Total Quality Management

Vol. 21, No. 3, March 2010, 291 300

The influence of top management commitment, process quality

management and quality design on new product performance:
A case of Malaysian manufacturers
Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar and Rushami Zien Yusof
College of Business, University Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia
This study investigates the relationship of three quality orientation attributes: top
management commitment, process quality management and quality design with new
product performance of Malaysian manufacturing firms. Hypotheses concerning the
relationships of these quality orientation attribute variables with new product
performance were posited and tested. Data were collected using a mail questionnaire
survey. The study employed a simple random sampling procedure in selecting the
organisations for inclusion in the sample. Factor analysis, Pearson correlation and
multiple regression methods of data analysis were utilised for hypotheses testing.
The results signified that quality orientation attribute variables jointly explained
33.2% of the variance in new product performance. Three variables: top
management commitment, continuous improvement process and quality tools were
found to have a statistically significant association with new product performance.
The findings of this study provide crucial information from the perspective of a
developing country on the impact of quality orientation practices on new product
performance.
Keywords: quality orientation; new product performance; Malaysian manufacturers

Introduction
Despite the popularity and success of organisations adopting total quality management
(TQM) or quality orientation programmes to improve their organisation performance,
there have been many criticisms of problems or failures associated with its implementation
and of the contribution of TQM to the performance of the organisation. These failures
are mainly due to the organisations focus on the initial start-up phase in implementing
TQM and only use the TQM programme as a motivational programme and expect
quick results without seeing TQM as a long-term and continuous programme (Harari,
1993; Longenecker & Scazzero, 1996; Mathews & Katel, 1992; Thiagarajan & Zairi,
1997; Walsh et al., 2002; Wilkinson et al., 1994). As noted by Teschler (2006), TQM
will only succeed if the organisations implement it systematically and with well-defined
expectations. Hence, Rahman and Sohal (2002) suggested that future research should
identify the impact of each element of TQM on organisational performance, integrate
TQM with other management initiatives, and investigate the impact of TQM on innovation
performance.
Many studies have been carried out on quality orientation, which has been specified as
a strategy for competitive advantage. The role of quality orientation as an antecedent of


Corresponding author. Email: sany@uum.edu.my

ISSN 1478-3363 print/ISSN 1478-3371 online

# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14783360903553198
http://www.informaworld.com

292 S.S.M. Mokhtar and R.Z. Yusof

organisational performance has been extensively investigated in various perspectives
(Agus, 2005; Chong & Rundus, 2004; Khairul Anuar, 2002; Prajogo & Sohal, 2006;
Rapert & Babakus, 1996). However, studies pertaining to quality orientation and new
product performance relationship are limited, despite the high failure rates and the strategic importance of new product introduction.
Furthermore, most of the quality orientation and performance studies have only been
carried out in developed countries. There is limited research conducted in South-East
Asian countries. According to Sila and Ebrahimpour (2002), the highest number of
quality orientation studies was conducted in North America, followed by Europe.
Quality orientation studies in South-East Asian countries remain under-researched
(Yong & Wilkinson, 2001). The positive relationship between quality orientation and performance does not necessarily hold true in developing countries. A particular country
could have differences that are unique to that country such as economic structure, regulation aspects, competitive environment, and the inhabitants. This is especially relevant
in developing countries where the business environment and other unique factors in one
particular country are taken into account.
As specified by Abdul Rahman and Tannock (2005), implementing TQM culture in
Asian countries is difficult because of culture, language, geographical diversity, weak
economies and infrastructure. They also noted the problems related to educating and changing the mindset of the organisations. Anwar and Jabnoun (2006) added that national cultures have restricted TQM implementation in the region as culture remains local although
TQM can become universal.
In view of the research problem presented above, specifically in the Malaysian context,
and since limited studies have investigated the quality orientation and new product performance relationships, this study seeks to identify the influence of top management commitment, process quality management and quality design with new product performance
of Malaysian manufacturing firms.
Top management commitment
Top management commitment or leadership for quality is an important factor and the fundamental driving force to achieve quality improvement and excellence in an organisation
(Kanji, 2001). This is because leaders play the role of setting up the quality policy and
overall strategic planning for the organisation. They provide the vision, values, goals
and system that will lead towards an organisational quality culture and ultimately lead
to satisfied customers and high improved performance (Ahire & OShaughnessy, 1998;
Deming, 1986; Senge, 1990). Further, leadership sets the example for the rest of the
employees to give their commitment towards continuous improvement of the organisation
(Elshennawy et al., 1991). The international quality management system, ISO 9000:2000
also specified that leaders set up unity of purpose and direction for the organisation; and
employees are committed to fulfil the organisations goals and objectives if the leaders are
able to create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully
involved (ISO, 2000). Many studies have also confirmed that there is a positive relationship between leaders or top management and organisational performance (Ahire &
OShaughnessy, 1998; Flynn et al., 1995; Powell, 1995; Saraph et al., 1989).
The importance of leadership for quality is supported further as based on the examination and comparison of the elements of TQM across 23 countries, leadership has been
identified as the only factor that has been studied in all the countries (Sila & Ebrahimpour,
2003). Thus, this indicates the importance of leaders commitment to provide the

Total Quality Management 293

necessary leadership for successful implementation of TQM in an organisation. Goffin and
Szwejczewskis (1996) study on six award-winning organisations identified four key
aspects of management commitment that led them to successful TQM implementation:
(1) time, effort and enthusiasm; (2) introduce clear objectives for the organisations; (3)
an enthusiasm to maximise production processes; and (4) fully focus on staff such as training and teamwork. In addition, another study has identified that for the other elements of
quality management to be implemented successfully and more rigorously, firms need a
high leadership commitment towards quality culture (Ahire & OShaughnessy, 1998).
Indeed, it is argued that there is a link between culture and leadership. For instance,
Schein (2004) distinguished between leadership and management in terms of reaction to
organisation culture. He argued that management acts within a culture; on the other
hand, leadership creates and changes cultures.
There are various roles that leaders can play to achieve quality improvement and
organisation excellence. For example, Oakland and Sohal (1996) suggest five requirements for effective leadership:
(1) Developing and publishing clear documented corporate beliefs and objectives a
mission statement.
(2) Developing clear and effective strategies and supporting plans for achieving the
mission and objectives.
(3) Identifying the critical success factors and critical processes.
(4) Reviewing the management structure.
(5) Empowerment encouraging effective employee participation.
All these suggest the importance of top management commitment in influencing the
performance of an organisation. Given the influence that top management leadership
has on organisational performance, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1: Top management commitment is positively associated with new product performance.

Process quality management

Essentially, a process is a logically related collection of actions or operations that work
together to produce a given result it transforms inputs into outputs, or products
(Burrill & Ledolter, 1999, p. 97). Alternatively, a process is defined as a sequence of activities that is intended to achieve some result, typically to create added value for customers
(Evans & Lindsay, 2008, p. 322). These definitions suggest how important it is for organisations to manage the activities effectively and efficiently to meet the desired results of providing value to customers. The quality management system, ISO 9001:2000 noted the
importance of process by specifying that organisations can achieve the desired results
efficiently if all the activities and related resources are managed as a process (ISO, 2000).
As organisations face a turbulent and competitive environment, managing the work
process successfully can ensure that the organisation achieves its quality aims (Pall,
1987). Furthermore, organisations that are committed to excellence also need to do continuous process improvement (Evans & Lindsay, 2002; Kanji, 1998). Continuous
process improvement is practices that optimise effectiveness and efficiency and process
control in the organisation (Riordan & Gatewood, 1996).
Besides continuous process improvement, another important element in the process
quality management is process quality control and measurement. According to Juran &
Gryna (1993), quality control and measurement is the process of maintaining a planned

294 S.S.M. Mokhtar and R.Z. Yusof

process in its planned state so that it is able to achieve the operating goals. Three steps
involved in performing the process of quality control and measurement are: (1) evaluate
actual quality performance, which involves the use of statistical method; (2) compare
actual performance to quality goals; and (3) act on differences, which involves taking
action to reinstate the process to the level of conformance with quality goals (Juran &
Gryna, 1993; Zahid, 2000). Some of the process quality control and measurement practices
include a programme to find wasted time and costs in all internal processes, identifying
ownership and work procedures, the use of chart and diagram and statistical methods
(Ahire et al., 1996; Badri et al, 1995; Evans & Lindsay, 2002; Flynn et al., 1994; ISO,
2000; Khairul Anuar, 2002; Pall, 1987; Saraph et al., 1989).
Feigenbaum (1991) introduced the term total quality control (TQC), which originates
from the idea that quality control is the process whereby an organisation measures actual
quality performance, compares it with standards, and acts on differences. Feigenbaum
claimed that TQC provides an effective system for integrating the development, maintenance and improvement efforts of quality in the various functions of the organisation and
enables them to interact with each other at the most economical levels to achieve full customer satisfaction. Thus, it can be argued that process quality management involves the
monitoring of activities including finding and eliminating quality deficiencies to ensure
that customer requirements are met. Since many studies have identified that process management is one of the critical success factors in quality management practices (Agus, 2000;
Ahire et al., 1996; Anderson & Sohal, 1999; Black & Porter, 1996; Kanji, 1998; Saraph
et al., 1989), the following hypothesis can be proposed:
H2: Process quality management is positively associated with new product performance.

Quality design
According to Burrill and Ledolter (1999, p. 195), design is the process of converting customer requirements into a product concept and capturing the concept in a set of product
requirements that are complete, clear, and consistent. Quality design is regarded as one
of the critical factors for successful quality management implementation (Saraph et al.,
1989). It is argued that quality design is important as it can have an impact on quality performance in terms of the delivery of product reliability, product features and serviceability
(Flynn et al., 1995). The reliability of product refers to the rate of product failures in the
market. On the other hand, product features refers to the ability of the organisation to
provide products that meet customer needs, while serviceability refers to the ease of customer handling or use of the product. Flynn et al. (1995) found out that product design
process has a positive impact on the perceived quality market outcomes.
Thus, based on the argument of previous studies, it is important for organisations to
design products or services that meet customer requirements. It was noted that many of
the product failures in the market are due to the inability of the manufacturer or the operations functions to implement activities such as product design according to customer
requirements (Juran & Gryna, 1993). Hence, it is important for organisations to integrate
with marketing as they can provide customer input into the design process of the product.
It is argued that the whole organisation needs to agree and work on achieving customer
requirements. As specified by Oakland (2000, p. 13), quality starts with marketing.
One of the specific techniques or tools known as quality function deployment (QFD)
is able to facilitate cross-functional coordination between marketing and operation functions. QFD is a technique consisting of a series of interlocking matrixes that translates

Total Quality Management 295

customer needs into product and process characteristics (Juran & Gryna, 1993, p. 255).
Alternatively, QFD is a planning process to guide the design, manufacturing, and
marketing of goods by integrating the voice of the customer throughout the organisation
(Evans & Lindsay, 2008, p. 580). The objective of QFD is to ensure that all the customer
requirements are translated into the design of product and process so that the final product
is produced according to customer needs. Given the importance of quality design
pertaining to new product introduction, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3. Quality design is positively associated with new product performance.

Research methodology
Measurement
The survey instrument is composed of questions relating to the following four constructs:
top management commitment, process quality management, quality design, and new
product performance. All the scales originate from previous research. The scales for top
management commitment, process quality management and quality design practices
were adapted from various past studies (Ahire et al., 1996; Ahire & OShaughnessy,
1998; Ang et al., 2000; Black & Porter, 1996; Dreyfus et al., 2004; Flynn et al., 1994;
Garvin, 1991; Goffin & Szwejczewski, 1996; ISO, 2000; Khairul Anuar, 2002; Morgan
& Strong, 1998; Powell, 1995; Samson & Terziovski, 1999; Saraph et al., 1989). Similarly, the new product performance scale was adapted from various sources of past
studies (Kaplan & Norton, 1992, 1993, 1996a, 1996b, 2001; Sim & Koh, 2001; Singh,
2004; Vorhies & Harker, 2000; Yeniyurt, 2003).
Factor analysis was carried out for quality orientation attributes variables. The result of
factor analysis for quality orientation attributes showed six factors had emerged, with
factor loadings ranging from 0.527 to 0.808 with 13 items eliminated. The measure of
sampling adequacy (MSA) was 0.945, which was higher than the recommended value
of 0.60 and the Bartletts test of sphericity was significant. The percentage of total variance
explained by the six factors was 75.9%.
The first factor contains 10 items dominated by statements on the action of top management in pursuing quality improvement in the organisation. Thus, consistent with past
studies, this factor was named as top management commitment. The second factor was
defined by seven items reflecting the process of quality design in the organisation. Indeed,
all the seven items load on the same factor as the original items. Therefore, the same name
of quality design has been maintained for this second factor. The third factor consisted of
six items and was dominated by quality measurement process. Consistent with past
measurement, this factor was named process measurement. The fourth factor contained
five items relating to quality process improvement in the organisation. Therefore, this
factor was named continuous improvement process. The fifth factor was dominated by
items pertaining to organisational strategic planning. Hence, this factor was named strategic quality planning. Finally, the sixth factor consists of items relating to the tool used in
the product design process. Thus, this factor was named quality tool.
The results indicate support for convergent and discriminant validity as items correlated strongly in the same factor and distinctly among the factors. Reliability analysis
for these factors also lends support to the finding that the measures were reliable, since
the result of the Cronbach alpha coefficient was higher than 0.70. The result showed
that the Cronbach alpha coefficient ranged from 0.78 to 0.97. Table 1 summarises the
result of the reliability test.

296 S.S.M. Mokhtar and R.Z. Yusof

Table 1.

Reliability analysis of quality orientation attributes.

Construct

Cronbach alpha coefficient

Top management commitment

Quality design
Process measurement
Continuous improvement process
Strategic quality planning
Quality tools

0.96
0.93
0.93
0.89
0.78
0.80

As a result of factor analysis that creates new factors, the following new hypotheses are
restated and referred to throughout the study:
H1: Top management commitment is positively associated with new product performance.
H2: Quality design is positively associated with new product performance.
H3: Process measurement is positively associated with new product performance.
H4: Continuous improvement process is positively associated with new product performance.
H5: Strategic quality planning is positively associated with new product performance.
H6: Quality tools are positively associated with new product performance.

Data collection and sample selection

Five quality managers of large and medium-sized manufacturing firms were asked to validate the instruments. Next, a total of 500 questionnaires were sent to quality managers of
firms with more than 50 employees. This sample was selected randomly from the database
of Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) and SIRIM QAS International directory. Among them, 158 responded completely to the survey, representing 31.6% of the
response rate. This overall response rate is considered moderately high, given that the standard response rate for data collection by mail survey is around 20% (Samat et al., 2006)
and the respondents are key personnel holding important positions in the organisations.
Results
Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the hypothesis of the study. Simultaneously, the regression analysis identifies the most contributory explanatory variables
among the set of quality orientation attribute variables that best predict new product performance. Tables 2 and 3 demonstrate the results of multiple regression analysis between
quality orientation attributes and new product performance.
The results signified that quality orientation attribute variables jointly explained 33.2%
of the variance in new product performance. The model was significant at 1% level (F
12.169, sig. F 0.000). Of the six independent variables, three of them were found to
have a statistically significant association with new product performance. The variables
were top management commitment (b 0.288, p 0.016), continuous improvement
Table 2. Multiple regression result between quality orientation attributes and new product
performance.
R
0.576

R Square

Adjusted R square

Std. error of the estimate

Sig. F

0.332

0.305

0.59662

12.169

0.000

Total Quality Management 297

Table 3. Multiple regression result between quality orientation attributes dimensions and new
product performance.
Unstandardised
coefficients
Variables
(Constant)
Top mgt commitment
Quality design
Continuous improvement
process
Process measurement
Strategic quality planning
Quality tools

Std. error

Standardised
coefficients
Beta

1.828
0.248
0.015
0.277

0.340
0.102
0.083
0.095

0.288
0.020
0.328

5.380
2.426
0.187
2.929

20.062
20.140
0.112

0.086
0.085
0.050

20.084
20.153
0.206

20.729
21.650
2.231

Sig.
0.000
0.016
0.852
0.004
0.467
0.101
0.027

Note: Level of significance:  0.05;  0.01.

process (b 0.328, p 0.004), and quality tools (b 0.206, p 0.027). Continuous

improvement process contributes the highest variance by explaining 32.8% of the new
product performance variance.
Implications and conclusion
This article attempts to conceptualise and empirically test the relationship of three quality
orientation attributes: top management commitment, process quality management, and
quality design with new product performance of Malaysian manufacturing firms. Hypotheses concerning the relationships of this quality orientation attribute variables with new
product performance were posited and tested. The findings indicated that three hypotheses
(Hypotheses 1, 4 and 6) were supported; top management commitment, continuous
improvement process, and quality tools were found to have statistically significant association with new product performance.
Previous studies have acknowledged that where organisations are oriented towards
quality improvements, this has influence on organisational performance and indirectly
enhances competitive advantage (Agus & Sagir, 2001; Easton & Jarrel, 1998; Tena
et al., 2001). The overall results of the present study justify quality orientation as a sustainable strategy for competitiveness as some of the elements of quality orientation contribute
significantly to business performance in this study. Malaysian organisations should strive
to become quality-oriented organisations to achieve organisational excellence.
The organisation should consider top management commitment practices as an important activity in the organisation since the present study has identified that these practices
contribute towards new product performance. Leaders play an important role in supporting
and driving the organisation to achieve organisational excellence. Among the practices
that can contribute to organisational excellence include allocating adequate resources to
improve quality, assuming responsibility for quality performance, committing fully to
quality programmes and actively encouraging change towards best quality practice.
The organisation should also consider quality tools practices since these elements have
been found to be positively associated with new product performance. Quality tools can
complement the quality design activities by employing certain tools such as QFD and
FMEA to support the product development process.
Another quality orientation attribute that the organisation should give attention to is
continuous improvement process. Continuous improvement process is a practice that

298 S.S.M. Mokhtar and R.Z. Yusof

optimises effectiveness and efficiency of process control in the organisation (Riordan &
Gatewood, 1996). Some of the activities of continuous improvement process include
programmes to continuously eliminate defects, programmes to find wasted time in all
internal processes, and evaluation and improvement of the business process continuously.
It has been suggested that organisations committed to excellence need to implement
continuous process improvement (Evans & Lindsay, 2002; Kanji, 1998). Therefore,
continuous improvement process should be implemented in the organisation so that
higher achievement can be attained.
In general, quality orientation creates transitional states of excellence that deliver
effective performance and, in turn, sustainable competitiveness (Idris & Zairi, 2006,
p. 1250). Thus, the top management of the firms should provide adequate resources and a
quality environment in implementing quality orientation in the organisation. This includes
providing a budget to improve quality of product and services; training courses for staff to
improve process quality management and using quality tools; investing in a quality management system; and establishing a teamwork environment. Correspondingly, to maintain
and achieve higher competitiveness Malaysian manufacturing firms should establish a
quality-oriented culture as a sustainable strategy in daily operation of the organisation.

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