Bishnu Sharma

An investigation of the hard and soft quality management factors of Australian SMEs and their association with firm performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key “hard” and “soft” quality management factors used by Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and their association with organisational performance.Design/methodology/approach – A survey questionnaire was constructed for this research using Powells quality management framework. The respondents were required to indicate their degree of implementation of quality management practices and to rate their TQM performance in relation to overall performance, return on assets, market share and customer satisfaction.Findings – The study found that improved overall performance appears to be favourably influenced by a combination of “hard” TQM factors such as benchmarking and quality measurement, continuous improvement, and efficiency improvement; and the “soft” TQM factors consisting of top management philosophy and supplier support, employee training and increased interaction with employees and customers. Furthermore, the TQM factors of employee tr...

An inter‐industry comparison of quality management practices and performance

This paper investigates similarities and differences in total quality management practices across different industry groups such as the service, manufacturing, and construction industries. The study also investigates the relationship between the quality management practices and business performance by industry category. A survey was conducted using Powell’s framework as a basis, and sent to Queensland businesses. A total of 140 responses were received – 58 from the service sector, 62 from the manufacturing sector, and 20 from the construction sector. The results suggest that there are some common factors including value chain integration, efficiency and employee involvement, though the composition of quality management practices comprising these factors differed somewhat between industries. The results reveal that value chain integration in particular appears to be an important factor for quality management in each of the industries examined. The results of MANOVA analyses suggest evidence of an association between some of the quality management practices and performance for the service and manufacturing industries but not for the construction industry.

Dis-placed voices: sense of place and place-identity on the Sunshine Coast

The geographical literature on place interrogates, amongst other notions, sense of place, place identity, and their connections or disruptions. Although notions of place are multiple and very fluid, place transformation in rural and regional areas may be more rapid than the changing understandings of place held by residents. This research examines notions of place held by residents on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, one of the fastest growing ‘sea change’ regions in the nation. It presents a reading of empirical material that suggests sense of place and place-identity cannot be easily equated in the region. Sense of place was more important to rural and long-term residents than was the place-identity. Landscape change in the region is narrated, and images of place-identity interpreted, to suggest that place-identity has been created and imposed by the globalising forces of development, rather than emanating from many residents perspectives. Those local voices have been, and continue to be, successively displaced and disrupted. Thus discursive power in various ways shapes and is shaped by dominant place-identity in the region, and some voices are blocked by the discourses of urbanisation. The unequal geographies of power shaping the regional landscape need to be acknowledged within place transformation processes. These geographies of power suggest that sense of place can be thought of as a ‘view from the bottom’, while place-identity primarily functions as a ‘view from the top’.

An investigation of the perceived importance and effectiveness of quality management approaches

Investigates the key strategic approaches used by Queensland businesses in achieving their quality objectives. Finds that the highest ranked quality management techniques of total sample firms included a program for reduction in defects, commitment and communication of commitment to quality programs, an open trusting culture and interaction with customers and suppliers. Finds also that in excess of 65 per cent of Queensland businesses adopt some form of quality management techniques, of which ISO 9000 was found to be dominant. Quality management approaches used by businesses committed to quality management were compared with those which had no formal commitment to quality management. The results suggest that businesses committed to a quality management program are more inclined to have top executive support for, and organisational communication of, quality management principles, plus greater emphasis on better customer relationships, and that these quality management approaches are positively associated with organisational performance.

Leadership and the company turnaround process

Three firms engaged in the heavy engineering industry undergoing the transition from organisational decline to recovery were studied in‐depth in a period of significant change for the industry. The purpose of the study was to explore the way in which leaders manage the company turnaround process. The turnaround performance and processes of recovering firms were compared to those of a less successful rival. Effective turnaround management involved making a series of holistic changes to strategies, structures and practices throughout the organisation; changes which were orchestrated by leaders at different levels in the firms. This study of leaders at work presents a model linking leadership and the turnaround process which challenges conventional prescriptions for company revival in a mature industry and identifies three core dimensions which mediate the effectiveness of relationship between leadership and company turnarounds.

Quality Management Dimensions, Contextual Factors and Performance: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract In an assessment of the status of quality management dimensions in Queensland businesses, this study has used Powells (1995) framework of quality management. A mail survey approach was used to collect the information on various dimensions of quality management considered in this study. The results suggest that implementation of quality management practices in Queensland businesses has begun but not much progress has been made yet. Of different quality management programs, ISO9000 is a very popular quality management program used by the firms in the sample. The findings of the study indicate that the firms that have adopted Total Quality Management (TQM) tend to put more emphasis on Measurement and Training aspects than those firms that have adopted ISO9000 or a combination of ISO9000 and TQM. The results also suggest that large firms tend to put more emphasis on the benchmarking aspect of quality management than small and medium firms. Measurement and Process Improvement are found to be more important for manufacturing firms than for the firms engaged in construction. In terms of performance, there are few notable positive correlations with some of the quality management dimensions in spite of low level of implementation of quality management practices in Queensland businesses.

An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship between Quality Management Factors and Customer Satisfaction, Improved Competitive Position and Overall Business Performance

This study investigates the impact of quality management practices on three measures of organisational performance comprising customer satisfaction, improved competitive position and overall business performance. To investigate these relationships, a factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to determine the most salient quality management practices, which were then regressed against the three measures of organisational performance using Multivariate Analysis of Variance. The findings show that quality management factors such as top management philosophy, measurement and open organisation have significant associations with business competitive position, whereas marketing process improvement and employee training have significant associations with customer satisfaction. The results also suggest that top management philosophy, measurement and open organisation, and marketing process improvement are associated with overall business performance.

Marketing strategy, contextual factors and performance

This research investigates the degree of emphasis put by the Australian manufacturing industry on marketing strategy, along with other organisational strategies such as research and development (R&D), human resources, technology, operations at the functional level. The study found that the emphasis on marketing strategy had a third place after operations and R&D strategy in the past few years. In terms of its effectiveness, marketing strategy has not been as effective as the operations strategy and the technology strategy. The research also investigates the relationship between marketing strategy and organisational performance. The results suggest that the increase in efforts for the development of new market segments/customers is found to be positively associated with the increase in sales growth in domestic and export markets. It is also found that market forecasting has a positive and significant relationship with the return on total assets while the development of new market segments/customers and market share analysis have a negative and significant relationship. The research extends further to investigate whether the emphasis on marketing strategy differs with contextual factors such as firm size, firms generic strategy, type of market, firms life cycle stage, etc. The findings suggest that relatively higher emphasis was placed on the marketing strategy by firms which are large, are involved in consumer goods industry, are involved in exports, have high domestic sales growth, and have adopted a differentiation strategy combined with a cost leadership strategy. In conducting this study, a mail survey was carried out to collect information from manufacturing firms across Australia, and 225 responses were received. This was followed by an on‐site interview of some of the senior managers of manufacturing firms in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

Living independently and the impact on young adult eating behaviour in Germany

Purpose – This aim of this study is to investigate whether food choice varies by the place of residence (dependent or independent) of a group of young adults.Design/methodology/approach – A self‐administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 305 German students between the ages of 18 to 24 years.Findings – It was found that students who lived in the family home consumed more helpings of both fruit and vegetables each day, compared with young adults who lived independently. Further, higher proportions of dependent students ate more servings of every food group each day compared with their independent counterparts. It was also found that there is a significant difference in mood, weight concern and attitudes towards healthy eating between students under 21‐years‐old and those above 21‐years‐old.Research limitations/implications – The research was a cross‐sectional study of a selected group of German university students from a single campus that was based on a quota sample and assessed...

Entry barriers and industry rivalry

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the impact of quality management practices on performance and the extent to which industry rivalry and entry barriers moderate the relationship between the implementation of quality management practices and quality management performance.Design/methodology/approach – A survey questionnaire was administered for this research using Powells quality management framework. The respondents were required to indicate their degree of implementation of quality management practices and to rate their TQM performance in relation to overall performance, the firms competitive position and the nature of the impact of quality management on the organisation. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.Findings – The results show that firms with high levels of executive commitment to quality management and those that pay close attention to customer needs tend to improve their competitive position, view quality as being positive for the organisation, and improve ove...