Linking a tridimensional linkage of TQM, SCM and organisational performance: a proposed conceptual framework

Abstract

To survive and lead in the globally competitive marketplace, firms are seeking strategies to improve organisational performance to compete and win from among the market competitors. One of the strategies is to apply continuous quality improvement by working together with supply chain management (SCM) to uplift the organisation’s effectiveness. In this paper, leadership, customer focus, strategic planning, information and analysis, human resource management and process management are adopted from Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) as the total quality management (TQM) practices. Theoretically, this paper seeks to develop a conceptual framework to establish a tridimensional linkage of TQM, SCM and organisational performance. Researchers, practitioners and those interests to enhance organisational performance in the supply chain context can find some initial insights in this framework. It will be beneficial to include survey results for validating the proposed conceptual framework in future research to overcome the limitation in the paper.