Quality management practices in SMEs: The effects of contextual factors

Abstract

Over the last few years, there have been only some mixed findings regarding the relationship between contextual factors and the adoption of Quality Management practices, mainly in developing nations. There is also very little literature looking into this relationship in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. There has been a considerable increase in the Quality Management research publication, though. To address the research gap, the present paper aims at providing a general overview of the adoption of Quality Management practices in firms belonging to a developing economy, and at asserting whether this adoption is different between smaller and larger companies. On the other hand, this study intends to investigate the effects of three contextual factors (ISO 9000 certification, the tendency to export, and competition pressure) on adopting Quality Management practices in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Seven practices are considered: customer focus, leadership, employee involvement, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision-making, and supplier relationship. Based on a sample of 79 industrial Tunisian companies, this study shows that most of corporations surveyed have implemented Quality Management practices to a large extent. Furthermore, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests reveal that the adoption of Quality Management practices is significantly different between groups of firms considering their size, ISO-certification and tendency to export. This adoption is not different according to competition pressure. Overall, the findings of this study will help managers and policy-makers in developing countries to consider the small size of firms as a possible impediment to adopt some Quality Management practices. This will also highlight the relevance of ISO 9000 certification and export as stimuli to this adoption in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. These results corroborate the contingency theory of contextual factors-Quality Management adoption relationship.