Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2016

Abstract

Institutional theory argues that the isomorphic nature of quality management (QM) practices leads to similar QM implementation and performance among QM-embedded firms. However, contingency theory questions such 'universal effectiveness of QM practices'. Considering these conflicting arguments, this study tests samples from the U.S. and China to examine whether the 'universal effectiveness of QM practices’ across national boundaries actually exists. First, the confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the validity of the survey instruments developed in this study. Then, the hypotheses were tested using the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The SEM test results indicated that the positive effect of behavioral QM on firm performance was more significant in the U.S. sample than in the China sample. The test results also presented that the relative effect of behavioral QM versus technical QM on firm performance was noticeably different in service firms, according to national economic maturity. The study’s findings demonstrated that a firm's contingency factors, such as national economic maturity and industry type, could result in the heterogeneous implementation of the firm’s TQM program; consequently, the findings weakened the 'universal effectiveness of QM practices'.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

International Journal of Supply and Operations Management

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.22034/2016.1.01

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.