Title: Soft TQM practices, customer orientation and business performance: a proposed structural model

Authors: Boon-In Tan; Shanthi Nadarajah; Jia-Jia Sim; Chan-Choy Ng

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia ' Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia ' Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia ' Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK

Abstract: The purpose of this study aims to propose a conceptual model to investigate soft TQM practices and their relationships with customer orientation and business performance. From the literatures, we investigated the TQM practices, customer orientation in organisations and their relationships with business performance. With that, a model with relationships of TQM, customer orientation and business performance is proposed in a triangular relationship. We opine that this paper presents a strong argument for suggesting a model to enhance customer orientation and business performance through TQM practices. This study endeavours to reduce the gap in the existing literatures which may assist firms to evaluate the importance of soft TQM and customer orientation in fostering better business practices and enhancing performance of an organisation.

Keywords: soft TQM; total quality management; customer orientation; business performance; conceptual modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMOM.2014.063577

International Journal of Modelling in Operations Management, 2014 Vol.4 No.1/2, pp.21 - 34

Received: 21 Sep 2013
Accepted: 12 Mar 2014
Published online: 30 Jul 2014 *

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