Linkages between total quality management and organisational performance: an empirical study for Indian industry

Many companies across the world are engaged in adopting total quality management (TQM) to improve their operational performance. Managers are under increasing pressure to justify the value and contribution of TQM program expenditures to the performance of the organisation. This paper examines the need for establishing linkages between factors affecting TQM, as well as organisational performance and suggests a comprehensive assessment framework. A diagnostic instrument has been designed to test in Indian industries that have implemented TQM during the last decade. The result of this empirical study establishes the strong and weak linkages and helps to derive a few propositions for furtherance of the state-of-the-art in TQM. Such a study has the potential to contribute in providing feedback to manage and improve the TQM programs to better meet the needs of the organisation.