An empirical investigation of relationship between total quality management practices and quality performance in Indian service companies

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and quality performance in Indian service companies. Design/methodology/approach - The empirical data was collected using a self-administered instrument that was distributed to 600 Indian service companies. Of the 600 instrument e-mailed, 172 usable instrument were returned, yielding a response rate of 28.6 per cent. A stratified sampling procedure was utilized to obtain the minimum sample size of 600 from the four chosen service industries (i.e. Healthcare, Banking, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and Hospitality). The data was analyzed using factor, Pearson's correlation, and multiple regression analyses. Findings - The findings revealed that TQM practices were found to be partially correlated with quality performance of the Indian service companies. It was also found that quality culture was perceived as the dominant TQM practice in quality performance. The other practices such as quality systems, training and education, teamwork, and benchmarking showed a positive relationship with quality performance. Research limitations/implications - The research paper was limited by including only four industries in the selection of service companies in India, making this a possibly biased selection and it may not be adequate to generalize the results for the entire Indian service companies. Originality/value - The study has contributed to the TQM literature with a better understanding of the 17 TQM practices and their association with a company's quality performance that will provide valuable knowledge to top-management of service companies, to refine their current TQM practices and subsequently improve quality performance.