RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TQM PRACTICES AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION FROM A SOUTH A

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a widely used management philosophy for the last few decades. Japan had set the stage for TQM in 1950’s which was led by Americans, such as Deming, Juran and Feigenbaum. Gradually TQM starts to emerge as a new paradigm shift. The organizations implement TQM in order to gain competitive advantage in terms of quality, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability. However, the literature seems inconclusive about the positive effect of TQM practices on the organisational performance. Furthermore, several empirical studies argue that the social, cultural, and economic conditions of a country might have the potential to affect TQM practices within a company. Therefore, this study provides empirical evidence from a developing country of South Asia where such type of the research is not conducted adequately. This study was conducted in the context of textile companies of Pakistan. The data was collected from the member companies of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) by using self-completion questionnaire. The questionnaires were sent to 210 companies and the respondents were quality or production managers. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to investigate the relationship between TQM practices and organisational performance. The findings of this study indicate that TQM has a highly positive effect on organisational performance.