UK HOTEL INDUSTRY TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Uk Hotel Industry Total Quality Management

Abstract

Total quality management deals with so many different aspects, one can not pin point exactly what it is and or deals with. "There are lessons to be learned from the experiences of the successful companies. The common success factors are: Focusing on customer needs, Upper managers in charge of quality, Training the entire hierarchy to manage for quality, Employee involvement. Management in general has to ensure that every t is crossed and every one is dotted for the organization and the clientele. Total quality management deals with how each employee feels about the organization, product and the client. The need to understand, listen and hear the employee helps the organization to meet the client's expectations of what he or she expects from the organization and or product as well as exceeds the expectations. Here are two other forms of definition for total quality management.

Uk Hotel Industry Total Quality Management

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).

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.

Aim of the study

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 the extent to which TQM influences hotel firm performance.

Literature review

As noted above, TQM commitment may be associated with such factors as training, ICT/IS and environmental management, and may impact on firm performance ...