Quality management principles and practices impact on the companies' quality performance

Abstract

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to expose the conceptual model which pretends to reflect the relationship between the use and implementation of quality management principles and practices and their impact on the companies’ quality performance. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the literature review carried out, we have identified the most common and used quality management principles and practices. Hence, we have proposed a conceptual model relate those quality management principles and practices to the companies’ quality performance. In order to validate these quality management principles and practices and consequently the conceptual model developed, we conducted several semi-structured interviews with the Portuguese Quality Leaders. The following phase consisted in developing a questionnaire, based on the literature review carried out and on the main contributions of the semi-structured interviews. This questionnaire was sent to all the Portuguese companies certified according to the ISO 9001 standard. Our main purpose is to validate the model developed based on the structural equation modeling technique (SEM). Currently we are in the survey phase. Findings - It is expected that the results show a significant and positive relationship between the implementation of quality management principles and practices and their impact on the companies’ quality performance. Originality/value - As far as we were able to find out in the literature review phase, the conceptual model proposed is a new approach to characterize the direct results and effects of quality management principles and practices in the companies’ quality performance.