of the relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance, regression analysis for 5 percent statistical significance was conducted on each of TQM variables Seven hypotheses were tested each for TQM practice variable against performance Correlation results indicated that they were highly correlated to each other Table VII shows that leadership, and process management were very highly significantly (alpha, ¼ 0001) related to SME organizational performance, and customer focus, employee management, and communication and QIS were highly significantly (alpha, ¼ 001) related to SME organizational performance, and supplier and tools and techniques were significantly (alpha, ¼ 005) related to SME organizational performance The correlation coefficients between the independent variables (ie TQM practices) and the dependent variable (ie organizational performance) were less than 09, indicating that the data was not affected by a collinearity problem These correlations are also further evidence of validity and reliability of measurement scales used in this Criteria Mean SD Organizational performance Leadership Process management Employee management Customer focus Communications and QIS Supplier Tools and techniques Table VI Calculations of mean and standard deviation of all criteria

9 TQM 23,5 504 Table VII Summary of regression Criteria Hypothesis R R-squared p-value Decision Leadership/organizational performance H *** Accept H1 Process management H *** Accept H2 Communications and QIS H ** Accept H3 Employee management H ** Accept H4 Customer focus H ** Accept H5 Supplier H * Accept H6 Tools and techniques H * Accept H7 Notes: *, ¼ 005; **, ¼ 001; ***, ¼ 0001 research (Hair et al, 1995) The results indicate that the most important TQM practices affecting organizational performance were leadership and process management (ie with the highest scores of correlation), which goes to prove that where leadership and process management were perceived as a dominant TQM practices, improvements in organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs were significant 52 Summary of hypotheses H1 The implementation of leadership practices will enhance organizational performance This seems to have the most significant relationship of the entire hypotheses There is positive significant relationship between leadership and organizational performance The results strongly support the alternate hypothesis H2 Process management practice correlates positively to organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs Results indicated process management correlates positively with performance; hence the alternate hypothesis is accepted H3 A positive relationship exists between communications and QIS and organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs There was a positive significant relation between communications and QIS and organizational performance H4 Employee management will influence the organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs positively The results rejected the null hypothesis and accept that employee management influence organizational performance positively H5 A positive relationship exists between customer focus and organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs There was a positive significant relation between customer focus and organizational performance H6 Proper implementation of the supplier variable will increase organizational performance There was a very weak significant relationship between the two variables though the alternate hypothesis is accepted H7 There is a strong positive correlation between tools and techniques and organizational performance This hypothesis though significant was weak

10 6 Conclusion and recommendation The purpose of the current paper is to identify the critical success factors of TQM implementation and to evaluate their impact on organizational performance of manufacturing SMEs in the Iranian SME sector The questionnaire used for the survey was based on the framework of the study which was pilot tested In all 51 questions were asked including five performance indicators which were profitability, customer satisfaction, sales growth, employee morale, and market share The study identified a number of significant relationships between TQM practices and organizational performance From the managerial perspective, this study offers a number of managerial implications for Iranian manufacturing SMEs managers and policy makers First, the instrument developed and used in this research will be very useful to policy makers in manufacturing SME sector of Iran as a tool for evaluating the effectiveness of their current TQM practices Second, in order to get the full potential of TQM it is necessary to train all people at all levels in order to create TQM awareness, interest, desire and action Thus, top management attention might be fruitfully focused on the development of appropriate training programs on TQM implementation, particularly on tools and techniques and new methods of supply chain management Third, manufacturing SMEs managers should consider suppliers as business partners They have to be involved in product development, process improvement and making the quality policy This may lead to better quality and then better customer satisfaction Further, the findings of this study could offer a useful potential orientation of the importance of the criteria and their related elements for TQM implementation and their impact on performance of manufacturing SMEs to both researchers and decision makers who are concerned with the issue under investigation In summary, the research results have shown a positive indication that there is a relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance Consequently it determined the contribution of TQM on organizational performance of the Iranian manufacturing SMEs and identified the most important factors of organizational performance The regression analysis revealed that all of the seven TQM practices have positive and significant impacts on organizational performance This setting may limit the external validity of other findings Therefore it is suggested in further research data be gathered from both manufacturing and service industries So the results could be generalized and compared internationally Undoubtedly this finding is useful for both practical and theoretical purposes However, the generalization of the results obtained needs further research on other variety of samples, approaches and settings Iranian manufacturing SMEs 505 References Ahire, SL, Golhar, DY and Waller, MA (1996), Development and validation of TQM implementation constructs, Decision Sciences, Vol 27 No 1, pp Ahmed, S and Hassan, M (2003), Survey and case investigations on application of quality management tools and techniques in SMIs, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 20 No 7, pp Antony, J and Kumar, M (2005), Six Sigma in small- and medium-sized UK manufacturing enterprises; some empirical observations, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 22 No 8, pp

11 TQM 23,5 506 Bayazit, O (2003), Total quality management (TQM) practices in Turkish manufacturing organizations, The TQM Magazine, Vol 15 No 5, pp Black, SA and Porter, LJ (1996), Identification of the critical factors of TQM, Decision Sciences, Vol 27 No 1, pp 1-21 Deming, WE (1986), Out of the Crisis, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Demirbag, M, Tatolglu, E, Tekinkus, M and Zaim, S (2006), An analysis of the relationship between TQM implementation and organizational performance: evidence from Turkish SMEs, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol 17 No 6, pp Edari, RS (2004), Factor analysis, available at: wwwuwmedu/, edari/methstat/factorhtm (accessed 14 March 2009) Fening, FA, Pesakovic, G and Amaria, P (2008), Relationship between quality management practices and the performance of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 25 No 7, pp Feigenbaum, AV (1991), Total Quality Control, 3rd ed, McGraw Hill, New York, NY Field, AP (2000), Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows: Advanced Techniques for the Beginner, Sage, London Flynn, BB, Schroeder, RG and Sakakibaras, S (1995), The impact of quality management practices on performance and competitive advantage, Decision Sciences, Vol 26 No 5, pp Froza, C and Flippini, R (1998), TQM impact on quality conformance and customer satisfaction: a causal model, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol 55 No 1, pp 1-20 Fynes, B and Voss, C (2001), A path analytic model of quality practices, quality performance and business performance, Production and Operations Management, Vol 10 No 4, pp Hair, JF Jr, Anderson, R, Tatham, R and Black, W (1995), Multivariate Data Analysis, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ Huarng, F and Chen, YT (2002), Relationships of TQM philosophy, methods and performance: a survey in Taiwan, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol 102 No 4, pp Ishikawa, K (1985), What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ Juran, JM and Godfrey, AB (1999), Juran s Quality Handbook, 5th ed, McGraw Hill, New York, NY Kaplan, RM (1987), Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA Kumar, V, Choisne, F, de Grosbois, D and Kumar, U (2009), Impact of TQM on company s performance, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 26 No 1, pp LaKhal, L, Pasin, F and Limam, M (2006), Quality management practices and their impact on performance, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 23 No 6, pp Lerner, M and Almor, T (2002), Relationship among strategic capabilities and the performance of women-owned small ventures, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol 40 No 2, pp Mehra, S and Ranganathan, S (2008), Implementing total quality management with a focus on enhancing customer satisfaction, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 25 No 9, pp

12 Montes, FJLM, Jover, AV and Fernandez, LMM (2003), Factors affecting the relationship between total quality management and organizational performance, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 20 No 2, pp Powell, TC (1995), Total quality management as competitive advantage: a review and empirical study, Strategic Management Journal, Vol 16 No 1, pp Porter, L and Tanner, S (2001), Assessing Business Excellence A Guide to Business Excellence and Self-Assessment, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford Rahman, S (2001), A comparative study of TQM practice and organizational performance of SMEs with and without ISO 9000 certification, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Journal, Vol 18 No 1, pp Reed, R, Lemak, DJ and Mero, NP (2000), Total quality management and sustainable competitive advantage, Journal of Quality Management, Vol 5 No 1, pp 5-26 Salaheldin, IS (2009), Critical success factors for TQM implementation and their impact on performance of SMEs, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol 58 No 3, pp Saraph, JV, Benson, PG and Schroeder, RG (1989), An instrument for measuring the critical factors of quality management, Decision Sciences, Vol 20 No 4, pp Sila, I and Ebrahimpour, M (2005), Critical linkages among TQM factors and business results, International Journal of Operations and Product Management, Vol 25 No 11, pp Taguchi, G (1986), Introduction to Quality Engineering, Asian Productivity Association, Tokyo Tamimi, N (1998), A second order factor analysis of critical factors, International Journal of Quality Science, Vol 3 No 1, pp 71-9 Tari, JJ (2005), Components of successful total quality management, The TQM Magazine, Vol 17 No 2, pp Yang, CC (2005), An integrated model of TQM and GE-Six Sigma, International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, Vol 1 No 1, pp Wilson, DD and Collier, DA (2000), An empirical investigation of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award causal model, Decision Sciences, Vol 31 No 2, pp Yusof, SM and Aspinwall, E (2000), Total quality management implementation frameworks: comparison and review, Total Quality Management, Vol 11 No 3, pp Yusuf, A and Saffu, K (2005), Planning and performance of small and medium sized enterprises operators in a country in transition, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol 43 No 4, pp Zhang, Z, Wazink, A and Wigngaard, J (2000), An instrument for measuring TQM implementation for Chinese manufacturing companies, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol 17 No 7, pp Iranian manufacturing SMEs 507 Appendix Research questionnaire For the seven TQM practices, respondents indicated the extent of practicing TQM elements in their organizations ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely high) Also on the last five questions they were asked to indicate the extent to which TQM implementation has affected the criteria of organizational performance of their organizations (1) Leadership: Transparency of mission and vision commitment to quality and customer satisfaction visible to staff

13 TQM 23,5 Quality policy and planning and its development Strategic planning& innovation and change management Empowerment of staff for continuous improvement Use of information and knowledge management to promote R&D activities 508 Social and citizenship responsibility Creation of company-wide culture committed to quality improvement Financial resources management Measurement of employee productivity Measurement of product quality (2) Process management: Process automation (eg SPC) Consistent of production Clarity and transparency of procedures and work instructions of processes and operations Inspection, reviewing or checking of work Design control Design review and product development Self inspection by workers (3) Customer focus: Identification of customer needs and expectations Assessment of customer needs and expectations measurement of customer satisfaction Improvement of communications between organization and customers (4) Communications and quality information system (QIS): Identification and application of methods to measure organization performance Identification of communication requirements (team briefing, etc) Collection, analysis and use of data and quality information (5) Employee management: Providing participative environment for employees Motivating, supporting and encouraging employees Creating awareness among employees on quality Measurement of effectiveness of training and its impact on employees Measurement of employee satisfaction Supplying feedback to employee satisfaction Facilitation of team- working to solve problems (6) Supplier: Fulfillment of needs and expectation of suppliers Creating long-term relationship with suppliers Assessment of suppliers on the result of quality Supplying feedback to suppliers on the performance of products and processes

14 (7) Tools and techniques: Use of self-assessment Use of seven basic quality tools Use of quality function deployment (QFD) Iranian manufacturing SMEs Use of benchmarking Use of cost of quality (COQ) Use of failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) 509 Use of 5S Use of business process reengineering (BPR) Use of total productive maintenance (TMP) Use of design of experiment (DOE) (8) Organizational performance: customer satisfaction; employee morale; market share; sales growth; profitability Corresponding author Changiz Valmohammadi can be contacted at: To purchase reprints of this article please Or visit our web site for further details: wwwemeraldinsightcom/reprints