Relating TQM, marketing and business performance: An exploratory study

Abstract

Total Quality Management (TQM) is perhaps the leading management approach that companies employ to improve their product and service quality with the aim of improving typical measures of business performance (e.g. increased profits, increased market share, reduced costs). However, consumer perception of quality not only results from an evaluation of the intrinsic quality attributes of the product (e.g. performance, reliability, durability) but is also affected by the marketing mix (e.g. price, advertising, warranties) adopted by the company selling the product. This paper offers a first attempt at cross-functional fertilization by examining the relationships between TQM, some marketing mix variables and measures of company performance by exploring the diverse multidisciplinary literature and developing an explanatory framework, which is tested using non-parametric correlation and refined through an empirical study of Spanish manufacturing companies. The results show that the most important TQM dimensions are the system of employee relations and the use of quality management-related design tools. The results also indicate the existence of a relationship amongst price, advertising and warranties, but that these marketing variables were not related to TQM and that further research is required to include a wider definition of marketing strategy.

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