The Impact Of Quality Management On Firm Performance In The Perspective Of Manufacturing Technology

The relationship between quality management and firm performance is one of important topic in the field of operations management. The scholars usually studied the relationship between quality management and firm performance in the perspective of whole quality management and different quality management practices while the conclusion was not unified. In recent years, more studies emerged in different context. The study on the relationship between quality management and firm performance in different perspectives provided good supports for the explanation of the relationship between quality management and firm performance. But, such studies needs deepening further. Now, the study of quality management in China is still in its infancy, which is far from the operation practices of China as one of big manufacturing nations in the world. It is urgent to conduct more studies in this field too.Therefore, the relationship between quality management practices and firm performance was empirically studied in the perspective of advanced manufacturing technology in the context of Chinese manufacturing firms. In this dissertation, standardized empirical research prodecures and methods were used and questionnare was design to conduct survey to collect data. With the help of the methods of factor analysis, cluster analysis, and SEM based on PLS, the mesurement and the taxonomy of quality management practices and the relationship between quality management and firm business results in the context of China were discussed in details. The main results and innovation points of this dissertation include:â‘ On the basis of comprehensive literature review, the measurement of quality management practices in China was empirically studied after the real conditions of Chinese frims were considered. In above process, the internal functioning mechanims of quality management was analyzed. The results show that quality management practices in China were categorized into infrastructure and core practices. The former includes leadership support, employee involvement, supplier relations, and customer focus practices while the latter involves product design and process flow management practices. The enhancement of above practices will be beneficial to the advances of the level of quality management in China. Then, Suggestions were given. The measuring items of above practices can be refered for the research in this field.â‘¡On the basis of the measurement of quality management practices, the taxonomy of quality management practices in China was emoirically investigated and the corresponding firm performance was compared. The upgrading path of quality management practices in China was raised. The conclusions indicate that the quality management practices in China is categorized into three levels, which are emerging level, growing level, and leading level, and firm performance in above levels presented an obvious climbing trend. The development of quality management level from emerging level to growing level and finally to leading level depicted the evolving path of quality management in China. In this evolving path, quality management is pushed mainly by leadership support and supplier relations and then product design and customer focus are improved. Correspondingly, the quality level is promoted mainly from the aspects of product performance and reliability to joint improvement with conformance and durability while the level of firm overall performance is upgraded from customer satisfaction and financial performance initially and to final improvement of market performance and firm competency.â‘¢In the perspective of advanced manufacturing technology, the relationship between quality management and firm performance was studied. The impacts of quality management practices on firm performance in China were summarized and the role of advanced manufacturing technology in above relations was investigated. Then, strategies on how to match technologies and quality management were raised. The study finds that quality management practices in China have significant impact on firm performance, which follow an impacting path from leadership support to customer focus, supplier management, and then to employee involvement, product design, and process flow management. Finally, above transmissive impacts function on business results via employee involvement and product design. Further analysis indicates that the direct impact and moderating function of advanced manufacturing technology experience a process from weak to strong, and then from positive to negative, which is different from initial hypothesis that the impacts of advanced manufacturing technology will be gradually enhanced. Above result strengthen the importance of the match between technology implementation and quality management. Aiming at different level of quality management, strategies and suggestions for the match between technology use and quality improvement are given.