A study of co-implementation of Total Quality Management and sustainability practices

The global campaign on sustainability has compelled organisations to collectively address a wide range of issues beyond their traditional goal of maximising profits. In an effort to address the effects of their activities on the environment, organisations have attempted to adopt sustainability practices. However, they are still struggling with the implementation of these practices. Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, on the other hand, have been researched extensively and empirically proven to have positive impacts on organizational performance. Given the seeming similarity between TQM and Sustainability adoption processes, the central question of this research is if organisations can leverage on their experience in TQM implementation to facilitate and enhance implementation of sustainability practices. This research therefore seeks to present and analyse a conceptual framework that will provide a better understanding of the relationship between TQM and sustainability practices and their impacts on organisational performance when co-implemented. To address this, an extensive literature review was carried out which highlighted the key intersections between TQM and sustainability practices. Based on the assumption that organisations that implement TQM are better at adopting sustainability practices, a further delineation of the relevant theoretical insights and the existence of synergies between TQM and sustainability practices were highlighted. The empirical data for this research was drawn from a wide range of organisations operating in the United Kingdom. A survey of 880 organisations was conducted of which a total of 137 valid responses were used for the data analyses. Results obtained from structural equation modelling (SEM) confirmed the existence of synergies between TQM and sustainability practices and suggest that the co-implementation of TQM and sustainability practices has a positive and significant impact on organisational performance. This supports the view that TQM organisations have considerable advantage at implementing sustainability practices. Furthermore, empirical evidence revealed that top management commitment, one of the TQM principles, plays the role of a mediator in the relationship between sustainability practices and organisational performance. This suggests that the greater the involvement of the leadership team in an organisation the greater the sustainability adoption which will in turn lead to improved organisational performance. The research enriches the literature on sustainability practices and offers stakeholders insights into the relationship between TQM and sustainability practices and how they can leverage the experience from the co-implementation to effectively pursue strategies that will aid the adoption of sustainability practices and improve organisational performance.