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A study of the relationships between quality management practices and organizational performance in the shipping industry

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Maritime Economics & Logistics Aims and scope

Abstract

It is generally accepted that firms that pursue sound quality management practices will become more competitive due to enhanced business excellence and performance. However, relatively little research has studied the relationships between quality management practices and organizational performance in the shipping industry. We conduct this study to plug this gap in the literature. We conduct a large-scale industry survey to collect data and develop three measures of organizational performance, namely operational performance, financial performance and customer satisfaction. From the literature we identify four key quality management practices, namely top management commitment and participation, quality information and performance measurement, employee training and empowerment, and customer focus. Through regression analysis, we find that all four quality management practices are positively associated with the three empirically developed organizational performance measures. This study contributes to research by establishing the links between quality management practices and organizational performance in the shipping industry, and provides managerial insights on how shipping firms should plan, tailor and implement their quality management efforts to attain their desired organizational performance measures.

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  1. Faculty of Business, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    T C E Cheng & Petrus W C Choy

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Cheng, T., Choy, P. A study of the relationships between quality management practices and organizational performance in the shipping industry. Marit Econ Logist 15, 1–31 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/mel.2012.19

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