Title: Exploring quality models applied to small and medium enterprises

Authors: George Sainis; Athanasios Kriemadis; Ioanna Thomopoulou

Addresses: Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, The American College of Greece (Deree College), Athens, Greece ' Department of Management Science and Technology, University of Peloponnese, Tripoli, Greece ' University of Peloponnese, Tripoli, Greece

Abstract: Quality can be defined as the "never-ending improvement of a firm's extended process" (Goh, 2000). The decision to adopt a quality model (MBNQA, EFQM) may be a way to increase a company's value but there are also shortcomings with these models. They are expensive, and do not consider the real needs an SME, because they were design for large companies. According to Dandekar et al. (2012) a quality model for an SME should be simple, systematic, easy to understand, outlined and definitely providing a planning tool for its implementation. The use of a quality model will give the structure that an ISO certified SME should accomplish. It will identify the spread of TQM applicability on how wide TQM could apply it to different fractions and environmental factors that it needs to change. These changes will make SMEs successfully implement quality and TQM in particular.

Keywords: TQM; small and medium enterprises; SMEs; critical success factor; CSF; ISO; quality; performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASS.2022.126761

International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies, 2022 Vol.9 No.4, pp.311 - 329

Received: 15 Jun 2020
Accepted: 31 Jul 2020
Published online: 07 Nov 2022 *

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