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terça-feira, 15 de julho de 2014

QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES IMPACT ON THE COMPANIES’ QUALITY PERFORMANCE

There is a considerable number of publications that is focused in the link between quality management and organizational performance. However, the analysis of the direct effects and results of the quality management principles and practices in Portuguese organizations quality performance is an innovative issue.
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) research entitled “The Global State of Quality Research Overview” (2013) highlight the best quality management organizational structure which includes the quality management principles and practices that lead to a maximization of the organization results.
From the ASQ study, explanatory key factors, which are extensively being used during the whole research and which are highly related to the variability in the application of principles and practices, were established. 1) There are significant differences in the use and application of quality management and practices in organizations from the industry sector as well as in organizations from the service sector. 2) There is a general idea that the organizations of higher dimension tend to use more mature quality practices. Although this idea is appropriate for various practices, in general, the dimension of the organization has less impact than the organization activity sector concerning the application of mature quality practices. 3) There is no relevant indication that the use of quality principles and practices differs per region, generally. Some variations do exist, but normally they are related to the dimension, sector or other unidentified factors. (ASQ, 2013).
Hence, the aim of this research is to develop a conceptual model that reflects the relationship between the implementation of quality management principels and practices (QMPPs) and impact on the organizations quality performance.
Based on the literature review carried out, we have identified the most common and used QMPPs and then proposed a conceptual model that relates those QMPPs with the companies’ quality performance. In order to validate these QMPPs and consequently the conceptual model developed, we conducted several semi-structured interviews with the Portuguese Quality Leaders. Figure 1 presents the conceptual model developed.




 Figure 1 - Conceptual Model: Relationship between QMPPs and their impact in organizations quality performance.


The goal of this research is to analyze if the implementation of QMPPs results in an improvement of companies´ quality performance.
Our final conceptual model will be statistically validated based on a survey that will be sent to the Portuguese companies. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique will be used for statistical validation.
This work will not only contribute to bridge the gap, that is reflected in open literature, but it will also provide to the quality professionals an approach to an efficient quality management implementation in the organizations. It may also be used by researchers to develop the quality management theory.

Síria Barros
PhD Student
Research Group in Quality and Excellence 
University of Minho