TQM in Hospitality Industry

TQM in Hospitality Industry

Introduction

Total quality management (TQM) is a management system which may impact on firm performance in both manufacturing and service organisations. There are certain differences between both types of industries, due to which this relationship might not take place in service firms: the customer is a participant in the service process; the service firm must approach quality differently because of its highly customised output; and the intangible nature of services often makes it difficult to measure the quality of services objectively (Huq and Stolen, 1998). Nevertheless, judging by the references found in the literature, TQM has been equally applied to manufacturing and service firms, which means that they both can adopt it successfully (Huq and Stolen, 1998; Brah et al., 2000; Prajogo, 2005).

The literature identifies common practices leading to successful TQM implementation, namely: leadership, quality planning, people management, customer focus, process management, supplier management, information and analysis, and organisational concern about social and environmental issues (Deming, 1982; Mizuno, 1988; Saraph et al., 1989; Flynn et al., 1994; Ahire et al., 1996; Prajogo and Sohal, 2006). Among these factors, such managerial factors as training, information and communication technologies and information systems (ICT/IS), and environmental management commitment are particularly important to the hotel industry (Geller, 1985; Brotherton, 2004).

Training turns out to be one of the key factors within a TQM context (Schonberger, 1994) and, more specifically, as far as service quality in the hotel industry is concerned (Nankervis and Debrah, 1995; Ottenbacher et al., 2006; Varela and García, 2006). Similarly, ICT/IS play a relevant role in quality improvement (Marler, 1998; Martínez-Lorente et al., 2004) and can contribute to enhance hotel customer satisfaction. The development of environmental management practices is favoured by TQM too (Curkovic, 2003). Finally, quality would serve as the basis for the development of a competitive strategy and TQM might impact on performance in service organisations (Brah et al., 2000) and, more specifically, in the hotel industry (Camisón, 1996).

TQM practices have been analysed in relation to both manufacturing and service firms, but the number of studies devoted to service organisations is smaller (Sureshchandar et al., 2001; Gustafsson et al., 2003). Moreover, although several authors have examined the practices of TQM-committed hotels (Camisón, 1996; Partlow, 1996), the link between TQM and some of the managerial factors mentioned above has not been examined as deeply in the hotel industry literature as in the TQM literature. Accordingly, more research on such issues is needed to fill this gap in the empirical literature on the hotel industry.

The aim of this paper is to test the relationships between TQM and a number of managerial factors (training, ICT/IS and environmental management), and between TQM and hotel firm performance. The contributions made in this paper can be summarised as follows: it expands the theoretical links between key managerial factors and TQM in the hotel industry; it shows hoteliers that behaviours characterised by a greater proactivity toward TQM are often associated with a stronger commitment to those managerial factors at the establishment; and shows ...