Quality management as an effective strategy of cost savings

This paper presents the cost savings performance of two quality management (QM) organisation classified groups based on the intensity of QM being implemented, namely low intensive and high intensive. Data of this study were collected from 205 local authority managers in Malaysia. The issue of cost savings is topical to the current focus of many public organisations worldwide due to the scarcity of funds available and expectation of the general public nowadays being higher than before. Although, QM has been discussed for years as an effective cost savings strategy, this strategy is not free from critics, mostly from those who are sceptical toward the potential attached to QM. Among the criticism appearing in the literature is that the implementation of QM requires a huge fund and the cost benefit of its implementation is less visible. After years of QM being introduced into the Malaysian public service, issue of its implementation deserve attention from scholars. The reported findings indicated that QM organisations achieve different cost savings performance subject to the intensity of its implementation. Therefore, the outcome of this study suggested managers of QM organisations to intensify the practice of QM, so that the cost savings objective would be attainable.