AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF TQM PRACTICES IN SERVICE OPERATIONAL SETTINGS

摘要

The literature clearly indicates that service organizations are lagging behind their manufacturingrncounterparts in terms of the effective deployment of total quality management practices (TQM) tornachieve operational and strategic objectives. The objective of this exploratory study is to shed some lightrnon the current TQM practices in service organizations. For this purpose, TQM practices and theirrnstrategic and operational outcomes are studied for a sample of 353 service organizations in 9 industries.rnThe results of this exploratory study appear to confirm the reported benefits of effective TQMrnimplementation. More importantly, however, the results also underscore the differences in TQMrnpractices and benefits due to some industry-specific factors. In general, the results of this studyrnunderscore the lack of commitment to TQM implementation, on the part of high percentage of thernsurveyed service organizations.