Identification and adoption of total quality management practices in Indian information

and communication technology and banking industries: an empirical study

Faisal Talib

Mechanical Engineering Section, University Polytechnic,

Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P., India

(ftalib77@yahoo.co.in)

Dr. Zillur Rahman

Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, U.Kh., India

(yusuffdm@iitr.ernet.in)

Abstract

The Indian service sector forms a backbone of social and economic growth of the country and emerged as the largest

and fastest developing sector. Apart from the several service industries in this sector, two major functional pillars of

this sector are information and communication technology (ICT) and banking industries. These two service

industries have been making continuous efforts to stand India a front-runner in the age of quality revolution and in

the overall growth of Indian service sector. Further, these industries are also adopting many strategic approaches to

maintain number one position in the world market, one of them is total quality management (TQM) approach which

utilizes some sound TQM practices resulting in enhanced business performance. In this study, the key TQM

practices in the two Indian service industries (i.e. ICT and banking) are identified and ranked through extensive

survey of literature as well as investigated the adoption of the identified practices across these industries. The

research methodology used was review of literature based on TQM studies in service sector followed by a survey of

selected Indian ICT and banking companies through self-administered questionnaire. Using empirical data gathered

from a sample of 121 ICT and banking industries obtained from stratified sampling method, findings were reported.

The primary data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and independent-samples t-test

analyses. The literature identified 17 TQM practices and further analysis of these TQM practices in the two

industries categorizes them into three categories i.e. most important, moderately important and least important. The

study also revealed that out of 17 TQM practices, 14 practices were significantly adopted across Indian ICT and

banking industries while three practices namely supplier management, quality system and quality culture have

showed significant difference in their adoption. Finally, some managerial implications and scope for future research

are presented at the end.

Keywords: TQM; TQM practices; ICT industry; Banking industry; Identification; Adoption; India.

1. Introduction

Total quality management (TQM) practices are the key enablers for the successful implementation of TQM program

in any organization whether manufacturing or service. TQM is a management approach which is widely accepted

and adapted by managers and practitioners in almost all areas. But, from the past two decades, available literature on

TQM has showed that implementation of TQM has been more inclined towards service sector (Talibet al., 2011a).

Service managers and practitioners are continuouslymaking their full efforts to adopt TQM in their organizations

and achieve maximum benefits and competitive advantage to sustain in global market (Salaheldin, 2009;

Arumugamet al., 2009; Talibet al., 2011b). Several studies on TQM in manufacturing sector have been conducted

since 1989 but the survey of existing literature on TQM have indicated that frequency of research publications in

service sector have evolved tremendously from year 2000 onwards covering wide range of service industries such as

information and communication technology (ICT), banking, real estate, aviation, healthcare, education, insurance,

and many others (Wardhaniet al., 2009; Ho and Lin, 2010; Santouridis and Trivellas, 2010). Researchers further

observed that implementation of TQM leads to enhanced performance like improved business, industrial growth,

quality products and services, financial performance, innovative performance, and above all customer satisfaction

(CS) (Cheng and Choy, 2013;Sohal and Terziovski, 2000; Yee et al, 2008). Plethora of studies have been conducted

to understand the above relationships but it is concluded that effective implementation of TQM cannot be done

without the identification of key successful TQM practices to get the desired results (Lee, 2002, Lemaket al., 2002;

Talibet al., 2011c). An extent literature survey on TQM and its practices comes out with different sets of factors as

well as their implementation in various organizations especially in the service sector have shown encouraging results

which motivated managers and practitioners to implement TQM in their organization as well as researchers to

conduct research studies in service sector like ICT and banking industries, the two fastest growing Indian service

industries (Economic Survey, 2013).

In a study on commercial banking industry by Sit et al. (2011), they examined the association of TQM practices

and service quality (SQ) in Malaysia’s banking sector. Result revealed that TQM practices are significantly and

positively related with SQ. Darmawanet al. (2011) presented a research framework of TQM practices towards the

supply chain collaboration level. The study tried to make a significant contribution by developing a model of TQM

and supply chain collaboration in service industry. Bob and Mustafa (2013) in their study based on literature review

on the relationship between TQMand innovation in service organizations develop a conceptual framework. They

covered some of the most recent studies on this relationship as well as discussed TQM practices, and conceptual

frameworks and models for service organizations. In a recent study by Talibet al. (2013a) on the state of usage of

quality tools and techniques in Indian service industries, revealed that usage of tools and techniques for quality

improvement in Indian service companies is low and majority of them implement easiest and simple to use quality

tools and techniques. The study adopted a self-administered questionnaire survey while Ali et al. (2010) provided

evidence on the degree of criticality and reliability tests for human resource (HR) related critical success factors

(CSFs) in TQM implementation which involved identification of HR-related CSFs through extent literature review

on quality initiatives in higher education sector. In another study by Talibet al. (2013b) determines the relationship

between TQM practices and quality performance in Indian service companies. They selected four service industries

viz healthcare, banking, ICT, and hospitality and surveyed the relationship through questionnaire. It was observed

that there exist a strong and significant relationship between identified TQM practices and quality performance. Lee

et al. (2010) examined the relationship between TQM practices and product innovation performance as perceived by

managers in electrical and electronics (E&E) organizations in Malaysia. They revealed that leadership, human

resource management (HRM), strategic planning (SP), customer focus (CF), information and analysis (IA), and

process management (PM) are positively associated with product innovation performance. IA was perceived to be

one of the dominant TQM practice in improving firms’ performance. Finally, Wayhanet al. (2013) analysed the

relationship between TQM and financial performance. The study review six potential pitfalls and then demonstrated

how these pitfalls can potentially compromise research results. Data was collected and analysed using two

approaches: cross-sectional analysis and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The study proposes practical

implications for top-management executives.

In context to the above literatures on various service organizations, study of TQM and its practices have become

the core issues and is need of hour as they have vital role in service business success and gaining competitive

advantage. The literature review further suggest that there is a greater need to understand and identify TQM

practices as well as to investigate the adoption of these practices in service industry for enhanced business

performance and growth (Karani and Bichanga, 2012; Junejaet al., 2011; Bon and Mustafa, 2013). This has forced

and motivated many researchers to conduct studies focused on the above aspects. The existing literature has also

provided distinct views and approaches from different prospective into TQM practices and their implementation.

Further, from above literature review, it was observed that several research studies have been carried on

identification of TQM practices but studies on adoption of these practices in Indian service industries especially in

ICT and banking (combined) are at nascent stage. Thus, it is concluded that there is enough scope to conduct a study

which could answer some questions emerged from existing literature like: What are some of the key TQM practices

applicable for Indian ICT and banking industries? Which practices are of highest priority level and others leveled

onmoderate or lowest ranks in the two Indian service industries? Is there any difference in the adoption of the

identified TQM practices across Indian ICT and banking industries? To answer these questions, following objectives

were designed to carry out the present work.

To identify and rank the TQM practices in Indian ICT industry;

To identify and rank the TQM practices in Indian banking industry; and

To investigate the adoption of identified TQM practices across Indian ICT and banking industries.

The organization of this paper is as under. Next section presents the extent literaturereview on TQM practices and

TQM in ICT as well as in banking industries followed by research questions and hypotheses formulations.

Thereafter, research methodology and its components like research design, research instrument, sampling method

and data collection procedure, and instrument administration process are discussed. Subsequently, results and

discussions obtained from empirical analysis are presented and discussed in detail. Finally, the paper ends with the

conclusions, some managerial implications, and scope for future research.

2. Literature Review

This section presents an exhaustive survey of literature on TQM practices, TQM in ICT and banking industries as

well as highlights the current status of Indian ICT and banking industries. Several studies have been undertaken to

compare the adoption of TQM practices in service and manufacturing sectors (Woon, 2000; Talib and Rahman,

2012; Saraphet al., 1989; Kumar et al., 2011, Prajogo, 2005) however, no study has been conducted to compare and

investigate the adoption of a set of TQM practices in the two service industries i.e. ICT and banking in Indian

context. Considering the benefits of TQM implementation (Talib, 2013; Lewis et al., 2005; Singh et al., 2007), there

is an urgent need to conduct the present study so as to identify a set of key TQM practices and understand whether

the same set is applicable to both the Indian service industries.

2.1. TQM Practices

The idea behind the identification of TQM practices is to successfully implement TQM approach in the organization

so as to achieve fruitful results with high level of CS by delivering enhanced quality of products and services

(Talibet al., 2011c; Antony et al., 2002; Abdullah et al., 2009; Hoang et al., 2010). Alternatively, it can be said that

the TQM practices are the building blocks of organization’s performance and must be addressed critically so as to

implement TQM effectively. Quality gurus and researchers contributed to the formulization of the TQM practices.

Their frameworks and models are the underlying basis of the major studies of TQM practices in the literature

(Kaynak, 2003; Saraphet al., 1989; Flynn et al., 1994; Kureshiet al., 2010; Talib and Rahman, 2010a,b).

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model (EFQM, 2000) is explained by

nine categories. They include leadership, people, strategy, partnership and resources, processes, products and

services, people results, customer results, key results, and society results. Saravanan and Rao (2007) identified top-

management commitment (TMC) and leadership, benchmarking (BM), CF and satisfaction, service marketing,

social responsibility, HRM, employee satisfaction (ES), service culture (SC), continuous improvement (CI), and IA

as major TQM dimensions. Valmohammadi (2011) examined organizational performance using seven TQM criteria,

namely: leadership, process management (PM), supplier, CF, employee management (EM), communication (COM),

and quality information system. Yang (2005) gives a set of TQM practices comprises of CI, meeting customers’

requirements, reducing rework, long-work thinking, increased employee involvement and teamwork, process

redesign, competitive benchmarking, team-based problem solving, constant measurement of result and closer

relationship with suppliers. Kumar et al. (2011) identified eight practices of TQM while Khanamet al. (2013) comes

out with nine enablers of TQM for ICT industry. Further, review of previous literature on TQM practices have

examined the key practices for success of TQM by Kureshiet al. (2010); Jha and Kumar (2010); Hafeezet al. (2006);

Fuentes et al. (2006).

From the above literature on TQM practices, it was observed that there exist some differences in the set of TQM

practices from one organization to another. Different researchers have used different set of TQM practices and no

study was found to have a common set of practices for implementing TQM in the organization. Further, it was also

observed that many research studies adopted different set of TQM practices developed by different authors and

experts of quality for successful implementation of TQM. Present study utilizes 17 TQM practices identified by

Talibet al. (2013b; 2011a,c) for service industries as depicted in Table 1. Moreover, it can be clearly observed form

Talibet al. (2011c) and Talibet al. (2013b) studies that these 17 TQM practices (Table 1) are widely implemented

and have significant effect in improving the performance of the service industry. Further, many of these TQM

practices are previously adoptedby several researchers like Flynn et al., 1994; Kaynak, 2003; Prajogo, 2005;

Saravanan and Rao, 2007 and many others.

Table 1: Key TQM Practices

TQM Practice No. TQM Practice

1. Top-management commitment (TMC)

2. Customer focus (CF)

3. Training and education (TE)

4. Continuous improvement and innovation (CII)

5. Supplier management (SM)

6. Employee involvement (EI)

7. Information and analysis (IA)

8. Process management (PM)

9. Quality systems (QS)

10. Benchmarking (BM)

11. Quality culture (QC)

12. Human resource management (HRM)

13. Strategic planning (SP)

14. Employee encouragement (EE)

15. Teamwork (TW)

16. Product and service design (PSD)

17. Communication (COM)

(Source: Talibet al., 2011a&c)

2.2. TQM in ICT Industry

Growth of Indian service sector from past few decades changes manifold just as a growing tree constantly changes

the shape, size and configuration of its branches. One of the fastest growing branches is the Indian ICT industry

which covers four major sub-component namely information technology (IT), IT enabled services (ITeS), software

products and services, and telecommunication services. This Industry has put India on the global map with an

exponential growth continuously from past many years. India has achieved a brand identity in this industry by

providing both direct and indirect growth, skilled employmentboth within the country and abroad, generating direct

employment for nearly 2.8 million persons and indirect employment of around 8.9 million in 2011-2012 (Economic

Survey, 2013). Further, ICT in support with Business Process Management (BPM) sector have showed a growth of

revenue generation from 1.2 percent in 1997-1998 to nearly 8 percent in 2012-2013 (NASSCOM, 2013) while due

to the global slowdown, increasing competition from new developed countries, and rising protectionist measures in

the wake of job losses in developed countries have caused slight dimmed prospects for experts of IT and ITeS

services but still a great opportunity is waiting in India’s domestic market with increasing technology adoption all

around the industry (Economic Survey, 2013). In lieu of the above statistics and data presented, there is a greater

need to respond to the customers’ requirements and to assure them quality products and services in Indian ICT

industrythrough the application of TQM. Some of the literature on TQM in ICT industry is presented as under.

A study by Jain (2010) examined employees’ perceptions of TQM practices and its impact on job satisfaction in

Indian software industry using questionnaire survey. He found that, where teamwork was perceived as a dominant

TQM practice, improvements in job satisfaction levels were significant other significant practices were EE,

organizational culture and COM. Anget al. (2001) in their study on the use of IT to support TQM processes in the

Malaysian public sector revealed that the level of IT usage varies among the identified nine dimensions of TQM.

They found innovations and IA practices as the important and high level practices used in IT industry whereas

quality results and supplier quality assurance are associated with significantly lower level. Talibet al. (2013c)

conducted a study on the development of an instrument for TQM implementation in Indian ICT industry by

identifying 17 TQM practices through survey of literature. The measures of instrument were tested for reliability and

validity. Further analysis revealed ten TQM practices to be the most important which could guide ICT managers for

successful implementation of TQM program.Loukiset al. (2009) investigated and compared the moderating effects

of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and TQM on ICT business value in Greek firms. It was found that both

BPR and TQM have considerable positive moderating effects of a similar magnitude on the relationship between

ICT investment and firm value added. It was also concluded that different BPR and TQM activities have different

moderating effects on ICT business value. Other similar studies on TQM in ICT industry which are of interest by

Sohnet al., 2008, Stefanovicet al., 2009; Khanamet al., 2013a,b; Tiwari and Chaudhari (2012).

2.3 TQM in Banking Industry

Another major branch of Indian service sector is the banking industry with a gross domestic product (GDP) at factor

cost of 13.2 percent share in service sector which was increased from 5.7 percent in 2011-2012 (Economic Survey,

2013). Indian banking industry has become the backbone for the growth of its economy and is very dynamic now-a-

days. Presently it is valued at US $1.31 trillion and has a potential to become the fifth largest banking industry in the

world by 2020 and the third largest by 2025 as per Indian Bank’s Association report (IBA, 2013). It is predicted that

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may increase the number of banks in the country alongwith the style of operation by

integration of modern technique into the industry. Further, some of the recent developments in the Indian banking

industry are total number of on-site and off-site automatic trailer machines (ATMs) have reached to 1, 00,042 up to

mid of 2012. They are estimated to further double by 2016 with 50 percent expected to be set-up in small towns.

Introduction of mobile and internet banking are explored with a greater ease of cash transfer and many more (IBEF,

2014).

In line of above observations, there is a need to continuously improve the performance of Indian banking

system by implementing quality improvement approaches like TQM. Though few studies have been undertaken on

implementation of TQM in banking industry but more studies are still required to sustain the banking performance.

Pattanayak and Maddulety (2013) highlighted TQM practices in Indian banking organization with a focus on CS.

They developed a scale to measure TQM implementation. In this process, the study identified eight key constructs

for successful TQM implementation.Awolusi (2013) investigated the effectiveness of the CSFs of TQM on customer

service management (CSM) in the Nigerian banking industry. In doing so, they make use of Malcolm Baldrige

National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework. The result revealed nine factors responsible for successful

implementation of TQM in Nigerian banking industry. Mellahi and Eyuboglu (2001) examined key factors for

successful implementation of TQM in the Turkish banking sector. The result showed that successful TQM

implementation requires management unwavering commitment to TQM and enthusiasm, formal national bodies to

introduce organizations to TQM and provide assistance during and after TQM implementation, and a highly

educated and competent management team. Similar studies of interest are by Shih et al. (2011); Lenkaet al. (2010);

Talibet al. (2012).

From the above statistics and brief literature review on TQM in the two industries, it is concluded that there is a

greater need to undertake the present study and workout on the listed objectives for better understanding of TQM

and its practices as well as to improve the performance level of ICT and banking industries.

3. Research Questions and Hypotheses Formulation

Based on the literature review presented in the earlier sections and the designed objectives of this study, following

questions are articulated to accomplish the purpose of the study.

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What are the key TQM practices for its successful implementation in the Indian ICT

and Banking industries?

Research Question 2 (RQ2): Is there any significant difference in the adoption of key TQM practices across Indian

ICT and banking industries?

To answer the above questions, following hypotheses are set:

H1: TQM program for Indian ICT and banking industries is a set of 17 TQM practices consisting of TMC;CF; TE;

CII; SM; EI; IA; PM; QS; BM; QC; HRM; SP; EE; TW;PSD; and COM.

H2: There is no significant difference in the adoption of TQM practices across Indian ICT and banking industries.

4. Research Methodology

This study deployed an empirical method of research strategy because it focuses on answering the underlined

research questions through evidence collected in the form of primary data. Empirical research generally starts with

some a priori theory, which the researcher develops and tries to explain or predict what happens in the real world

(Goodwin, 2005). In order to accomplish the present objectives of this study, a questionnaire survey methodology

was adopted and carried out in the Indian ICT and banking industries to collect the primary data which is then used

to answer research questions (Valmohammadi, 2011; Boateng-Okrah and Fening, 2012; Kumar et al., 2011).

4.1. Research Design

Present work uses a descriptive cross-sectional study design. It is in line with the studies on TQM performed by

Talibet al., 2011d,e; Kumar et al., 2011; Salaheldin, 2009. Additionally, it also employed survey method, which

utilizes a research questionnaire. The study uses electronic (e-mail) survey method as a means of data gathering

which is commonly adopted in such types of work (Kureshiet al., 2010; Talibet al., 2011d,e).

4.2. Research Questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed based on previous studies (Antony et al., 2002; Kumar et al., 2011; Abdullah,

2010). The questionnaire was initially validated through a pilot study before it was finally used for primary data

collection. The questionnaire developed consists of two sections. First section contains the demographic information

of the respondents. Second section collects information on the identification and ranking of TQM practices as well

as their adoption across the two industries by listing 17 key TQM practices. The questionnaire utilizes a 5-point

likert scale, with 1=very low, 3=moderate, and 5=very high, depending on the type of question. This is in line with

those suggested by Talibet al., 2013a,b; Salaheldin, 2009, Kumar et al., 2011.

4.3. Sample Size and Sampling Method

The sampling frame of this survey is composed of select Indian ICT and banking companies published by the i3 (i-

cube, Information Infrastructure for Institutions), Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Private Limited, India

(CMIE, 2010). The list contains a total of 1111 ICT and 200 banking companies at the time of study period. The

reasons for choosing these two industries are their high GDP share in Indian economy (CMIE, 2010; Economic

survey, 2013), highly labor intensive industries and provides substantial employment (MoL&E, 2010) and there ever

increasing net annual income to the Indian service sector (Economic Survey, 2013).A stratified sampling method (a

probability sampling technique) was deployed in this study. This method of sampling was suitable in the present

case to ensure that the samples are balanced in terms of service categories and reflects the varied population of ICT

and banking companies across India. The method divides the total population into two strata. The minimum sample

size was calculated as per the GDP contribution of each service industry from the total contribution of GDP in the

service sector. The minimum sample size based on GDP contribution was found to be 471 consisting of 399 ICT and

72 banking companies as shown in Table 2. The samples were drawn using a simple random sample approach.

Table 2: Population and Sample Size for ICT and Banking Industries

Industry Population size (N) Sample size

based on GDP

contribution (n)

Stratum Sample Size Based on

Proportionate Stratified Sampling

Technique

ICT 1111 424 399

Banking 200 47 72

Total 1311 471 471

4.4. Questionnaire Administration and Responses

The target respondents for this study were top and middle level managers and administrators of the two industries

who have sufficient knowledge and experience on TQM approach and are aware of implementation of TQM tools

and techniques. Addressed to top and middle level managers and administrators, the questionnaires were e-mailed to

471 Indian ICT and banking companies (Table 3). After several follow-up, a total of 135 companies responded

which are approximately 28.6 percent of the sample size, are selected for the study, however, only 121 usable

questionnaires were included for the data analysis as 14 questionnaires were unusable, yielding a response rate of

25.7 percent (Table 3) which is well within the range of 85-300 cases as recommended by Kureshiet al., 2010;

Talibet al., 2013b; Hair et al., 1998. The key characteristics of respondents are summarized in Table 4.

Table 3: Responses Received

Service

Industry

Category

Population

size (N)

Instrument

Delivered

Responses

Received

Response

Rate

(percent)

Valid

Responses

Percentage of

Total Valid

Responses

ICT 1111 399 95 20.1 84 17.8

Banking 200 72 40 8.5 37 7.9

Total 1311 471 135 28.6 n=121 25.7

5. Results and Discussion

After critically assessing all the valid questionnaires, the responses were coded and entered into the Statistical

Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0. Methods of data analyses included in the study are:1. Descriptive

statistics (means, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis); 2. Pearson correlation analysis; and 3.Independent-

samples t-test of hypothesis testing for the mean difference. The hypotheses H1 and H2 were examined at two

significance levels i.e. p=0.01 and 0.05.

5.1. Profile of Respondents

Table 4 depicts the profile of the respondents. The company variables consist of position of respondents, year of

experience, gender, department/section, and type of company. As can be seen from Table 4, majority of the

respondents are holding a position of Quality Managers/HRM/Quality Engineers/Executive Managers (30.5

percent), second largest respondents belongs to a position of Project Architect/Consultants/Customer Relation

Officers/Service Managers/Assistant Managers (24 percent) and the remaining respondents are from the following

positions: Project Managers/Senior Engineer Manager/Senior Managers (21.5 percent); Manager/Technical

Manager/Operations Manager (16.5 percent); and Directors/Managing Directors/Executive Directors/Chief

Executive Officer/General Managers (7.5 percent). 57.9 percent of the respondents have an experience of more than

five years and remaining (42.1 percent) with less than five years of work experience. With regard to participants’

gender, there are 87.6 percent maleand 12.4 percent female respondents. This implies that the majority of the Indian

ICT and banking companies are male dominated companies in their quality department. Lastly, the responses

received from different department/section are as follows: Eleven from Quality (9 percent), 27 from Product and

Services (22.4 percent), 17 from Customer Relation (14 percent), 23 from Marketing (19 percent), twelve from

Information Management Services (10 percent) and rest 31 from other different sections (25.6 percent). This

suggests that the study covers all sections/departments of the two industries evenly.

Table 4: Profile of Respondents

Position/Role of the Respondent Frequency Percentage

Director/Managing Director/Executive Director/CEO/General

Manager

9 7.5

Project Manager/Senior Engineer Manager/Senior Manager 26 21.5

Manager/Technical Manager/Operations Manager 20 16.5

Quality Manager/Human Resource Manager/Quality

Engineer/Market Manager/Executive Manager

37 30.5

Others (Like Project Architect, Consultant; Customer Relation

Officer; Service Manager; Assistant Manager)

29 24.0

Total n=121 100

Years of experience Frequency Percentage

Less than 5 years 51 42.1

More than 5 years 70 57.9

Total n=121 100

Gender Frequency Percentage

Male 106 87.6

Female 15 12.4

Total n=121 100

Department/Section Frequency Percentage

Quality 11 9.0

Product and Services 27 22.4

Customer Relation 17 14.0

Marketing 23 19.0

Information Management Services 12 10.0

Others 31 25.6

Total n=121 100

Type of Company Frequency Percentage

ICT 84 69.4

Banking 37 30.6

Total n=121 100

5.2. Reliability of Instrument

Using the SPSS reliability program, an internal consistency analysis was performed separately for the 17 TQM

practices that included 84 ICT and 37 banking companies returned questionnaires. The analysis revealed that the

measures (TQM practices) in the two industries have a Cronbach’s -value above 0.70, which testifies to the

reliability of the questionnaire (Nunnally, 1967; Hair et al., 1998). Table 5 shows the reliability test results of the

TQM practices in ICT and banking companies.

Table 5: Internal Consistency (Scale Reliabilities) for TQM Practices

Industry Measures Number of Items Cronbach Alpha

ICT TQM Practices 17 0.887

Banking TQM Practices 17 0.902

5.3. Identification and Ranking of TQM Practices

Descriptive statistics are mainly used to explore the data collected through questionnaires, and to summarize and

describe it. According to Coakeset al. (2006) “it is necessary to screen data and use transformation technique in

order to make sure that data have been correctly entered and that the distributions of variables that are to be used

in analysis are normal”. Therefore, the assumption of normality is a prerequisite before performing any major

statistical test and making conclusions. In the present case, skewness and kurtosis tests are performed for assessing

normality of the data andthe result shows that their values are generally very near to zero, indicating that the

assumption of normality appears not to be violated (Joanes and Gill, 1998)as can be predicted from Table 6.

Furthermore, various mean scores and standard deviation scores are computed and analysed to test the hypothesis

H1. The results are presented in Table 6 and Figure 1.

An overall mean score of 3.55 (ICT industry) and 3.50 (banking industry) indicates that the two Indian service

industries generally perceive positively over the set of identified TQM practices. These scores are at the upper-

middle end of 5-point likert scale. By examining the summary of the mean scores, it is seen that these range from

2.90 to 4.05 for ICT industry, which is, to some extent higher than the mean scores of banking industry which

ranges between 3.03 and 3.85. To further elaborate, the mean scores of TQM practices for the two industries are

categorized into three levels of importance i.e. most important having higher mean score (≥3.50); moderately

important where mean scores lies between 3.0 and 3.50; and least important with low mean scores (<3.0). As per

this criterion, ten and nine practices were found to be the most importantTQM practices for ICT and banking

industries respectively. They are: TMC, CII, QC, CF, TE, TW, QS, PSD, PM, and COM for ICT industry and TW,

TMC, CII, TE, CF, PSD, PM, SP, and QC, for banking industry. Whereas the set of five TQM practices like SP, IA,

BM, EI, and EE are found to be moderately important (second category) in ICT industry and for banking industry,

there are eight practices in this category namely QS, COM, BM, IA, EE, EI, SM, and HRM. Third set consists of

least important TQM practices category. In this category, only two practices i.e. HRM and SM were observed in

ICT industry whereas no practices were found having less than mean score of 3.0 in case of banking industry. This

suggest that in general, most of the TQM practices have been given equal importance in the two industries except

for the two practices namely COM and SP. COM was found to be placed in moderately important category for

banking industry while the same was identified as important practice in ICT industry. This was expected since

information and communication industry requires a focus on communication and its various components as

compared to banks where it is ranked at eleventh place. This was also supported by Kumar et al., 2011; Talibet al.,

2011d.

Similarly, SP as a TQM practice was observed moderately important for ICT industry and is ranked at eleventh

place while the same is ranked at eight place in banking industry, indicating that it is an important practices for the

banks performance and efforts should be made in planning and developing the future actions strategically and is

need of hour for the growth of banking industry. On the other hand, the two lowest mean scores practices are HRM

(2.98) and SM (2.90) categorized in least important category for ICT industry and 3.03 and 3.14 mean scores for the

same in banking industry placed in moderately important practices. These two practices receives lowest mean scores

in both the industries, implying that they are little in use and less emphasized TQM practices in both the Indian

service industries. This was also claimed by Talib and Rahman (2012); Arumugamet al. (2009). This further

suggested that more efforts need to be focused on improving supplier quality, supplier relations, and selection and

recruitment system especially in ICT industry.

Table 6: Descriptive Statistics of TQM Practices in Indian ICT and Banking Industries

TQM Practice ICT Industry Banking Industry

Mean Std.

Deviation

Skewness Kurtosis Ranking Mean Std.

Deviation

Skewness Kurtosis Ranking

Top-management commitment

(TMC)

4.05 1.017 -0.731 -0.340 1 3.84 1.014 -0.502 -0.023 2

Continuous improvement and

innovation (CII)

3.89 0.807 -0.365 -0.282 2 3.78 0.886 0.199 -1.241 3

Quality culture (QC)

3.86 0.996 -0.456 -0.515 3 3.51 1.044 -0.115 -0.464 9

Customer focus (CF)

3.83 0.848 -0.036 -0.936 4 3.68 0.784 0.291 -0.671 5

Training and education (TE)

3.83

0.929 -0.120 -1.082 5 3.77 0.854 -0.404 -0.240 4

Teamwork (TW)

3.82 0.880 -0.182 -0.795 6 3.85 0.898 -0.638 1.135 1

Quality systems(QS)

3.73 0.827 -0.234 0.255 7 3.49 0.768 0.436 -0.190 10

Product and service design (PSD)

3.70 0.941 -0.076 -0.553 8 3.65 0.949 -0.454 0.366 6

Process management (PM)

3.63 0.941 0.099 -0.982 9 3.62 0.861 -0.261 -0.422 7

Communication (COM)

3.58

1.032 -0.027 -1.144 10 3.46 0.989 -0.155 -0.171 11

Strategic planning (SP) 3.43

0.749 -0.014 -0.286 11 3.57 0.899 -0.214 0.603 8

Information and analysis (IA) 3.40

0.958 0.447 -0.391 12 3.43 0.899 -0.029 -0.686 13

Benchmarking (BM)

3.39 0.970 0.189 -0.902 13 3.43 1.015 -0.143 -0.362 12

Employee involvement (EI) 3.19

1.012 0.320 -1.023 14 3.15 1.004 -0.111 -0.202 15

Employee encouragement (EE)

3.12 0.999 0.127 -0.769 15 3.16 1.068 -0.196 -0.721 14

Human resource management

(HRM)

2.98 1.317 0.142 -1.088 16 3.03 1.213 -0.252 -0.987 17

Supplier management (SM)

2.90

1.013 -0.161 -0.850 17 3.14 1.134 -0.400 -0.559 16

Overall 3.55 3.50

Figure 1: Comparison of Means of TQM Practices between ICT and Banking Industries

5.4. Correlation between the TQM Practices

According to Rowntree (1987), correlation is a measure of the strength of relation between two or more variables. The correlation

coefficient ranges from -1.00 to +1.00. The value of -1.00 represents a perfect negative correlation while a value +1.00 represents

a perfect positive correlation. A positive correlation between two variables means that if one increases, so does the other. On the

other hand, a negative correlation means if one increases, the other decreases. A value of 0.00 represents a lack of correlation.

The results of the correlation between the TQM practices for the two industries are presented separately in Tables 7 and 8

respectively. Based on the correlation matrixes, the highest correlations were found in between the practices EI and SM (r=0.735,

p<0.01)in case of ICT industry and EE and EI (r=0.730, p<0.01) for banking industry while the weakest correlation was detected

for the practices between PSD and BM (r=0.09) for ICT industry and for banking it was between QC and SM (r=0.01). Out of

142 correlations, majority of them are above 0.20 while remaining few is below 0.20 mark in the two industries. Thus, the

findings showed that the respondents perceived the set of identified TQM practices in more positive and favorable way in both

the industries. These correlations and results are similar to the findings by Brahet al. (2002).

In summary, after the analysis of the two bivariate correlation matrixes (Tables 7 and 8) consisting of 17 TQM practices, it is

evident that there is no multicollinearity problem since all the correlation coefficients are below the cut-off limit of 0.90. Further,

in this study, the most of the correlation coefficients are statistically significant at 0.01 and 0.05 levels and in the range of 0.20-

0.75, only few relationships were found to be insignificant in the two industries. Thus, it can be concluded from the above

findings that for Indian ICT industry, 15 practices are significant only two practices are insignificant as well as few correlations

are also showing no relationship, implying that the hypothesis H1 for research question RQ1 is partially supported. While for

banking industry, all the 17 TQM practices are important having mean score of above 3.0 and a clear relationship between all the

TQM practices is indicated and suggests that banking companies are advanced in the implementation of TQM practices. Thus,

hypothesis H1 is true and supports the findings.

4.053.89 3.86 3.83 3.83 3.82 3.73 3.63 3.58

3.43 3.393.19 3.12

2.98

3.402.90

3.70

3.5

1

3.7

8

3.8

4

3.6

8

3.7

7

3.8

5 3.4

9

3.6

5

3.6

2 3.4

6

3.5

7

3.4

3

3.4

3 3.1

4

3.1

6

3.0

3

3.1

4

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

TMC CII QC CF TE TW QS PSD PM COM SP IA BM EI EE HRM SM

TQM Practices

Mean

ICT Industry Banking Industry

Table 7: Pearson’s Correlation Matrix of the TQM Practices in ICT Industry

TQM Practice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Top-management commitment

(TMC) 1.000

Customer focus (CF)

0.401

** 1.000

Training and education (TE) 0.417

**

0.362

** 1.000

Continuous improvement and

innovation (CII)

0.623

**

0.414

**

0.378

** 1.000

Supplier management (SM) 0.028 0.402

**

0.316

** 0.046 1.000

Employee involvement (EI) 0.026 0.459

**

0.342

** 0.011

0.735

** 1.000

Information and analysis (IA) 0.153 0.440

**

0.455

** 0.135

0.536

**

0.628

** 1.000

Process management (PM)

0.295

**

0.360

**

0.466

** 0.122

0.493

**

0.530

**

0.582

** 1.000

Quality systems(QS)

0.446

**

0.415

**

0.332

**

0.407

** 0.184

0.265

*

0.431

**

0.457

**

1.00

0

Benchmarking (BM)

0.189 0.037 0.194 0.162 0.112 0.070

0.268

*

0.306

**

0.40

6**

1.00

0

Quality culture (QC)

0.411

**

0.400

** 0.143

0.296

** 0.034 0.063

0.276

**

0.239

**

0.53

7**

0.24

6*

1.00

0

Human resource management

(HRM) 0.037 0.191

0.371

** 0.093

0.603

**

0.618

**

0.495

**

0.595

**

0.30

4**

0.14

9

0.00

3

1.00

0

Strategic planning (SP) 0.305

**

0.341

**

0.363

** 0.177

0.292

**

0.336

**

0.410

**

0.415

**

0.50

3**

0.28

0**

0.14

8

0.34

0**

1.00

0

Employee encouragement (EE)

0.184

0.223

*

0.359

** 0.046

0.476

**

0.514

**

0.465

**

0.483

**

0.17

1

0.13

8

0.08

0

0.57

9**

0.47

8**

1.00

0

Teamwork (TW)

0.144 0.169

0.361

** 0.210

0.345

**

0.350

**

0.458

**

0.327

**

0.21

3

0.29

5**

0.17

7

0.28

7**

0.44

6**

0.35

3**

1.00

0

Product and service design

(PSD)

0.267

*

0.405

**

0.397

**

0.275

*

0.273

*

0.275

*

0.429

**

0.459

**

0.29

7**

0.09

0

0.23

7*

0.37

3**

0.30

3**

0.37

1**

0.29

9**

1.00

0

Communication (COM) 0.122 0.333

**

0.442

** 0.076

0.503

**

0.527

**

0.526

*8

0.497

**

0.21

8

0.22

6*

0.01

2

0.54

2**

0.42

1**

0.62

1**

0.48

7**

0.47

8**

1.00

0

Note: ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

Table 8: Pearson’s Correlation Matrix of the TQM Practices in Banking Industry

TQM Practice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Top-management commitment

(TMC) 1.000

Customer focus (CF)

0.212 1.000

Training and education (TE) 0.279 0.349

* 1.000

Continuous improvement and

innovation (CII)

0.485

** 0.296

0.414

* 1.000

Supplier management (SM) -

0.174 0.176 0.260 -.081 1.000

Employee involvement (EI) 0.158 0.128 0.262 0.127 0.617

** 1.000

Information and analysis (IA) 0.262 0.323 0.234 0.121 0.132 0.241 1.000

Process management (PM)

0.405

*

0.348

* 0.263 0.254 0.111

0.510

**

0.468

** 1.000

Quality systems(QS) 0.354 0.454 0.503 0.404 0.177 0.308 0.371 0.496 1.00

* ** ** * * ** 0

Benchmarking (BM)

0.394

* 0.181 0.271 0.138

0.334

*

0.541

**

0.429

**

0.574

**

0.43

5**

1.00

0

Quality culture (QC)

0.501

** 0.277

0.564

**

0.574

** 0.010 0.144

0.349

*

0.469

**

0.61

5**

0.54

5**

1.00

0

Human resource management

(HRM) 0.049 0.126

0.381

* 0.006

0.704

**

0.704

** 0.244 0.223

0.28

4

0.48

7**

0.09

8

1.00

0

Strategic planning (SP) 0.409

* 0.150

0.345

*

0.402

*

0.359

*

0.528

**

0.582

**

0.393

*

0.47

4**

0.66

7**

0.48

0**

0.54

6**

1.00

0

Employee encouragement (EE)

0.282 0.065

-

0.021 0.126

0.578

**

0.730

** 0.214 0.310

0.27

4

0.44

6**

0.07

3

0.55

4**

0.50

9**

1.00

0

Teamwork (TW)

0.245

0.397

*

0.569

** 0.269 0.213

0.456

**

0.468

**

0.493

**

0.44

0**

0.38

4*

0.23

9

0.33

6*

0.49

6**

0.17

3

1.00

0

Product and service design

(PSD)

0.112 0.440

** 0.315 0.105

0.510

** 0.255

0.444

**

0.411

*

0.47

0**

0.62

3**

0.43

9**

0.32

2

0.56

6**

0.25

0

0.35

5*

1.00

0

Communication (COM) 0.381

*

0.377

*

0.483

**

0.402

* 0.265

0.411

*

0.552

*

0.438

**

0.75

8**

0.51

6**

0.54

5**

0.40

6*

0.76

1**

0.34

9*

0.52

4**

0.59

1**

1.00

0

Note: ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

5.5. Adoption of TQM Practices across Indian ICT and Banking Industries

With regard to the difference in the adoption of each TQM practice across the Indian ICT and banking industries and

to accomplish the third objective of the present study, an independent-samples t-test is used to examine the second

research question RQ2 and the related hypothesis H2. An independent-samples t-test is appropriate when the

researcher’s goal is to compare the difference between the means of two groups on the same variable (Coakeset al.,

2006; Abusa and Gibson, 2013). Nevertheless, before conducting this test, it is necessary that the two assumptions,

population normality and homogeneity of variance must be met. Data normality has already been verified

throughskewness and kurtosis tests in the previous sections. In order to test the homogeneity of variance assumption,

Levene’s test for Equality of variances was performed. Table 9 presents theLevene’s test results. It shows the

Levene statistics and the significance p-value results of each TQM practice. The results showed that all the

significance levels of 17 TQM practices obtained from the Levene’s test for Equality of variancesare larger than

0.05 (p>0.05). Meaning that the assumption of equal variance has not been violated. Accordingly, it is assumed that

the independent-samples t-test can be performed for further analysis.

Subsequently, a significant test was performed to examine whether there exist any significant difference in the

adoption of 17 TQM practices in the two groups i.e. ICT and banking industries. The results of the t-test are shown

in Table 10 which presents the two means (ICT and banking) of all the TQM practices along with their t-values and

level of significance. Through the initial investigation of all the 17 TQM practices with respect to t-value and

significance level, it can be seen that there is no significant difference between 14 TQM practices among the two

industries. Those practices are: TMC; CF; TE; CII; EI; IA; PM; BM; HRM; SP; EE; TW; PSD; and COM. While

the remaining three practices (SM; QS; and QC) shows significant difference at 0.05 level. These three practices

also shows the large difference in their mean scores across the two industries (SM: 2.90 and 3.14; QS: 3.73 and

3.49; and QC: 3.86 and 3.51) as well as ranked at 17 and 16 place for SM, 7 and 10 place for QS, and 3 and 9 place

for QC as shown in Tables 10 and 6 which further strengthen the present outcomes. From these results, it is

concluded that the above 14 practices are not significantly different across Indian ICT and banking industries.

However, these two industries have better quality culture and quality systems in their possession, as indicated by

their mean scores (≥3.49). But there is still a need of improvement in the adoption of SM practice and managers and

practitioners have to think in this direction through adoption of strategic management technique and logistic

practices. Thus, hypothesis H2 is rejected for these three TQM practices and accepted for 14 TQM practices as

mentioned above.

In future quality improvement programs, banking industry need to have a sound policy that focuses on

improvement of quality culture and quality systems. For successful TQM implementation, banking industry need to

recognize that customer satisfaction is highly important and should be placed on priority which is directly as well as

indirectly linked with QC and QS. Thus, emphasis must be given on these two practices. Further, 14 practices which

show no significant difference in their adoption across the two industries also indicate small mean differences

among them implying that almost all practices are effectively adopted in both the industries. Additionally, the

practices where greater attention have to be given beside the above discussed practices are EI (mean score=3.19 and

3.14), HRM (mean scores=2.98 and 3.03), EE (mean scores=3.12 and 3.16), BM(mean scores=3.39 and 3.43) and

IQ (mean scores=3.40 and 3.43). These practices show lower mean scores level (≤3.50) though their differences are

very small indicating the status of adoption of these TQM practices.

Table 9: Tests of Homogeneity of Variance (Levene’s Test)

TQM Practice Levene Statistic Significance

(p-value)

Top-management commitment (TMC) 0.001 0.982

Customer focus (CF) 0.131 0.718

Training and education (TE) 1.631 0.204

Continuous improvement and innovation (CII) 2.971 0.087

Supplier management (SM) 0.413 0.522

Employee involvement (EI) 0.581 0.447

Information and analysis (IA) 0.035 0.852

Process management (PM) 1.283 0.260

Quality systems (QS) 0.070 0.792

Benchmarking (BM) 0.025 0.874

Quality culture (QC) 0.270 0.605

Human resource management (HRM) 0.256 0.614

Strategic planning (SP) 1.415 0.237

Employee encouragement (EE) 0.386 0.536

Teamwork (TW) 0.080 0.778

Product and service design (PSD) 0.129 0.720

Communication (COM) 0.676 0.413

Note: n=121;*p<0.05.

Table 10: Independent Groups t-test Results of TQM Practices Adoption across Indian ICT and Banking

Industries

TQM Practice Mean Score in Independent Groups t-test

Results

Result

ICT Banks ‘t’ Value Significance

(p-value)

Top-management

commitment

4.05 3.84 1.046 0.297 (NS) Accepted

Customer focus

3.83 3.68 0.964 0.337 (NS) Accepted

Training and education 3.83 3.77 0.277 0.782 (NS) Accepted

Continuous improvement and

innovation

3.89 3.78 0.665 0.508 (NS) Accepted

Supplier management 2.90 3.14 -1.110 0.026* Rejected

Employee involvement 3.19 3.14 0.278 0.782 (NS) Accepted

Information and analysis 3.40 3.43 -0.149 0.882 (NS) Accepted

Process management 3.63 3.62 0.052 0.959 (NS) Accepted

Quality systems 3.73 3.49 1.501 0.036* Rejected

Benchmarking 3.39 3.43 -.0204 0.839 (NS) Accepted

Quality culture 3.86 3.51 1.723 0.047* Rejected

Human resource management 2.98 3.03 -0.200 0.842 (NS) Accepted

Strategic planning 3.43 3.57 -0.884 0.379 (NS) Accepted

Employee encouragement 3.12 3.16 -0.214 0.831 (NS) Accepted

Teamwork 3.82 3.85 -0.094 0.925 (NS) Accepted

Product and service design 3.70 3.65 0.289 0.773 (NS) Accepted

Communication 3.58 3.46 0.616 0.539 (NS) Accepted

Notes: Significant at *p<0.05; **p<0.01; NS=No Significant Difference.

6. Conclusions

The study reported in this paper was performed with the help of self-administered questionnaire sent to ICT and

banking companies in order to identify and rank the key TQM practices and investigate the significant difference

between the adoptions of identified TQM practices across the two Indian service industries. In total, 471

questionnaires were delivered to ICT (399) and banking (72) companies out of which 121 valid responses were

received consisting of 84 responders from ICT and 37 from banking. A total of 17 TQM practices were listed in the

questionnaire. From the findings presented and discussed, it was concluded that Indian ICT and banking industries

categorizes the identified key TQM practices into three categories i.e. most important, moderately important, and

least important based on their mean scores. It was observed that TMC, CII, QC, CF, TE, TW, QS, PSD, PM, and

COM were perceived as ten most important TQM practices in the two industries except for the practices COM

where it was placed at 11 position in banking and SP where it was placed at 11 position in ICT industry. Similarly,

another five practices namely SP, IA, BM, EI, and EE were perceived to be second most important (moderate) TQM

practices for ICT industry and seven practices (SP, IA, BM, EI, EE, SM, and HRM) were moderately important

TQM practices for banking industry. While remaining two practices i.e. SM and HRM were categorized under least

important practices category or having no significance in ICT industry. On the other hand, these two practices were

placed in moderately important category in case of banking industry implying that all the 17 TQM practices were

considered to have importance in Indian banking industry as compared to ICT industry where 15 practices were

considered important to moderately important and rest two least important. It is further concluded that both the

industries have almost similar priorities for TQM practices except for SM and HRM. It was also observed that both

the industries understand the importance of TMC, CII, CF, and TE practices for successful implementation of TQM

and therefore ranked almost at the same level.

Additionally, the study has also investigated the adoption of 17 TQM practices across the ICT and banking

industries where it was found that no significant difference was observed in the adoption of 14 TQM practices

except for the three practices like SM, QS and QC. It concludes that efforts should be made to emphasize on these

practices and implement them effectively in order to gain maximum benefit and enhanced business performance. In

summary, the present results have showedalmost a positive indication over the identification and adoption of TQM

practices in the Indian ICT and banking industries. Consequently, it determined the contribution of TQM across the

two Indian industries and identified the most important practices for TQM implementation through successful

empirical analysis.

6.1. Managerial Implications

Some of the implications of the present study are:

This study will serve as a guide to the managers of the two Indian service industries in implementing TQM

program successfully as well as other service industries which are not the part of this study can use TQM

implementation as a strategic competitive weapon.

There are number of ICT companies and banks in India, both public and private, and managers and

practitioners would be able to take a note of importance of the customer to improve the performance of

their companies by introducing QC, TE, adopting QS, developing effective HRM and SM. This will effect

successful TQM implementation.

Through this study, managers and practitioners would be able to identify gaps for further improvement and

contributes to the enhancement of quality of their products and services.

The result of this study provides a practical understanding of TQM practices and their adoption across the

two Indian industries for improved performance. They would be very useful for the practitioners and

quality experts in evaluating the effectiveness of their current TQM program.

6.2. Scope for Further Study

The agenda for future study is to replicate this study with a greater number of Indian service companies such as real

estate, finance, mobile/internet service provider, auto service providers, and many others where the customers play

an important role in the growth of industry and add significantly to the wealth generated by Indian service sector. In

addition to this, the number of responses can be increased by increasing the sample size, this could affect the present

findings in more positive way. Furthermore, the data used in the study were collected at a single point in time, it is,

therefore, recommended that a longitudinal study is essential to understand the effectiveness and implementation of

TQM program as it was believed that TQM reaches at a mature-level after three to five years of its implementation.

Moreover, the present study was conducted in one country only. Future study may include a diversity of other

nations to make the study more versatile and generalizable. Finally, application of qualitative techniques and

integrating approaches like quality function deployment (QFD), Fuzzy-QFD, Fuzzy-Analytic Hierarchy (AHP),

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) etc. useful in products and services development should be deployed to

understand the relationship between present TQM model and customer satisfaction.

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