International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
ISSN 2229-5518
Walid Youssef Montasser - Prof Dr. Abd Alhakim Al Manhawy
a source of enhancing organizational performance through
Over the past two decades, TQM has been recognized as a major edge for competitiveness and long term profitability (Isakssan, 2004). This is an art of management that originated in the Japanese industry and has become steadily more popular in the west since 1980’s (Clark, 1996).
Since the 1980’s, the leading companies around the world have scrambled to adopt the Japanese business model based an quality management, daring the same period, most of the research writings focused on understanding the impact of quality and a competitive tool (Garvin, 1988).
As the quality of life improves, demand for better quality products and services also increase, the emphasis an quality in product and services is forces the industries to
adopt internationally recognized and proven management systems in there operations to stay in business (Jay, 2004).
It has been well accepted by managers and quality practitioners as a change management quality approach (Arumugam et al., 2009). It plays a vital role in the development of management practices (Prajogo and Sohal,
2003; Hoang et al., 2006). Many researchers asserted TQM
as an approach to improve effectiveness,
Flexibility, and competitiveness of a business to meet
customers’ requirements (Oakland, 1993), as the source of
sustainable competitive advantage for business
organizations (Terziovski, 2006), as a source of attaining
excellence, creating a right first-time attitude, acquiring
efficient business solutions, delighting customers and
suppliers etc. (Mohanty and Behera, 1996) and above all as
continuous improvement in organization’s activities
(Claver-Cortes et al., 2008; Teh et al., 2009).
TQM is a culture maintained by an organization that is
committed to customer’s satisfaction through continuous
improvement based upon meeting or exceeding their
customer’s expectations (Kanji and Wallace, 2000).
It has four main targets; satisfying customers, satisfying
staff, increasing revenues and reducing costs (Godfey,
2000).
It requires that the principles of TQM should he applied
in every branch and at every level in the organization with
an emphasis an integration into business practices and a
balance between technical, managerial and people issues
(Oakland, 2003).
TQM should be integrated organization – wide in order
to be successful in promoting organization efficiency and
effectiveness (Rawbings, 2008).
In the preceding decades, the tourism industry has
become one of the most important monetary industries.
This very important industry has many infrastructures
and service institutions in its category, in which, among the
most important infrastructures, the hospitality industry can
be named out.
The term hospitality has recently became popular as an
all – embracing nomenclature for a large grouping of
organizations including hotels (Mullins 2001), the industry
existed to serve travelers with the provision of food, drink
and shelter away from have (Knowles et al, 2004), the
hospitality industry is also labor intensive as it employee
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
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more people per pound than any other industry (Kus lawn,
2003), The industry and important to the served side as its
main purpose is to serve people away from home who are
in need of shelter and lodging, and those who are in need F
& B (Chan and Sparrowe, 2000) These are many types of
businesses involved in the hospitality industry, the hotel
sector & a vital part of the hospitality industry (Baker et al,
2000). The most challenging business in the hospitality
industry is the hotel business, this & because hotels offer
more than are product to its guest and customers, such as
accommodation and foodservice, this means that managing
quality in hotels in more challenging to hotel managers and
staff that it is in any other hospitality business (Stills and
Wortman, 2006). The, operations involved in the
accommodation sector in hotels include reservation,
reception, house keeping hilling and concierge (Janes,
2002).
While inside the foodservice sector, there are three
systems operating, the first system & food production, the
second system & the delivery or service sequence, the third
system & customer management (Cousins et al 2002).
Quality is considered to be of very great importance in
the hospitality industry. Mill (1986) identifies the aim of
service quality as being able to ensure a satisfied customer.
However, the focus of quality initiatives has been primarily
on selection and training of front line staff (see, for
example, Gober & Tannehill, 1984; Mill, 1986; Cathcart
1988). The issues of measurement and process
improvement have been largely neglected.
Over the last decade, a significant number of hospitality
companies have embraced the concepts of TQM (Cannon,
2002), as service expectation of customers and potential
customers have escalated. Hospitality businesses have
found the implementation of quality processes to be a vital
competitive component (Cannon2002).
TQM has been evolving in the hotel business since It was
introduced in 1980s (Brecter et al, 1995). However, many
hotels are still struggling to reach a real understanding of
what is meant by total quality management (Breiter et al,
1995). Hotels managers are not able to reach the right TQM
critical success factors mix that might have a direct and
positive impact on the hotels performance to reach their
own financial and market objectives, and to solve the
accumulated and repeated complaints by both clients and
employees,
Implementing TQM involves defining and deploying
several key elements or factors (Thiagaragan & Zairi &
Dale, 2001). Of primary interest among researchers has
been addressing the question “What makes TQM work?”
(Sebastianelli & Tamimi, 2003). One of the problems of
critical factors of TQM is how to define them and what
should be the measure of their impact before they become
critical (Zairi & Youssef ,1995). CSFs of TQM are latent
variables, which means they cannot be measured directly
(Ahire et al., 1996). Thus the critical factors of TQM differ
from one author to another, although there are common
issues. TQM is much more than a number of critical factors; it also includes other components, such as tools and techniques for quality improvement (Tari, 2005).These methods are a set of practices, tools and techniques deriving from the critical factors, and are the basic elements required to implement such factors (Tari 2005). However, past evidence has shown that TQM programs have failed because the success factors were not in place (Curry and Kadasah, 2002).
The first real attempt which was made at grouping a list of critical factors for TQM was a study conducted in the USA by (Saraph et al 1989), which led to the proposal of a list of 78 factors (Zairi & Youssef 1995). Their work provided a model and measures for assessing managers’ perceptions of quality management practices at the organizational level. Their instrument consisted of the following scales: the role of top management leadership, the role of the quality department, training, product/service design, supplier quality management, process management, quality data and reporting, and employee relations (Sebastianelli & Tamimi 2003).
The study by Black in 1993 was an attempt at developing
a model for measuring the critical factors of TQM. Using
the MBNQA criteria and ten factors were identified as the
most critical. These factors appear to be compatible with
successful TQM implementation programs. They represent
strategic elements, people involvement, emphasis on
communication, a focus on the customer, and an awareness
of the external market, the need to develop supplier
partnerships, measurement and emphasis on developing a
culture for quality improvement (Zairi & Youssef 1995).(
Deming ,1982, 1986) underlined the use of statistical
techniques for quality control, and proposed his 14
principles to improve quality in organizations, based on the
following ideas: leadership, an improvement philosophy,
the right production from the beginning, training for
managers and employees, internal communication aimed at
the elimination of obstacles for cooperation and the
suppression of quantitative objectives.
(Ju et al, 2006) have selected the following ten critical
factors through literatures for their study: top management
commitment, adopting philosophy, quality measurement,
benchmarking, process management, product design,
employee training, employee empowerment, supplier
quality management, customer involvement and
satisfaction. And also (Arasli, 2002) considered seven major
factors for implement TQM successfully as follows: top
management leadership, employee participation,
teamwork, employee satisfaction, empowerment,
organizational change, and training,
Literature reveals that if organizations focus on the
management of these critical factors, improvements in
service quallityand is reflection in financial results is
bound to happen. Wali, Deshmukh and Gupta have made
an attempt to synthesize various critical factors given by
authors shown in table (1), although the factors and the
approach may vary from author to author, eventually it
leads to the same goal i.e. continuous improvement. These
factors are shown in Table (2).
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
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Source: Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2003
TQM effectiveness and organizational performance can
be measured by using the self assessment framework of
quality management, such as European Quality Award
(EQA), Deming Prize (Japan), and Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award (MBNQA)(Kunst & Lemmink,
2000, Zairi 2002). Awards are indeed strongly based on the
foundation of TQM and Successful implementation of TQM
is determined by the successful implementation of CSFs as
proposed by award criteria (Zairi 2002).
Two of the most frequently used self assessment models
are the MBNQA and the European Excellence Model 2000.
The MBNQA and European Excellence Model are now in
widespread use in many organizations.
Further to an analysis of literature in relation to the
award examination criteria of both the MBNQA and the
EQA, the critical success factors covering the seven key
areas are presented in Table 4.
Sila and Ebrahimpouri have analyzed and compared 76 empirically validated TQM factors and their impact on various performance measures across countries. The findings showed that top management commitment and leadership, customer focus, information and analysis, training, supplier management, strategic planning, employee involvement, human resource management, process management, teamwork, product and service design, process control, benchmarking, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, quality assurance, social responsibility, and employee satisfaction were the most commonly extracted factors across these 76 studies. These factors are shown in Table 3.
Top management commitment and leadership |
Customer focus |
Information and analysis |
Training |
Supplier management |
Strategic planning |
Employee involvement |
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
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leadership, HRM, technical system, information and analysis system, benchmarking, continuous improvement, customer focus, employee satisfaction, union intervention, social responsibility, service scopes and service culture.
One of the earlier empirical studies in the quality management area that analyzed the TQM CSFs in the SMEs was conducted by ( Yusof and Aspinwall ,2000). This study found that the CSFs for TQM implementation in the SMEs are management leadership, continuous improvement system, measurement and feedback, improvement tools and techniques, supplier quality assurance, human resource development, systems an processes, resources, education and training, and work environment and culture.
More importantly, (Hodgetts et al., 1999) found that the CSFs of TQM implementation in the SMEs are top management involvement, customer focus, employees “training, employees” empowerment and generating new
ideas.
In this line of work, a study by (Dayton ,2003) used data
from American industrial companies to determine whether
the ten TQM critical factors (i.e. people and customer
management, supplier partnerships, communications,
customer satisfaction external interface management,
strategic quality management teamwork structures for
improvement, operational quality planning and quality
Source: Mcdonald, Zairi & Idris (2002)
One of the earlier empirical studies in QM are a by
(Saraph et al. 1989) have used data obtained from 162
managers of 20 manufacturing and services industries
collected in the regain of USA to identify the critical success
factors of TQM, they identified eight factors top
management leadership, role of quality department,
training, product design, supplier quality management,
process management, quality data reporting and employee
relations (Behra and Gundersen, 2001) discussed TQM
practices which contribute in TQM program applied in
service industry, they are: compensation, benchmarking,
training, empowerment, technology management,
assessment, process management participation, teamwork,
training and outcome measurement. A recent study
conducted by (Tahib and Rahman, 2010) identified nine are
top- management commitment, customer focus, training
and education, continuous improvement and innovation,
supplier management, employee involvement, employee
encouragement, benchmarking and quality information and
performance. (Al – Marriet al., 2007) proposed 16 TQM for
successful implementation of TQM practices for successful
implementation of TQM in service sector they are: top
management support, customer focus, strategy,
benchmarking, employee involvement, recognition and
rewards, problem analysis, quality technologies, service
design, service scopes, service culture, social responsibility,
HRM, continuous improvement, quality department,
quality systems, while (Sures hchamder et al., 2001)
identifies 12 TQM critical success factors that are critical for
the institution of a TQM environment in service
organizations that are: top-management, visionary,
improvement systems) identified by the (Black and Porter
,1996) study could be considered as important TQM CSFs
by USA small and large companies( taking in consideration
that a considerable number of these companies are working
in the tourism industry ). From his conclusion he identified
the strategic quality management as the most important
TQM critical factor.
The empirical findings from (Rahman’s, 2001) study of
53 Australian SMEs found that the critical factors of the
successful implementation of TQM are leadership, strategy
and planning, employee empowerment and employee
involvement, employee training and development,
information and analysis and customer management.
(Demirbag el al., 2006) carried out an empirical study to
identify factors critical to the success of TQM in the Turkish
SMEs. They concluded that there are seven CSFs of TQM
practices, i.e. quality data and reporting, role of top
management, employee relations, supplier quality
management, training, and quality policy and process
management.
However, in contrast to the previous studies,
organization culture was used as a separate variable in the
current study since an organization's culture affects
behaviors and attitudes at all levels and it determines, to a
large extent, how employees act (Robbins and DeCenzo,
2005). from the previous studies a comprehensive list of
TQM CSFs in service industry is shown in table 5.
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
ISSN 2229-5518
service’’ and noted that the judgment on service quality is a reflection of the degree and direction of discrepancy between consumers’ perceptions and expectations. (Rajasekhar, et al., 2009) Service quality has been conceptualized as an overall assessment of service by the customers. It is a key decision criterion in service evaluation by the customers. Perceived service quality is believed to be resulting from comparison between customers’ prior expectations about the service and their perceptions after actual experience. Besides service outcomes, service quality perceptions also involve evaluation of the service delivery process. Hence, conceptualization of service quality ought to include both the process as well as the service outcomes. A firm’s ability to serve the customer needs as well as to maintain its competitive advantage also affects the customer perception of service quality (Ganguli and Roy,
2010).
In their efforts to reach a model of service quality (A.
The emergence of quality as a top priority in many
corporate entities is primarily due to the globalization of
world trade and the competitive pressure brought about by
the escalating demands of consumers, who want better
products and services. According to (Feigenbaum, 1999),
the key is transforming quality from the past emphasis
upon the reduction of things gone wrong for the customer,
to emphasize upon the increase in things gone right for the
customer, with the consequent improvement in sales and
revenue growth Creating better planning, better external
and internal focus, better design, strengthening weak
processes and protecting strong areas, which give
organizations an edge over their competitors, is being
achieved through total quality management (TQM). It
ensures that the voice of the customer is always matched by
the voice of the processes (Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2010).
Since the service quality is very important in surviving
and profit making of an organization, it affects in
customer's satisfaction and motivation after shopping
positively and customer's satisfaction also affects in
tendency toward shopping positively. (kuo, et al., 2009).
The perception of service quality has been extensively
studied during the past three decades. Owing to the
intangible, heterogeneous and inseparable nature of
services, service quality has been defined as ‘‘the
consumer’s judgment about a product’s overall excellence
or superiority, or ‘‘the consumer’s overall impression of the
relative inferiority/superiority of the organization and its
services'. Many models have been developed to measure
customer perceptions of service quality (Martinez &
Martinez, 2010).
Service quality can have many different meanings in
different contexts. For example, (Bitner and Hubbert, 1994)
defined service quality as ‘‘the consumer’s overall
impression of the relative inferiority or superiority of the
organization and its services’’. (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and
Berry, 1985) defined perceived service quality as ‘‘a global
judgment, or attitude relating to the superiority of a
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) identified 10 determinants of service quality used by customers to build their own perceptions and expectations, they are: reliability, responsiveness, effectiveness, easiest to get the service, empathy, communication, credibility, assurance, tangibles understanding the customer, nine determinants of service quality were identified by (Reynosoand Moores, 1995), they are: Tangible, reliability promptness, confidentially, professionalism, help fullness, communication, consideration, preparedness. (Heings and Brooks, 1998) proposed 10 determinants of service quality, they are: Reliability, responsiveness, credibility, competence, courtesy, communication, Access, Proactive D/M, attention to detail, understanding the customer, in 1999 a number of
10 determinants of service quality were introduced by (Brroks et al, 1999) they are: Reliability, responsiveness, credibility competence, courtesy, communication, access,
leadership attention to detail, understanding the customer, all these findings are listed in table 6.
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
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Quality is one of the most expected by customer's aspect of almost all service products. High and unique quality is a way to win customers and make them loyal for a long time. Management literature proposes many concepts and approaches concerning how to deal with service quality. There are also many different concepts how the notion “service quality” should be understood (Urban, 2009).
Quality has been generally defined as “fitness for use” and “those product features which meet customer needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction” These basic definitions are commonly accepted and can also be applied in service management. (Juga, et al., 2010).
Global competition and economic liberalization are creating opportunities for organizations. They use “quality” to compete with other organizations to improve their
market share. TQM is one of the important quality improvement techniques, which many firms are using to achieve success. TQM has been widely implemented throughout the world across different industries and sectors. The implementation of TQM has given them positive results (Bhat and Rajashekhar, 2009).
TQM has been described as a new way of thinking about
the management of organizations, a comprehensive way to
improve total organizational performance and quality, an
alternative to“management by control” and ultimately, as a
paradigm shift. (Fotopoulos and Psomas , 2010).
Although originally applied to manufacturing
operations, but in the late 1980s, corporations such as
American Express finally began abstracting and applying
TQM to the service sector (Kumar, et al., 2011).
The purpose of TQM is to provide a quality product or
service to customers, who will, in turn increase
productivity as well as customer satisfaction and decrease
the cost with a higher quality product/service and lower
price, competitive position and customer satisfaction in the
marketplace will be enhanced. TQM is a way of managing
the industries to improve product as well as service quality
and the overall efficiency of production and other
operations (Kumar, et al., 2011).
TQM is a management philosophy that is based on a set
of theoretical principles that seek to mobilize organizational
resources to increase stakeholders’ satisfaction.(Das, et al.,
2011) and that is a compilation of various processes,
systems, committed people, transparent communication
and culture for customer satisfaction.(Kumar, et al., 2011)
Customer satisfaction is an important topic for both
researchers and managers, because a high level of customer
satisfaction leads to an increase in repeat patronage among
current customers and aids customer recruitment by
enhancing an organizations marker reputation.
Being able to successfully judge customers' satisfaction
levels and to apply that knowledge are critical starting
points to establishing and maintaining long term customer
retention and long term competitiveness (Yuksel & Yuksel,
2002). Customer satisfaction brings many benefits.
Satisfaction increases customer retention and customer retention is dependent on the substance of the relationship between parties which is also affected by the service delivered.
Satisfaction is an "overall customer attitude towards a service provider", or an emotional reaction to the difference between what customers anticipate and what they receive (Zineldin, 2000), regarding the fulfillment of some need, goal or desire. For most products or services, aspects of performance can be objectively assessed. Although these attributes can be objectively measured, customers' assessments may not objectively reflect measured performance. Some clients may be taken to several homes that "fit" their criteria but are unsuitable to the clients' personal taste which leads to the client's assessment of the service as being unpleasant because they did not see listings that they liked.
(Kano, Rentier and Litze ,1984) developed a model to categorize the attributes of a product or service based on how well they are able to satisfy customer needs. Considering Kano's model, one sees how it may not be enough to merely satisfy customers by meeting only their basic and performance needs. In a highly competitive marketplace, organizations need to adopt strategies and to create product attributes targeted specifically at exciting customers and over-satisfying those (Tan & Pawitra, 2001). In real estate to excite or over satisfy customers, an agent would need to have a thorough and vast knowledge of all listings in the local area.
In essence, it is the experience and attitudes of the individuals in closest contact with customers that are most likely to affect whether or not customers are satisfied and willing to return to the company. It is also the people in direct contact with customers who determine who the retained and satisfied customers are, and their experience determines how they treat the customers (Hansemark & Albinsson, 2004) thus impacting on the service quality delivered.
(Barens, James G, 2006) stated that changes in the environment and in the market place have promoted changes in customer behavior and have made it easier for customers to switch and to walk away. If companies fail to treat customer well and give them what they want, they will leave (Barens, James G, 2006). Customer (or, more correctly, prospective customers) are today faced with an unprecedented range of choices, not only choices of what to buy but where to buy it. (Barens, James G, 2006).
Bernd .H. Schmitt, 2003) stated that the company
survives only when it has customers and grows only when
it can retain them and recruit new ones and that the
company, therefore, should be structured and managed
around the customer (Bernd .H. Schmitt, 2003). Customers
go back again and again to those companies and brands
that feel special to them and that make them feel special
(Barens, James G, 2006). (Liswood, 1989) said that
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
ISSN 2229-5518
organizations who lose customers are spending more than they need. They are wasting valuable assets.
(Galloway, 1996) said that during the 1980s customer awareness led to a greater degree of customer sovereignty and organizations could no longer afford to neglect customer needs. The differentiator that provided a competitive advantage at the time was quality of service.
So that, author like (Zeithaml and Bitner ,2003) stated that many organizations jumped on the service bandwagon during the 1980s and early 1990s, investing in service initiatives and promoting service quality to differentiate themselves and create a sustainable competitive advantage. Many of these investments were based on faith and intuition by managers who believed in serving customers well and who believed that quality service made good business sense Since, the mid-1990s, organizations began to demand hard evidence of the bottom-line effectiveness of their service strategies (Zeithaml and Bitner,2003).Therefore, most service organizations worldwide are shifting their focus to service quality as a priority in the current competitive environment (Zeithaml, Berry and Parasuraman, 1996).
(Parasuraman, 1994) also said that competing organizations in the 1980s provided the same types of service, but they did not provide the same quality of service. Thus, service quality became the great differentiator, the most powerful weapon of service organizations.
During the 1980s, the focus was mainly on customer satisfaction. An entire debate stemmed from the differences in service quality and customer satisfaction and the causal relationship between them. Satisfaction studies attempted to measure expectations at the same time as perceptions. Customer satisfaction was defined as “a transitory judgment made on the basis of a specific service encounter whereas service quality is a global assessment based on long-term attitude” (Mattila, 2005).
Frederick Reichheld acknowledged that even satisfied customers would leave if a better offer comes along. He showed in his research that between 65 and 85 percent of customers who switched suppliers were satisfied or very satisfied prior to their departure. His conclusion:" current satisfaction measurement systems are simply not designed to provide insight into how many customers stay loyal to the company and for how long" (Frederick Reichheld,
1993).
At the end of the eighties new rules of thumb emerged in
the service industry (Liswood, 1989).
(a) It costs five times as much to get a customer than to
keep one.
(b) It takes twelve positive service experiences to
overcome one negative experience.
Therefore, over the past few years, there has been an
increasing trend towards creating "experiences" for
customers, particularly for those in the services sector.
Because of this trend, authors such as( Pine and Gilmore,
1999) are of the opinion that the service economy has been
transformed into an attention economy, an entertainment
economy, a dream society, an emotion economy or an
experience economy. Organizations have to devise new ways to achieve a competitive advantage. (Pullman & Gross, 2003)
It means that Customer satisfaction dissipates and
becomes irrelevant. In the absence of an emotional bond,
the customer will eventually leave. (Barens, James G, 2006).
Especially today, customers already assume that
businesses offer quality products and good service. These
expectations are not customer benefits. (Danielle Mai, 2007).
Such expectations don't become important until they have
been exceeded or dashed (Barens, James G, 2006).
It is virtually impossible for a company to survive today
if its products (or services) are inferior. (Barens, James G,
2006).Nevertheless, companies should not forget that
Satisfaction with functional aspects of product and service
is sufficient to drive retention (Barens, James G, 2006).
Then, organizations compete best when they combine
functional and emotional benefits in their offerings.
Emotional bonds between organizations and customers are
difficult for competitors to sever (Berry, 2002).
Therefore, it is more and more important for each firm to
build genuine customer relationship and retain loyal
customers who will bring long-term profit and create
competitive advantage for firms.
Customer loyalty is the most important goal of
implementing relationship marketing activities. Oliver,
1997) defined customer loyalty as a "deeply held
commitment to rebury or patronize a preferred product or
service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive
same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite
situational influences and marketing efforts having the
potential to cause switching behavior" .
Customers are the driving force for profitable growth
and customer loyalty can lead to profitability (Hayes, 2008).
For a customer, loyalty is a positive attitude and behavior
related to the level of re-purchasing commitment to a brand
in the future (Chu, 2009). Loyal customers are less likely to
switch to a competitor solely because of price, and they
even make more purchases than non-loyal customers
(Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003). Loyal customers are also
considered to be the most important assets of a company
(Blackton, 1995). It is thus essential for vendors to keep
loyal customers who will contribute long-term profit to the
business organizations (Tseng, 2007). Attempt to make
existing customers increase their purchases is one way to
strengthen the financial growth of a company (Hayes,
2008). Furthermore, organization's financial growth is
dependent on a company's ability to retain existing
customers at a faster rate than it acquires new ones (Ibid),
Therefore, good managers should understand that the road
to growth runs through customers - not only attracting new
customers, but also holding on existing customers,
motivating them to spend more and getting them to
recommend products and services to the other people
(Keiningham et al., 2008).
Customer loyalty has been generally divided into
attitudinal loyalty and behavioral (Aydin and Ozer, 2005),
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ISSN 2229-5518
attitudinal loyalty describes customer's attitude toward loyalty by measuring customer preference, buying intention, supplier prioritization and recommendation willingness; on the other hand, behavioral loyalty relates to shares of purchase, purchasing frequency (Ibid).
There are evidences suggesting that stronger
relationship commitment leads to buyers repeat patronage.(
Wulf et al., 2001) defined the construct of behavioral loyalty
as a composite measure based on a consumer's purchasing
frequency and amount spent at a retailer compared with
the amount spent at other retailers from whom the
consumer buys. (Morgan and Hunt, 1994) found significant
relationships between the level of a buyer's relationship
commitment and his acquiescence, propensity to leave, and
cooperation, all of which can be regarded as behavioral
outcomes of relationships.
In general, customer loyalty is the final purpose that
firms implement relationship marketing. This study is
seeking to investigate the impact of the above mentioned
relationship marketing tactics on relationship quality and
customer loyalty, by examining the above proposed
hypothesizes.
The above summary shows that customer loyalty can
only be formed when customers and service supplier
develop a mutual trust for and in each other. When this
mutual trust is developed, the service supplier will be
willing to guarantee the quality of their service and the
customer will be willing to repurchase from the supplier
more frequently. In addition, most researchers use the word
willingness' (Smith, 1998; Frederick, 2000; Singh &
Sirdeshmukh, 2000), which suggests that customer loyalty
cannot be forced.
Much research has been conducted in an attempt to
understand the important factors that determine customer
loyalty. One of the most important factors that contribute to
the formation of customer loyalty is customer satisfaction.
Surveys have become a common tool for many
companies to learn more about their customers and
ultimately improve their satisfaction with the company and
its products. The rise of customer satisfaction as an
important concern for business leaders is not over yet: the
National Retail Federation (NRF) recently released survey
findings indicating that among 418 executives across 137
companies in the retail industry customer satisfaction
currently has the top priority (Geller, 2008).
How much a good measurement for customer
satisfaction gives a better understanding of customer
loyalty (Reichheld, 2006) argues that satisfaction measures
do not match the actual behavior of customers. Specifically,
he argues that a substantive amount of respondents who
describe themselves as 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' are also
defectors and do not show the brand loyalty that one would
expect. However, in some studies, researchers have found
that other measures of customer relations are significant
predictors of business performance (Lawrie, Matta and
Roberts, 2000).
A pilot study was conducted in five well known quality
– oriented 5 – stars Egyptians hotels, the aim of this study
was to try to benefit from the quality management
experience possessed by these hotels managers particularly
in the field of TQM principles and practices applications to
help in achieving the purpose of this research, the pilot
study was proceeded through 3 steps, where each step is
based on the previous one,
Interviews were conducted with the top managers of
these hotels in order to find answers for 2 main questions.
• The first question was about the most common internal
and external customer complaints exist in the 5- star
hotels business that indicates to a shortage in a hotel
performance?
• The second question was about the hotels managers’
point of view of the right mix of TQM critical success
factors among those factors effecting service industries,
which helped in minimizing the above stated problems
through enhancing the service quality as a main indicator
to the level of hotel performance?
• A constructed questionnaire was disseminated over 10
middle level and front line managers in each of the five
hotels (50 questionnaires) to detect their awareness of the
relative importance of the implemented TQM critical
success factors that was used to handle internal and
external customer’s complaints through enhancing
service quality offered by the hotels.
• A 25 structured performance appraisal forms were
introduced to each of the 5 hotel top managers with a
total of 125 appraisal forms, to measure the impact of
each of the implemented TQM CSFs on the staff
performance, as to ensure the effectiveness of those TQM
CSFs identified by hotels managers in step no (1&2) on
quality of service as an indicator for hotels performance.
• The interviews that were conducted with the top
managers revealed a considerable number of the most
common internal and external customer complaints in 5-
stars hotel business that should be effectively encounter
through quality of service to achieve customers
satisfaction, a great portion of these complaints are
shown below:
1- Inadequate employee attire and attitude
2- Slow staff responsiveness to client’s requests
3- Slow feedback to complains, (inaccurate or irrelevant
corrective action may occur).
4- Billing problems (in accuracy, billing mistakes).
5- Overcharged services.
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6- Staff appearance and tidiness is inappropriate.
7- Uninformative website.
8- Difficulties in booking online.
9- Insufficient staff experience and professionally.
10-Problems in hotel room maintenance.
11-Noisy activities close by the accommodation areas.
12-Booking, check in and checkout procedures are
confusing.
1- Unfair compensation system design.
2- There is a shortage in maintaining a good customer
relationship programs.
3- Work standards are based on quantity with a less
attention to quality.
4- The hotel information gathering and analysis system is
not effective.
Due to the findings of the first step, the researcher designed
a questionnaire composed of 15 constructs expressing the
TQM CSFs with the highest means.
• To measure internal reliability of each construct of the
gathered 50 questionnaire forms with its different
number of statements, Cranach’s alpha is calculated for
each construct. In this model, 15 constructs are focused
on, the Cronbach’s alpha are calculated according to
following equation.
k ⎡ ∑ S 2 ⎤
5- Inappropriate working conditions
6- Poor communication channels.
7- The management adopts the policy of hit and run.
α = k − 1 ⎢1 − 2 ⎥
8- Recruiting is not taken seriously.
9- Unfair, unfriendly management treatment.
10- Unclear hiring contract clauses.
11- Poor training and development programs.
12- Lack/ little on the job training.
13- Long-term relationship with key suppliers does not
exist.
14- Team work philosophy is not well embedded in the
organization culture.
15- Poor transportation facilities.
• The interviews that were conducted with the top
managers of fifteen Egyptian Hotels also revealed a
number of 15 critical success factors with a greater
relative importance to 5-stars hotels business
performance. (Where their means are above 3 according
to 5 likert scale), and (7 critical success factors with
means less than 3), as shown in table 7.
• K is the number of Constructs test.
2 is variance responses to each Constructs of the test
• St2 is variance of the total answers of Constructs of the
test.
The table below shows that the first 10 constructs for this model have Cronbach’s alphas larger than 0.7 (a level considered “acceptable” in most social science research).
• After checking the reliability of the items, it was needed
to take the averaged scores of items for each construct as the final score upon which we conducted further analysis. Table below shows the means, standard deviations for all constructs.
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• It is clear from the previous results that there exists a relative importance for critical success factors when applying in 5-stars hotel business. TQM critical success factors are rearranged in a descending order according to their relative importance as shown in table below.
• To study the impact of critical success factors on
performance appraisal, the researcher used the gathered
125 performance appraisal forms to develop a multiple regression model, where performance appraisal is considered the dependent variable and the selected 15 critical success factors are considered the independent variables, the results obtained from the analysis shows that:
- From analysis of variance, it is clear that the model is significant since (P-value=0.000, which is less than
0.05), this result is confirmed by (F calculated=11.507)
which is greater than (F tabulated= 1.759)
- From the coefficients of the model the researcher
found that:
- 10 of the identified critical success factors which are
leadership, customer focus ,benchmarking, process
management ,supplier relationship management,
organizational culture, HRM practices, training and
education , teamwork and communication have a (P-
value which ranges between 0.0002-0.0005) that are
less than 0.05 which means that they have a direct and
positive impact on performance appraisal.
- From the analysis it was found that the rest 5 critical
success factors which are quality improvement,
employee involvement, continues improvement,
information gathering & analysis , employee
empowerment have a (P-value ranges between 0.123-
0.567) that are more than 0.05 which means that they
have no significant impact on performance appraisal.
Based on the above literature review, a conceptual
framework is developed and a research model has been
proposed to examine the extent to which the 10 TQM CSFs
are implemented in 5-stars hotels business and to explore
the relationships between identified TQM practices and
company’s performance by measuring the ‘service quality’
as a performance indicator. The proposed TQM research
framework is depicted in Figure 1 as above. This research
model suggests that the greater the extent to which these
TQM practices are present, the service quality of 5-stars
hotels business will be higher which will lead to a higher
customer’s satisfaction and loyalty. In this theoretical
research framework, the independent variables are TQM
practices and a dependent variable is service quality
respectively.
The main objective of the study is to establish the TQM
implementation and evaluation model for 5-stars hotels
business. The four research question of this study can be
articulated as follows:
Thus, a comprehensive review of literature suggests the
extent of implementation of 10 TQM CSFs in the 5-stars
hotels. Though, there exist a number of TQM practices but
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
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the identified 10 practices are selected as the study result and are nominated for better quality oriented results. This leads to the following hypotheses:
• H1: There should not be any significant difference in the 10 TQM CSFs implemented by 5-stars hotels.
• H2: There is a significant positive relationship between identified TQM practices with Service quality of 5-stars hotels.
• H3: There is a direct correlation between service quality and customer satisfaction
• H4: There is a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
ISSN 2229-5518
H11
H12
H13
H14
H15
H16
H21
H22
H23
H24
H25
H26
H17
H27
H18
H19
H110
H28
H29
H210
- Leadership (LS)
- Customer focus (CF)
- Teamwork (TW).
- Organizational culture (OC).
- Training and education (TE).
- HRM practices (HRM).
- Communication (COM).
- Supplier relationship management
(SRM).
- Process management (PM).
- Benchmarking (BM).
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2013
ISSN 2229-5518
The primary objective of this study is to develop a TQM
implementation and evaluation research framework that
can be used as a guide in the formulation of an effective
TQM implementation approach to Egyptian 5- stars hotels
business. The present study attempts contribute to the
development of conceptual framework and research model
particularly for Egyptian 5- stars hotels.
To carry out this study, the key TQM CSFs, service
quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty have
been extensively investigated as presented earlier. Based on
this review, a research model of TQM implementation in
relation to company performance by measuring service
quality has been proposed. Four research questions, 4 main
hypotheses and 20 sub-hypothesis were formulated
from this model (10 hypotheses for assessing the extent of
implementation of TQM practices, 10 hypotheses for
evaluating the perceived service quality of the 5-stars
hotels and another 2 to measure the impact of the selected
10 TQM CSFs on customers satisfaction and loyalty).
Moreover, in developing such a framework on TQM, the
present study can help in:
• Understanding the awareness of TQM in 5-stars hotels
business.
• Investigating the TQM implementation experiences in 5-
stars hotels business.
• Identification of the key TQM CSFs for effective TQM
implementation in 5-stars hotels business.
• Assessing the hotels performance with the adoption of
TQM program.
• The proposed research model will allow practitioners
and managers to assess the level of company’s quality
management against other models proposed by quality
gurus.
• The model can also provide a baseline measure for the
extent of TQM practices that is in place at a hotel. Thus,
knowledge of this baseline can help in gaining
continuous improvement in the company performance.
• Managers can further enhance their knowledge in
driving the identified key TQM practices from the study
and maximize the potential of the formal quality system.
• Finally, the study will provide a significant contribution
in developing a better understanding of the TQM
practices and service quality in service industries.
Future research involves data collection and empirical
analysis using 5-stars floating hotel as a case study, where
the hypotheses about the extent of implementation and
relationships will be tested in the 5- stars hotels business.
The results will hopefully prove that the greater the extent
to which these TQM practices are present, the service
quality of the organizations will be higher. At the end, it
would be interesting to test and validate the proposed
theoretical model using different application one of them is
the ‘Statistical package approach which has the capability
of testing and validating such a theoretical model.
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