The TQM JournalIdentification and prioritization of barriers to total quality managementimplementation in service industry : An analytic hierarchy process approachFaisal Talib Zillur Rahman

Article information:To cite this document:Faisal Talib Zillur Rahman , (2015),"Identification and prioritization of barriers to total qualitymanagement implementation in service industry ", The TQM Journal, Vol. 27 Iss 5 pp. 591 - 615Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/TQM-11-2013-0122

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Identification and prioritizationof barriers to total quality

management implementationin service industry

An analytic hierarchy process approachFaisal Talib

Mechanical Engineering Section, University Polytechnic,Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University,

Aligarh, India, andZillur Rahman

Department of Management Studies,Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India

AbstractPurpose – Despite the potential benefits of total quality management (TQM) articulated by qualityexperts and practitioners, these benefits are not easy to achieve in practice. Many service industries havefound difficult to implement TQM successfully. The present study investigates and categorizes the barriersto a successful implementation of TQM program in the service industry. The purpose of this paper is tounderstand TQM barriers and prioritize their relative importance by ranking them in the service industry.Design/methodology/approach – Based on previously published literature on TQM barriers inservice industry and after discussions with quality experts, this study utilizes a set of 12 barriers toTQM as identified by the authors of TQM barriers to accomplish the objectives of the present study.The 12 barriers were divided into three categories. These barriers were prioritized and ranked using ananalytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach, a multi-criteria decision-making process.Findings – In this research, the category “managerial issues” was found to be the most important,followed by “people-oriented issues” and “organizational issues” based on their priority weights.The results have also highlighted that the barrier “lack of communication” was the most significantamong all the other barriers. It was followed by “lack of top-management commitment,” “employee’sresistance to change,” and “lack of coordination between departments.” The least significant barrierwas “high turnover at management level.”Practical implications – The study ranks the barriers, from the most important to the least important,which will allow managers and practitioners in the service industry to decide which barriers they needto pay attention to and work on for a successful implementation of TQM.Originality/value – The strength of this study is the development of a comprehensive model for theinvestigation and prioritization of barriers that the service industry experiences when implementinga TQM program. Presenting TQM barriers in the form of AHP-based model and categorizing barriersis a new effort in the area of TQM.Keywords Total quality management, Analytic hierarchy process, Prioritization, Service industry,Lack of communication, TQM barriersPaper type Research paper

1. IntroductionStudies on total quality management (TQM) have shown a rise of interest due tovarious reasons: success in the world market, improved business performance, bettercustomer service, solutions that best suit the company, its continuous development and

The TQM JournalVol. 27 No. 5, 2015

pp. 591-615©Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1754-2731DOI 10.1108/TQM-11-2013-0122

Received 29 November 2013Revised 11 March 2014

29 May 2014Accepted 28 August 2014

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm

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it acts as a sustainable alternative to other approaches. There are many moreexamples that could be listed. In the past two decades, TQM has enjoyed a greatpopularity in all types of industries, but a recent trend shows it has a greater impacton service industries like healthcare, hospitality, banking and information technology(IT) and information systems (ISs) (Talib et al., 2012a, 2011f ). Antony et al. (2002)and Lewis et al. (2005) have argued that following a TQM program leads to improvedemployee involvement and communication while Corbett and Rastrick (2000)asserted that TQM promotes continuous improvement and innovation. Similarly,Prajogo and Sohal (2006, 2003) and Arumugam et al. (2008) found that TQMimplementation enhances the quality performance of the industry, which was alsosupported by Talib et al. (2013) in their study on service industries. Yang (2006)reported that the implementation of TQM significantly effects customer satisfactionby analyzing their needs on a continual basis. Furthermore, Talib et al. (2011d)assess in their empirical study on the awareness of TQM in Indian service industriesthat service managers have shown a strong familiarity with TQM concepts andpractices and they believe that TQM is a way of guaranteeing high-quality productsand services.

While there are many other success stories about TQM (Chen, 2013; Vanichchinchaiand Igel, 2011; Sila, 2007; Grover et al., 2004; Talib et al., 2011d, a; Talib et al., 2012b; Talibet al., 2010; Talib and Rahman, 2010), the majority of the TQM adopters have reported notangible or marginal improvements in productivity, competitiveness or financial returns(Huq, 2005). Some studies have even found that TQM implementation programs havefailed to achieve any positive results (Talib, 2013; David and Strang, 2006; Huq, 2005;Soltani et al., 2005). Furthermore, the difficulties of implementing TQM are even higher inthe service industries because of its special characteristics (Ennis and Harrington, 1999).The literature provides enough evidence on the difficulties in the service industries.For instance, Huq and Martin (2000) reported a 60-67 percent failure rate for TQMimplementation in the service industry. While Burrows (1992), Bak (1992), Brown (1993)and Rigby and Bilodeau (2007) have reported 95, 80, 65 and 70 percent failure rates,respectively. These findings pose the question: what are the barriers that effect theimplementation of a TQM program? In particular, the importance of identifying themajor barriers for implementing TQM is frequently mentioned in literature (Chang, 2006;Talib et al., 2011f, c; David and Strang, 2006). Many reasons have been given for the failureof TQM with cited reasons in the literature. Researchers found that the barriers oftenhindered the proper implementation of TQM and have negatively affected the desiredoutcomes. As a result, many TQM initiatives have been abandoned, ignored or declareda failure.

While only a few empirical studies have focussed on the identification and analysisof barriers to TQM implementation (Sebastianelli and Tamimi, 2003; Talib et al., 2011c;Bhat and Rajashekhar, 2009; Mosadegh Rad, 2005) in the service industry, a study onthe identification and prioritization of TQM barriers in the service industry is at anascent stage. There is an emerging need to prioritize the relative importance of theseTQM barriers so quality mangers and decision makers can understand them andproper care may be taken to minimize these barriers. Further, the present literaturealso revealed that no study has been undertaken to identify and rank TQM barriersusing a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique like the analytic hierarchyprocess (AHP) methodology. The AHP provides a framework to cope with multiplecriteria situations involving intuitive, rational quantitative and qualitative aspects(Alberto, 2000; Briggs and Tolliver, 2012).

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In order to overcome this gap using the given information, the present study utilizesan AHP approach for determining the relative importance of the barriers to TQMimplementation in the service industry. For this purpose, the following objectives havebeen designed:

• to investigate and categorize the TQM barriers of service industry; and• to prioritize the relative importance of these TQM barriers which could serve

as invaluable lesson to those service industries that are planning to implementTQM or are in the process of its implementation.

The next section discusses the literature review for the identification and categorizationof TQM barriers. It is followed by a discussion on the AHP methodology and itsrelative importance to the barriers for TQM implementation, which is determined viathe AHP approach. Finally, the results and a discussion, and the implication of theresearch findings are discussed, which are followed by the conclusion and scopefor future research.

2. Literature reviewDespite the fact that the critical success factors (CSFs) responsible for a successfulimplementation of TQM in service industries have helped to achieve the desired results,namely, it increased the firms’ performance, productivity, and improved customersatisfaction, practicing and implementing TQM CSFs are not free from barriers(Talib et al., 2011c). The present literature review identifies the TQM barriers thatneed to be addressed for the successful implementation of TQM in the service industry,which influences business performance and customer service. Based on previouslypublished literature on the TQM barriers (Talib et al., 2011f, c, b) and severaldiscussions with academia and quality experts in the service industry, 12 barriers wereidentified. These 12 barriers were utilized by Talib et al. (2011f, c, b) in their studieson the identification and classification of TQM barriers for the service industry thatfrequently occurred in TQM literature. The 12 barriers are: attitude of employeestoward quality; employee’s resistance to change; high turnover at managementlevel; human resource barrier; inadequate use of empowerment and teamwork; lack ofcommunication; lack of continuous improvement culture; lack of coordination betweendepartment; lack of proper training and education; lack of top-managementcommitment; no benchmarking; and poor planning. Table I presents the 12 identifiedbarriers from TQM literature (Talib et al., 2011f, c, b) and were adopted for further study.These barriers can serve as an invaluable lesson to organizations planningto implement TQM or are in the process of its implementation (Talib et al., 2011c, b).After critically reviewing the nature and structure of the 12 TQM barriers, they weregrouped into three barrier categories: people-oriented issues; managerial issues; andorganizational issues. Thus, this study has a wide coverage of the major TQM barriers.

2.1 Identification of barrier categories and TQM barriers in service industry2.1.1 Barriers based on people-oriented issues. People-oriented issues are defined asissues that are significant for the successful introduction and integration of TQM inthe service industry, since it requires employee involvement, commitment, teamworkand empowerment (Bhat and Rajashekhar, 2009). People-oriented issues in serviceindustries are the lack of human resources and a non-availability of continuous trainingprograms (Ngai and Cheng, 1997) in the organization. Moreover, these issues influence

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other linking issues and critically affect the success of quality improvement programsin the organization. There are four barriers to TQM in this category:

(1) “Lack of proper training and education” in people-oriented issues is crucial sinceit exists at all levels of an organization and is a major contributor to employees’resistance (Whalen and Rahim, 1994). It was reported that a lack of proper trainingand educationmight become amajor barrier in the development and implementationof a quality program. The causes of this barrier are insufficient training on advancedquality tools and techniques, a lack of training in problem identification and problemsolving techniques, and management-related training were absent or low.

Barrierno. Barrier name Author(s)

1. Attitude of employeestoward quality

Amar and Zain (2002), Helms and Mayo (2008), Mosadegh Rad(2005), Salegna and Fazel (2000), Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998)

2. Employee’s resistanceto change

Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Jun et al. (2004), Whalen and Rahim (1994), Venkatraman (2007),Soltani et al. (2005), Newall and Dale (1990)

3. High turnover atmanagement level

Amar and Zain (2002), Jun et al. (2004), Tamimi and Sebastianelli(1998), Soltani et al. (2005), Mosadegh Rad (2005), Teagarden et al.(1992), Dowlatshahi (1998), McDermott (1994)

4. Human resource barrier Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Amar and Zain (2002), Jun et al. (2004), Whalen and Rahim (1994),Venkatraman (2007), Ljungström and Klefsjö (2002), MosadeghRad (2005), Newall and Dale (1990)

5. Inadequate use ofempowerment andteamwork

Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Jun et al. (2004), Gunasekaran (1999), Whalen and Rahim (1994),Ljungström and Klefsjö (2002), Mosadegh Rad (2005), Salegna andFazel (2000), Adebanjo and Kehoe (1998), Newall and Dale (1990)

6. Lack of communication Al-Zamany et al. (2002), Helms and Mayo (2008), Huq (2005),Mosadegh Rad (2005), Salegna and Fazel (2000), Tamimi andSebastianelli (1998)

7. Lack of continuousimprovement culture

Al-Zamany et al. (2002), Amar and Zain (2002), Whalen and Rahim(1994), Huq (2005), Mosadegh Rad (2005)

8. Lack of coordinationbetween department

Amar and Zain (2002), Gunasekaran (1999), Salegna and Fazel(2000), Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Al-Zamany et al. (2002)

9. Lack of proper trainingand education

Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Jun et al. (2004), Rajashekhar (1999), Liu (1998), Whalen and Rahim(1994), Huq (2005), Ljungström and Klefsjö (2002), Soltani et al.(2005), Mosadegh Rad (2005), Tatikonda and Tatikonda (1996),Adebanjo and Kehoe (1998), Newall and Dale (1990)

10. Lack oftop-managementcommitment

Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Jun et al. (2004), Whalen and Rahim (1994), Liu (1998), Venkatraman(2007), Ljungström and Klefsjö (2002), Soltani et al. (2005),Mosadegh Rad (2005), Salegna and Fazel (2000), Brigham (1993),Kanji (1996), Newall and Dale (1990)

11. No benchmarking Al-Zamany et al. (2002), Rajashekhar (1999), Tamimi andSebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009), Jun et al. (2004)

12. Poor planning Tamimi and Sebastianelli (1998), Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009),Jun et al. (2004), Whalen and Rahim (1994), Mosadegh Rad (2005),Salegna and Fazel (2000), Newall and Dale (1990)

Source: Talib et al. (2011d)

Table I.Identified barriersfrom TQM literature

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(2) A “human resource barrier” is another significant barrier to a successfulTQM implementation. Newall and Dale (1990) found many quality departmentswere overloaded and understaffed, which leads to TQM failure. It includesabsenteeism, non-conformance with the procedures, lack of skill and motivation,and low wages and salaries.

(3) “Employee’s resistance to change” is a common barrier that most organizationscame across while implementing any quality improvement program. Theyconsider TQM a controlling technique rather than an empowering approach.Mosadegh Rad (2005) found that employees perceive TQM as an approach thatasked employees to work continuously with fewer rewards. This misconceptionregarding employee’s resistance to change can be minimized through a cultureof team building and using employees’ ideas, suggestions, motivations andprocess improvement suggestions.

(4) “Inadequate use of empowerment and teamwork” proved a major barrier to thesuccessful implementation of TQM. The success of TQM starts from employeeparticipation at every level, involving them in strategic decisions that affectstheir performance and hence, the overall working of the organization. Further,studies in TQM found that the inadequate use of empowerment and teamworkin an organization is due to insufficient teamwork facilitators and team buildingtechniques (Adebanjo and Kehoe, 1998). Therefore, it is important for teams tofocus on these issues and use their time as efficiently as possible.

2.1.2 Barriers based on managerial issues. Managerial issues are critical for achievingthe organization’s desired objectives and improving organizational performance. Theseissues are significant since they influence other connecting issues. Furthermore, theimplementation of a quality management program itself requires a higher quality ofmanagement. Many of the barriers that hinder TQM efforts, such inadequate planning,poor organizational culture, poor communication and inadequate resources are linkedto how effectively the quality management chain is managed. TQM implementationand its impact depend on the ability of managers to adopt its values and conceptsin different industries. It requires a change in the thought, attitude, behavior and roleof the management. There are five barriers to TQM in this category:

(1) “Lack of top-management commitment” is one of the major barriers in both themanufacturing and service industries (Beer, 2003). Top-management should becommitted and fully involved in quality management initiatives and continuousquality improvement (CQI) programs. The degree to which employees adopta TQM strategy will be contingent upon the degree to which top managers areinvolved and committed to TQM principles. Van der Wiele and Brown (2002)found that management-related issues are at the core of what affects the long-termsustainability of quality management. Lack of top-management commitment mayoriginate from various reasons like a lack of experience and training, resistance tochange, and a hesitation to initiate improvement programs.

(2) “Lack of coordination between department” is also one of the critical barriers thatan organization experiences. Amar and Zain (2002) found that the culture andinterdepartmental relations impede TQM. Further, weak internal communicationwithin departments can cause a lack of coordination between departments leadingto a major barrier to TQM implementation.

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(3) “No benchmarking” leads to a culture of lacking CQIs and competitiveness.This is one of the most important managerial issues and directly relates to theeffectiveness of a TQM program. Organizations can achieve world-class statuswhen benchmarking is directed at the key business processes. Some of thereasons for this barrier are when there are no targets or there is no attitude forattaining higher productivity and implementing the best practices of otherorganizations.

(4) “Poor planning” is the fourth major barrier under the managerial issue category.Whalen and Rahim (1994) revealed that the absence of strong strategic planningleads to ineffective quality improvement. It was observed that a large numberof organizations are either unable or not willing to plan effectively for theimprovement of quality. Therefore, careful and detailed planning is neededprior to the implementation of any quality program and organizationsshould study or identify beforehand the stages that their processes undergo(Talib et al., 2011c). The reasons for this barrier are not having a strategy orthere have been no new developments, inadequate resources to effectivelyemploy TQM, and vague quality action plans.

(5) “Lack of communication” is one of the most frequently mentioned reasonsfor TQM failure in the literature. The reason behind it is the working styleof the management. Moghaddam and Moballeghi (2008) found that poorcommunication between departments within an organization and managementattitudes toward staff are basic difficulties for developing a quality culture.Further, lack of communication across the organization often results indissatisfied customers, unfulfilled customer requirements, an environment ofmistrust, and no knowledge sharing.

2.1.3 Barriers based on organizational issues. Organizational issues are issues thatreflect the culture, territorialism, organizational politics, high turnover, changes in keyexecutives and the quality consciousness of the organization. It is argued that in orderfor TQM to be adopted successfully, the organizational issues must be clearlyunderstood with the ability to sustain and nurture them. There are three barriers toTQM in this category:

(1) High turnover and absenteeism at the management level creates afflictions andnuisances in many organizations and hinder a successful implementation ofTQM initiatives (Dowlatshahi, 1998; Talib et al., 2011c). Some of the basicexplanations for failing to return to work as scheduled and absenteeism arestructural problems, organizational hierarchies, leadership instability andineffective employee selection practices as well as a lack of appraisal schemes(Talib et al., 2011f ).

(2) “Attitude of employees towards quality” is a big barrier, which critically affectsthe implementation of quality program in an organization. Numerous studies haveshown that the attitude of employees toward quality such as: non-participation ofemployees, low level of knowledge and experience about TQM, lack of workdiscipline, lack of teamwork, resistance and disregard of the quality guidelines,lack of culture and geographic homogeneity, do not easily accept advancedquality training and education. In addition, changing employees work habits,and the lack of motivation are barriers to successfully implementing TQM

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(Mosadegh Rad, 2005). Employees have to understand and accept thatquality tools and techniques enhance productivity, profitability and employeeperformance, and ultimately customer satisfaction (Talib et al., 2011c).

(3) The “lack of a continuous improvement culture” in the organization leads to thetotal failure of a TQM program. TQM stands mainly on the culture, attitude andcontinuous improvement of quality throughout the organization and aims toprovide its customers with products and services that satisfy their needs andexpectations. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the organization’soperations, with things being done right the first time and every time(Mosadegh Rad, 2005). The reasons behind this barrier are the failure to create asense of CQI, urgency among employees, and inadequate rewards andincentives (Talib et al., 2011f ).

3. AHP methodologyThe literature on qualitative studies has offered several well-presented methodologiesthat discuss ranking, identification, prioritization of factors and ways to developrelationships between them. These qualitative techniques are interpretive structuralmodeling, data envelopment analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM), techniquefor order preference by similarity to ideal solution, AHP, analytic network process(ANP), quality function deployment and many more. To accomplish the objectives ofthe present study, AHP has been considered for investigating and prioritizing thebarriers to TQM implementation. The reasons behind selection of AHP are as follows:

• AHP is capable of handling a large number of criteria and sub-criteriacompetently (Law et al., 2006);

• AHP can accommodate both objective and subjective judgments and determinea priority among them (Saad, 2001);

• AHP can be applied to both tangible and intangible criteria based on thejudgments of knowledgeable and expert individuals (Azizi and Azizpour, 2012);

• to solve a complex problem, researchers and academicians have made useof AHP in several different application areas, which have been published inpeer-reviewed journals (Vaidya and Kumar, 2006);

• AHP is helpful for stakeholders and quality managers to enhance their businessefficiency and service quality; and

• structuring of problems into criteria and sub-criteria levels leads to a systematicsolution of problems (Singh et al., 2007).

Therefore, to deal with the present complex problem, the AHP approach will bebest suited among the different methodologies available. Further, it was also observedfrom the extent literature that that no study has applied the AHP technique to identifyand prioritize the barriers to TQM implementation in the service industry.

AHP is a MCDM technique developed at the Wharton School of Business bySaaty (1980) that allows decision makers to model a complex problem in a hierarchicalstructure showing the relationships of the objectives, categories, sub-categoriesand alternatives (Sarathy, 2013). Thus, a typical hierarchical structure is developedconsisting of at least three levels: objectives, categories and sub-categories. TheAHP methodology is extensively applied, focussing on different areas with different

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applications. Some of the key references of the AHP applications as reported in theliterature are summarized in Table II.

The AHP is a method for breaking down a complex and unstructured situationinto its component parts, then arranging those variables into a hierarchical order.This method is based on assigning numerical values for the subjective judgmentof the relative importance of each variable, then synthesizing the judgments todetermine which variables have the highest priority (Sarathy, 2013; Saaty, 1994).AHP has been a favorite decision technique for a variety of research fields (Table II),such as engineering, food, supply chain logistics, healthcare, government, mobilenetworks, new product development, management ISs and many others (Zopounidisand Doumpos, 2000; Garg et al., 2012; Singh, 2013).

Some of the software used, namely, Expert Choice and Super Decisions weredeveloped to implement AHP but the present study adopted a computational approachthat is simple to use and easy to understand (Singh, 2013). This approach uses thefollowing steps to conduct the AHP study:

Step 1: define and state the objective clearlyThe objective of the study is to investigate and prioritize the barriers to TQMimplementation experienced by service industries, in order to provide a betterunderstanding for decision makers and managers about the barriers that are likelyto hinder the implementation of an effective TQM program. This represents the firstlevel of the hierarchy model.

Step 2: decompose the objective into lower level categories or sub-categoriesIn this step, the objective of prioritization of the TQM barriers was decomposed intothree barrier categories (second level of the hierarchy model) and 12 TQM barriers(sub-categories) also known as the third level of the hierarchy model, identified fromliterature to form a hierarchical structure of the multifaceted problem. The barriercategories consist of three issues. They are “people-oriented issues”; “managerial

Key references Focus area/issue

Varajão and Cruz-Cunha (2013) Selection of suitable managers for projectsSingh (2013) Prioritizing the factors for coordinated supply chainSarathy (2013) Determination of important factors that influence the TQM

practice in real estate industryLocatelli and Mancini (2012) Framework for the selection of the nuclear power plantKoilakuntlaa et al. (2012) Estimation of TQM factors rating to understand the degree of

business excellence for manufacturing and service organizationsGarg et al. (2012) Prioritizing and ranking the critical success factors of customer

experience in banksPunniyamoorty et al. (2012) Development of a composite model using structural equation

modeling (SEM) and AHP for supplier selectionTalib et al. (2011f) Prioritizing and ranking the TQM practices in service IndustriesTsinidou et al. (2010) Evaluating and prioritizing the factors that determine quality in

higher educationChen and Chen (2009) TQM measurement model for the biotechnology industryWong and Li (2008) Multi-criteria analysis of the selection of intelligent building systemsChan et al. (2006) Benchmarking logistics performance of the postal industry

Table II.AHP applicationsas reported inthe literature

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issues”; and “organizational issues.” The sub-categories (TQM barriers) identifiedare the 12 barriers discussed in the literature review section. This decomposition of thehierarchy was performed until no further decomposition of sub-categories is possible.

Step 3: construct a hierarchy framework for analysisAfter the objectives related to the TQM barriers have been finalized, relevant andimportant categories and sub-categories of the TQM barriers were identified via Step 1and 2. These categories and sub-categories were then structured into three levelsstarting from the overall objectives to the various stages and related sub-categoriesin a hierarchical descending order. Saaty (2000) proposed guidelines for structuringa hierarchy model for the prioritization of categories. Using these guidelines, anAHP framework was developed for facilitating the study, as depicted in Figure 1.This figure shows a three-level decision hierarchy incorporating different categoriesand sub-categories as discussed in Step 2.

Step 4: collection of information and data from expertsAfter developing the AHP model, the next step was the collection of data that involvedforming a team of experts and assigning pair-wise comparisons to the barriers categoriesand sub-categories used in the AHP method (Singh, 2013). These experts were chosenfrom various service industries and academia. In this study, a group of 15 experts whoserved as evaluators were identified and then interviewed in order to measure thecategories and sub-categories (Crary et al., 2002). In this group of 15 experts, six were fromacademia and nine from various service industries, namely, IT (03); telecommunication(02); healthcare (02); banking (01); and hospitality (01). The figure within parenthesisindicates the number of experts chosen from each service industry. All 15 evaluators had

People-Oriented Issues

Managerial Issues

Organizational Issues

• Lack of propertraining andeducation

• Human resourcebarrier

• Employee’sresistance to change

• Inadequate use ofempowerment andteamwork

• Lack of top-managementcommitment

• Lack of coordinationbetween department

• No benchmarking

• Poor planning

• Lack ofcommunication

• High turnover atmanagement level

• Attitude of employees towards quality

• Lack of continuous improvement culture

Level A:Objective

Level B:BarrierCategories

Level C:TQM Barriers

Investigation and Prioritization of Barriers to TQM Implementation that Service Industries Experience

Figure 1.A hierarchy modelof barriers to TQMimplementation for

the AHP study

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more than ten years of experience in the field of quality management and service quality,and were responsible for managing quality improvement activities, particularly at thestrategic level for their respective industries. They hold positions at the top and mid levelin the industry and have a sufficient amount of knowledge on possible TQM barriers inthe service industry. This implies that the group of experts represents the viewpointand opinion of the service industry. They were able to evaluate the barrier categories andsub-categories and assign the relative importance to the categories and sub-categories inthe AHP model. All the interviews involved personal visits or were conducted throughvideo conferencing. In case of any confusion in assigning the relative importance to thecategories and sub-categories, discussions were held to sort out the problems (Singh, 2013;Talib et al., 2011e).

Step 5: perform pair-wise comparison for each level of categories and sub-categoriesOnce the experts were identified and relevant information and data were collected,the next step was to determine the relative importance among the barrier categoriesand sub-categories at each level. For this, the AHP approach was used to measure thestrength of importance by pair-wise comparisons and the results were placed intoa matrix form.

The team of experts was requested to compare carefully the categories of eachhierarchy level by assigning a relative scale (nine-point scale) in a pair-wise fashionwith respect to the objective of the model (Table III). The experts were asked to assessthe pair-wise comparisons among three barrier categories and related 12 TQM barriers(sub-categories) using Saaty’s (1994) nine-point scale of intensity (Table III).

With the use of Table III, the pair-wise comparison matrix for the three barriercategories was calculated (Table IV). The numeric values in Table IV indicate theimportance of the ith category compared to the jth category. For example, if anevaluator decided that “management issues” is very strongly or demonstrably moreimportant than “organizational issues” then based on Table III’s scale of preferences

Scale Definition

1 Equal importance3 Moderate importance of one over the other5 Essential or strong importance7 Very strong or demonstrated importance9 Extreme or absolute importance2, 4, 6, 8 Intermediate values between the two adjacent judgmentsSource: Saaty (1994)

Table III.Scale of relativepreference forpair-wise comparison

Barrier categories POI MI OI

People-oriented issues (POI) 1 1/4 3Managerial issues (MI) 4 1 7Organizational issues (OI) 1/3 1/7 1Sum 16/3 39/28 11

Table IV.Pair-wise comparisonof the threeprioritization-categories withrespect to thebarriers to TQMimplementation

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between two categories, the number “7” was assigned. Hence, reciprocally the“organizational issues” are seven times less important than the “management issues.”In addition to this, the approach adopted in capturing the inputs and filling theremaining cells of Table IV was through consensus and discussions after obtainingnumber of views in terms of scale of preferences from the group of experts while doingpair-wise comparison among the three barrier categories. It was further observed thatmost of the evaluators have given a common preference scale value for a particularpair-wise comparison. In some cases, evaluators have marked different preference scalevalues. In such cases, a preference scale value given by the majority of evaluators wasconsidered for the pair-wise combination and then placed in the matrix. This criterionwas followed throughout the process of generating a rating matrix as presented inTable IV. Similarly, Tables IX, X and XI were also developed. The next step divideseach entry in column “i” of Table IV by the sum of the entries in column “i.” Thisdevelops a normalized matrix as shown in Table V, in which the sum of the entriesin each column is “1” (Saaty, 2000).

Finally, computing the average of the entries in row “i” of Table V, priority weightswere calculated as depicted in Table VI. Priority indicates the relative importance orstrength of influence of a criterion in relation to other criteria that is placed above itin the hierarchy. By reviewing Table VI, one can understand that the priority is givento “management issues” (score of 0.701437) followed by “people-oriented issues”(0.213238) and then to the “organizational issues” (0.085324).

Step 6: check for pair-wise comparison is consistentIt often happens that evaluators may be inconsistent in their judgments, and thus, oneof the important tasks for the AHP technique is to incorporate these inconsistenciesinto the model by calculating a consistency index (CI) and consistency ratio (CR).The CR is used to measure the consistency of the pair-wise comparisons (Singh, 2013)and decision making. Thus, CI and CR are obtained from the following relations:

CI ¼ lmax�nn�1

and CR ¼ CIRCI

Barrier categories POI MI OI

People-oriented issues 3/16 7/39 3/11Managerial issues 3/4 28/39 7/11Organizational issues 1/16 4/39 1/11

1.00 1.00 1.00Source: Talib et al. (2011f )

Table V.Normalized matrix

Barrier categories Priority weight

People-oriented issues 0.213238Managerial issues 0.701437Organizational issues 0.085324Sum 1.000000

Table VI.Priority weights

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where n is the rank of the matrix or the number of categories or sub-categories ofeach level, RCI is the random CI and λmax is the largest eigenvector in Table VII.The RCI value is selected from Table VIII as per the case.

To obtain the eigenvector and CR (Table VII) for different levels, the followingcomputations were performed:

• Compute ψ (i.e. Table IV multiplied by Table VI):

1 1=4 3

4 1 7

1=3 1=7 1

264

375

0:213238

0:701437

0:085324

264

375 ¼

0:639586

2:137624

0:255155

264

375 ¼ c

• Compute eigenvector λ:

l ¼ ith entry in fith entry in priority weight

Table VII indicates the values of λ for the three barrier categories and the largesteigenvalue (λmax) is chosen to calculate the CI. The maximum acceptable limit of the CIis 0.10 (Saaty, 1994). If the values are more than 0.10 it will highlight that the pair-wisecomparisons are inconsistent and hence, discarded. In such a case, the assessment canbe revised. For example, in the present case, the CR is “0.027905,” thus, the degree ofconsistency is considered quite satisfactory (CRo0.10).

Similarly, the pair-wise comparisons for the sub-categories (TQM barriers) in theother levels (Level-C) are performed and their degree of consistency is checkedaccording to Steps 5 and 6. The results of the pair-wise comparisons of thesub-categories (TQM barriers) are shown in Tables IX, X and XI.

Step 7: compute the global weights of each category and sub-categoryAfter the pair-wise comparisons, the next step computes the local weights and globalweights of each category and sub-category. The priority weights are divided into “localweights” and “global weights.” Local weights are the priority weights with respect tothe preceding hierarchical level, while “global weights” are the priority weights with

Barrier categories ψ Eigenvector (λ)

People-oriented issues 0.639586 3.03237Managerial issues 2.137624 3.03236Organizational issues 0.255155 3.03051

λmax¼ 3.03237Notes: CI¼ 0.016185; RI¼ 0.580; CR¼ 0.027905 for n¼ 3

Table VII.Consistencyratio (CR)

Size of matrix 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Random consistency index (RCI) 0 0 0.58 0.90 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.45 1.51Source: Saaty (1994)

Table VIII.Random consistencyindex values

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respect to the highest hierarchical level, which is the objective. In order to conduct anoverall ranking of the sub-categories, AHP combines the priority weights of thecategories with the comparison ratings for sub-categories (Talib et al., 2011e). This isperformed by the following equation (Drake, 1998):

Global weights ¼∑ (Local weight for category i� local weight for sub-category jwith respect to category i )

Table XII shows the judgments for the composite priority weights of the barriercategories and sub-categories (TQM barriers).

Step 8: prioritize and rank the categories and sub-categoriesFrom the computation performed in Step 7, one can prioritize and rank the barriercategories and TQM barriers (sub-categories) to identify the barriers to TQMimplementation (Table XII). Decisions makers and practitioners will be able tounderstand these TQM barriers and take appropriate action to minimize the presence

TQM barriers/sub-categories LPTE HRB ERC IUETW

CR¼ 0.055911CI¼ 0.050319priority weight

Lack of proper training and education (LPTE) 1 5 1/3 3 0.261514Human resource barrier (HRB) 1/5 1 1/5 1/2 0.068372Employee’s resistance to change (ERC) 3 5 1 7 0.573069Inadequate use of empowerment and teamwork(IUETW) 1/3 2 1/7 1 0.097044Note: Maximum eigenvalue λmax¼ 4.15096 for n¼ 4

Table IX.Pair-wise comparison

of the foursub-categories or

TQM barrierswith respect topeople-oriented

issues

TQM barriers/sub-categories LTMC LCBD NBM PP LCOM

CR¼ 0.089159CI¼ 0.099858priority weight

Lack of top-management commitment (LTMC) 1 3 4 3 1/4 0.234206Lack of coordination between department (LCBD) 1/3 1 2 3 1/5 0.119701No benchmarking (NBM) 1/4 1/2 1 3 1/3 0.098942Poor planning (PP) 1/3 1/3 1/3 1 1/7 0.050440Lack of communication (LCOM) 4 5 3 7 1 0.496710Note: Maximum eigenvalue λmax¼ 5.39943 for n¼ 5

Table X.Pair-wise comparison

of the fivesub-categories or

TQM barriers withrespect to

managerial issues

TQM barriers/sub-categories HTML AETQ LCIC

CR¼ 0.033199CI¼ 0.019255priority weight

High turnover at management level (HTML) 1 1/3 1/5 0.104729Attitude of employees toward quality (AETQ) 3 1 1/3 0.258285Lack of continuous improvement culture (LCIC) 5 3 1 0.636986Note: Maximum eigenvalue λmax¼ 3.03851 for n¼ 3

Table XI.Pair-wise comparison

of the threesub-categories or

TQM barriers withrespect to

organizational issues

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Barrier

categories

Local/g

lobalw

eigh

tsRanking

TQM

barriers/sub

-categories

Localw

eigh

tsRanking

Globalw

eigh

tsRanking

People-orientedissues

0.213238

2La

ckof

proper

training

andeducation

0.261514

20.055764

6Hum

anresource

barrier

0.068372

40.014579

11Employee’sresistance

tochange

0.573069

10.122200

3Inadequate

useof

empowermentandteam

work

0.097044

30.020693

10Managerialissues

0.701437

1La

ckof

top-managem

entcommitm

ent

0.234206

20.164280

2La

ckof

coordinatio

nbetw

eendepartment

0.119701

30.083962

4Nobenchm

arking

0.098942

40.069401

5Po

orplanning

0.050440

50.035380

8La

ckof

commun

ication

0.496710

10.348410

1Organizationalissues

0.085324

3Highturnover

atmanagem

entlevel

0.104729

30.008935

12Attitu

deof

employeestowardqu

ality

0.258285

20.022037

9La

ckof

continuous

improvem

entcultu

re0.636986

10.054350

7

Table XII.Composite priorityweights forcategories andsub-categories orTQM barriers

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of these barriers in their organizations. It is necessary to re-arrange the TQM barriers indescending order to easily recognize the barriers affecting the performance of theservice industry. These TQM barriers are re-arranged through a histogram depicted inFigure 2, which also highlights the comparison levels among the global weights ofdifferent TQM barriers.

4. Results and discussionIn the present study, identifying the barriers to TQM implementation in the serviceindustry is carried out through the available literature and with the help of a team ofexperts, and then the AHP-based hierarchical model is proposed. The hierarchicalmodel, shown in Figure 1, is divided into three levels: Level “A” – objective;Level “B” – three barrier categories; and Level “C” – sub-categories (12 TQM barriers).Table XII presents the local weights and global weights of the three barrier categoriesand 12 TQM barriers (sub-categories) that are normalized, based on the AHP analysisand the rankings of both the local and global weights are also shown. In Level “B” ofthe model, the evaluators considered that “managerial issues” was the most importantcategory, followed by “people-oriented issues” and “organizational issues” based ontheir priority weights (managerial issues¼ 0.701437; people-oriented issues¼ 0.213238;and organizational issues¼ 0.085324) as shown in column 2 and the rankings incolumn 3 in Table XII. As the three barrier categories form the second level of theobjective, the local and global weights are the same.

4.1 Local weights of the 12 TQM barriersIn Level “C” of the model, this study first reviews the TQM barriers with respectto “people-oriented issues.” The evaluators considered “employee’s resistance tochange” (0.573069) as the most critical barrier, with the next most critical being“lack of proper training and education” (0.261514) followed by “inadequateuse of empowerment and teamwork” (0.097044), and “human resource barrier”(0.068372).

For “managerial issues,” the five TQM barriers, in order of their critical importance, are“lack of communication” (0.496710); “lack of top-management commitment” (0.234206);“lack of coordination between department” (0.119701); “no benchmarking” (0.098942); and“poor planning” (0.050440).

For “organizational issues,” the TQM barriers are ordered as “lack of continuousimprovement culture” (0.636986); “attitude of employees towards quality” (0.258285); and“high turnover at management level” (0.104729). The local weights of the TQM barrierswith respect to “people-oriented issues,” “managerial issues” and “organizational issues,”and their rankings are shown in column 5 and 6 in Table XII.

4.2 Global weights of the 12 TQM barriersThe global weight results indicate that “lack of communication” (0.348410) is the mostcritical barrier among the 12 TQM barriers and is ranked at the top. It shows that serviceindustries are highly influenced by the lack of communication either within the variousdepartments or between the management and employees in the organization. This isfollowed by “lack of top-management commitment” (0.164280) and “employee’s resistanceto change” (0.122200). These two barriers are the second and third most critical TQMbarriers and their weights are similar. The fourth barrier is “lack of coordination betweendepartment” (0.083962), followed by “no benchmarking” (0.069401); “lack of proper

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0.34

841

0.16

428

0.12

22

0.08

3962

0.06

9401

0.05

5764

0.05

435

0.03

538

0.02

2037

0.02

0693

0.01

4579

0.00

8935

0

0.050.1

0.150.2

0.250.3

0.350.4

Lack ofcommunication

(LCOM)

Lack of top-managementcommitment

(LTMC)

Employee’sresistance to

change (ERC)

Lack ofcoordination

betweendepartment

(LCBD)

Nobenchmarking

(NBM)

Lack of propertraining andeducation

(LPTE)

Lack ofcontinuous

improvementculture (LCIC)

Poor planning(PP)

Attitude ofemployees

towards quality(AETQ)

Inadequate useof

empowermentand teamwork

(IUETW)

Humanresource barrier

(HRB)

High turnover atmanagementlevel (HTML)

TQ

M B

arrie

rs

Global Weights

Figure 2.Priority-level ofbarriers to TQM

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training and education” (0.055764); and “lack of continuous improvement culture”(0.054350). Others, in order of their ranking, are “poor planning” (0.035380); “attitude ofemployees towards quality” (0.022037); “inadequate use of empowerment and teamwork”(0.020693); and “human resource barrier” (0.014579). These barriers hinder the successfulimplementation of TQM programs. The lowest ranked TQM barrier, “high turnover atmanagement level” (0.008935) is also a critical barrier and cannot be ignored. Theserankings have been shown in column 8 of Table XII and in Figure 2. This graphicalrepresentation clearly portrays the priority levels of all the TQM barriers in the serviceindustry. It will be very helpful for service managers to understand them so they canimplement a successful TQM program in their organization.

This study presents a detailed framework of the TQM barriers along with theirglobal weights that is useful for managers in the service industry. From thisframework, service managers can identify and understand the top most criticalbarriers, the second most critical barriers, and the least critical barriers to improveTQM performance in the industry and to attain and sustain a competitive advantage.Many times due to insufficient resources, it is not possible for the managers andpractitioners to deal with all the TQM barriers at the same time and this may causedifficulty in pursuing a TQM program in the organization. However, by prioritizing ofthe TQM barriers, the practitioners know which barriers they have to pay attention tofirst in order to get positive results from their TQM program. Thus, for organizationsplanning or yet to plan for the implementation of a TQM, these critical barrierscan be very useful for them. The detailed recommendations for the service industryare given as follows:

• From the three barrier categories, “managerial issues” was given the greatestpriority, with “people-oriented issues” and “organizational issues” following it.Thus, the service industry should implement “managerial issues” with theutmost priority and efforts must be given to the barriers “lack of communication”;“lack of top-management commitment”; and “lack of coordination betweendepartments.” An organization can investigate and minimize these barriers, whichdeal with issues related to the managerial level. In addition, “no benchmarking”and “poor planning” are the main issues that act as barriers at the manageriallevel and affect the implementation of a TQM program. Therefore, due attentionhas to be given to these barriers in order to implement TQM effectively andsuccessfully.

• Barriers related to “people-oriented issues” were found to be the second mostcritical barriers to TQM implementation. These issues are concerned with humanvalues, recruitment, training and education, employee involvement andempowerment, and team management. The “people-oriented issues” as per theexperts’, opinion is found to be significant after “managerial issues” and affectsthe performance of the organization to a greater extent. The barriers underthis issue can be minimized by recruiting adequate and qualified workers ona continual basis, encouraging employees through rewards and incentives,involving the employees in major decisions and providing training and educationin advanced quality tools and techniques. In addition, creating an environment ofworking together rather than as an individual can improve the performance ofTQM. “People-oriented issues” should be tackled at the same level since theyinfluence other linking issues and could greatly affect the success of a TQMprogram in the organization.

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• Service managers and practitioners after critically appraising “people-orientedissues” and “managerial issues,” should place an emphasis on “organizationalissues.” These issues are critical and responsible for helping the organizationdevelop an atmosphere of trust, affection, a culture of quality, attitude andcontinuous improvement. These issues should be dealt within this specific orderto sustain a TQM program in the service industry.

• For “managerial issues,” the evaluators ranked “lack of communication” at thetop by giving it the highest weighting. This implies that “lack of communication”is one of the most critical barriers that cause a TQM to fail. This is also supportedby the literature (Moghaddam and Moballeghi, 2008). The major reasons area lack of transmitting information between departments/sections andcommunication gaps between top and middle management levels as well asat the lower level. The second ranked barrier is “lack of top-managementcommitment.” It was observed that without the support of top-management anda commitment toward continuous improvement in customer service andsatisfaction, business performance will not improve in the organization (Talibet al., 2011e). Thus, commitment by the top-level management is a driving forcefor the successful implementation of TQM program in the service industry.Service managers should seriously pay attention to the reasons behind thisbarrier. The third ranked barrier is “lack of coordination between departments.”Experts view this as a significant barrier that plays an active role in hinderingthe successful implementation of TQM. A strong healthy environment withinternal communication within the departments should be made to avoid a “lackof coordination between departments.” The fourth ranked barrier as per theexperts rating was “no benchmarking.” This barrier affects the culture of CQIand competitiveness and hence, the effectiveness of a TQM program. Theattitude to attain high productivity and adopt the best practices of otherorganizations will help minimize this barrier. “Poor planning” has the lowestrank under “managerial issues” which reveals that the absence of long-termplanning without creative ideas leads to ineffective improvement in quality.Many organizations operate without any effective planning and are on the vergeof failure. Therefore, attention has to be paid to create a strategy, develop newplans and generate adequate resources to employ an effective TQM program.

• With respect to “people-oriented issues,” the evaluators gave “employee’s resistanceto change” the highest priority. This barrier frequently occurs in every organization.The employees’ attitude toward quality has to be changed, which could be done byremoving any misconceptions about quality programs through training, incentivesand empowerment. “Lack of proper training and education” is ranked second and acritical barrier present at all levels of an organization (Whalen and Rahim, 1994).Sometimes, it becomes a major barrier to the implementation of quality program.The reason behind this barrier is insufficient training with new and advancedquality tools and techniques and a lack of interest by the management towardproviding training and education. “Inadequate use of empowerment and teamwork”was ranked third by the evaluators which implies that the non-participation ofemployees in major decisions and not involving them in strategic decisions createsthis barrier. Beside this, lack of teamwork and insufficient efforts for bringingin team building techniques are some of the causes of the “inadequate use ofempowerment and teamwork” barrier. The “human resource barrier” was ranked

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the lowest under the “people-oriented issues” category. From this study, it wasfound that “human resource barrier” is not an important barrier and rarely occurs inthe service industry. There is a sufficient number of qualified staff present in almostall the service industries (Talib et al., 2013). Absenteeism, lack of skill, low wagesand salaries has been largely reduced. Hence, the service industry is the leastaffected by this barrier.

• With respect to “organizational issues,” the evaluators gave the highest rank to“lack of continuous improvement culture.” Its presence in an organization leadsto total failure. The foundation of TQM lies on the quality culture, people’sattitude and continuous improvement. To implement a successful TQMprogram, these practices have to be taken care of. “Attitude of employeestowards quality” is ranked second and is another major barrier that affects theimplementation of a TQM program in the organization. Educating employeesabout the benefits of TQM like increased productivity, profitability, incentivesand ultimately customer satisfaction could remove this barrier. “High turnoverat management level” ranked third. Many organizations suffer from this barrierand hence, are unable to implement a quality program successfully. Thereasons are hierarchical problems, management work style, instability andineffective employee selection practices. These types of practices should beremoved and attention should be made so that they are not repeated in order tominimize “high turnover at management level.”

5. ConclusionTQM has become an integral part of the growth and development for most of theservice industries. However, many of them are failing to get the maximum number ofbenefits from this approach due to these barriers. This study has put in efforts toidentify the different TQM barriers responsible for the ineffective implementation ofa TQM program. The study tries to prioritize the identified TQM barriers andproposes an AHP methodology to rank the identified barriers related to the serviceindustry. Prioritization is helpful in deciding the relative importance of the barrierswhen implementing a TQM program. The strength of this study is the developmentof a comprehensive model for the investigation and prioritization of barriers that theservice industry experiences when implementing a TQM program. In this direction,12 TQM barriers were identified through an extensive literature review and theopinions of a team of experts. By using AHP, the relative importance of all thebarriers and their impact on TQM performance were analyzed. The synthesizedresults have highlighted that the barrier “lack of communication” is the mostsignificant among all the other barriers. It is followed by “lack of top-managementcommitment,” “employee’s resistance to change” and “lack of coordination betweendepartments.” The least significant barrier is found to be “high turnover atmanagement level.”

Although, the findings of this study have been thoroughly discussed in theresults and discussion section, it is worth mentioning that top-managementshould take active initiatives to develop an atmosphere of trust and mutualunderstanding among employees and management within all departments.Similarly, organizations should strive for strong relationships and departmentintegration to minimize this barrier, which acts as one of the most critical barriersto TQM implementation.

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5.1 Limitations of the studyThe findings of this study suggest that adopting the AHP approach to prioritizethe different barrier categories and sub-categories of the developed modelproved to be successful, but still there are limitations of this methodology. Someof them are:

• The decision-making criteria and sub-criteria are not always independent fromeach other although it is a major assumption in AHP methodology, especially forservice organizations (Singh, 2013).

• The scale of relative importance utilized in AHP is based on a conceptualapproach used to identify which barriers take precedence (Singh, 2013).

• The procedure of pair-wise comparison is somewhat time consuming and tediousresulting in experts’ lack of interest in interview (Olson, 1988).

• Chances of evaluators’ biasness are high while making pair-wise comparisons todifferent categories and sub-categories. Hence, care has to be taken while ratingthese categories (Singh, 2013).

• AHP assumes that the system elements are uncorrelated and are unidirectionallyinfluenced by a hierarchical relationship (Meade and Presley, 2002; Ishizakaand Labib, 2009).

• Finally, this hierarchical model has been tested only in the service sector,other sectors are not considered, hence, generalization of the study cannotbe made.

5.2 Managerial implicationThe implications of the study are:

• With the help of this study, service managers may learn about the existence ofbarriers to TQM implementation and understand them.

• The barriers under “managerial issues” are crucial and should be givenpriority for minimizing them in the organization. After “managerial issues,”“people-oriented issues” and then “organizational issues” barrier categoriesshould be given full attention for achieving the maximum benefits ofimplementing a TQM program.

• Top-management should pay special attention to the highest ranked barrier “lackof communication.” They should put all their efforts in overcoming this barrierthrough mutual consensus, regular meetings and involving employees in majordecisions. This should be dealt with at all levels.

5.3 Scope for future researchThe scope of this research work provides an opportunity for researchers andacademicians to develop a better and improved model by adopting the fuzzy AHPmethodology after identifying additional TQM barriers through an extended literaturereview that were not identified in the present study. Additionally, a more precisedecision-making model can be achieved using ANP where the interrelationshipsbetween different levels and within the same level can be made and more complexrelationships among the categories and sub-categories can be generated. Further,validating the model using different statistical tests such as an exploratory factoranalysis, confirmatory factor analysis and SEM can be made and hence, the results of

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the present study can be verified and consistent results may be obtained. Finally, theresults of the study can also be verified by applying the same AHP model to variousother sectors like manufacturing, small-to-medium enterprises, agriculture, etc.,through which a generalized model of TQM barriers can be attained.

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About the authorsDr Faisal Talib is an Assistant Professor at the Mechanical Engineering Section, UniversityPolytechnic, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU),Aligarh, (UP), India. He holds a PhD Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee andMasters in Industrial and Production Engineering from the AMU. He has 16 years of teachingexperience and has more than 50 publications to his credit in national/international journalsand conferences. His special interest includes quality engineering, TQM, service quality, qualityconcepts, industrial and production management, operations management and qualitymanagement in service industries. Dr Faisal Talib is the corresponding author and can becontacted at: ftalib77@yahoo.co.in

Professor Zillur Rahman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management Studies,Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. He is a Recipient of the Emerald Literati Club HighlyCommended Award and one of his papers was The Science Direct Top 25 Hottest Article. His workhas been published and cited in various journals includingManagement Decision,Managing ServiceQuality, International Journal of InformationManagement, Industrial Management and Data Systems,The TQMMagazine, Business Process Management Journal, International Journal of Service IndustryManagement Information Systems Journal, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Business andIndustrial Marketing, and International Journal of Computer IntegratedManufacturing, to name a few.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htmOr contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

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