Assessing the individual and synergistic effects of quality management practices on operations performance

Abstract

Purpose Quality management (QM) practices have long been suggested as a package to improve the quality performance of a company. Yet, empirical studies offered little support of this perspective as only a small set of QM practices were found to be conductive to quality improvement. By taking a new approach, the purpose of this paper is simultaneously evaluate the individual and synergistic effects of several key quality practices on operations performance. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected and used to test the proposed hypotheses. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to assess the magnitude of synergistic effects and individual effects. Findings It is found in this study that the synergistic effects across QM practices are substantial in enhancing all operations performance dimensions whereas individual effect varies for different performance goals. Originality/value This study makes theoretical contributes to the field of QM by providing empirical support of the interdependence assumption of QM practices and resolving the inconsistent findings. Practically, the results suggest that in-depth implementation of various QM practices simultaneously can be highly effective to achieve performance improvement on all accounts. In addition, the positive additional individual effects also open up a firm’s strategic choices of where to focus the resource investment in the adoption process as long as the strategic focus can justify its contribution toward the desired performance goals.

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