total quality management system, quality management, quality culture,
leadership, customer relationship.
Author:Liviu Ilieș, Horațiu Cătălin Sălăgean and Ioana Beleiu
JEL:M14, L21, L25
DOI:
Keywords:total quality management system, quality management, quality culture,
leadership, customer relationship.
Abstract:
The current paper is part of a wider research that has as general objective to develop an
evaluation and analysis model for the total quality management (TQM) system to identify best
practices that determine its’ performance, in order to improve it. The research is focused on
organizations from the metal construction industry. The sample consists of organizations from
Romania operating in the before mentioned area, which have a consolidated position in the
market and conducted efforts in implementing TQM systems. The data analysis was conducted
through quantitative research methods, based on statistical processing. Regarding the research
tools used for data collection, a survey based on a questionnaire was employed. The designed
and pre-tested questionnaire contains items based on factors considered important in analysing
and evaluating the TQM system, based on the evaluation criteria of the EFQM European
Excellence Award (European Foundation for Quality Management), which provides credibility
to the research. The objective of the present research is analysing the components of the TQM
system, leadership and quality culture, in companies from the Romanian metal construction
industry and their influence on customer relationship. The empirical research was conducted
between September 2014 and August 2015, and the study is based on questioning 263
managers from 23 companies . The main research results show a very strong positive relation
between the variables leadership, quality culture and customer relationship. It was also noticed
that the management team of the analysed organizations is concerned with the continuous
quality improvement process and that efforts are made for satisfying and exceeding customers’
expectations, thus existing the premises for creating customers’ dedicated organizations and
achieving long term excellence. A surprising result concerning the leadership style favourable
to quality culture’s development was obtained. The managers from th e analysed organizations
which have an authoritarian leadership style favour the development of a quality culture more
than managers who adopt a democratic style.