Implementation of Total Quality Management in Small and Medium Enterprises: An Analysis of the Problems Based on Demographic Variables.

In a developing country like India, the entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises face a large number of problems related to managerial skills and adequate resources for further expansion of their business. Presently, implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices is another significant obstacle faced by the Indian entrepreneurs due to tough competition in the national and international markets on account of globalization. Good quality management is the need of the hour as it improves the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the organization. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the problems faced by the entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises in the implementation of TQM practices. One-way ANOVA has been used to find the significant difference between the demographical variables of the entrepreneurs and impeding factors in the implementation of TQM in small and medium enterprises on a sample of 150 entrepreneurs collected from four states of North India. The findings reveal that the entrepreneurs in lower age group face these problems relatively more than the entrepreneurs in higher age group. Further, entrepreneurs having education up to technical level face these problems relatively less as compared to entrepreneurs who have education up to a lower level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]