According to actual Studies that tested as well as examined both the relationship and the impact between the total quality management and the organizational performance resulting to finding that each dimension of the total quality management that may affect the performance separately (Dow et al., 1999; Samon and Terziovski, 1999: Rahman, 2001; Rahman and Bullock, 2005).
Different researchers including (Gadenne and Sharma, 2009) suggested that both soft and hard (total quality management) practices contributed to the successful or superior implementation of (total quality management) on the organizational performance and also that both of soft and hard (total quality management) practices impact the organizational performance.
(Flynn et al., 1995) stated that both the soft and hard practices of the (TQM) affect the organizational performance. Firstly, the soft (total quality management) practices link to organizational performance as well as top Management support, workforce management, supplier relationship, work attitudes, and secondly, the hard practices that are linked to the organizational performance include process and statistical process control and product design.
A number of studies show that there is an important effect of the soft practices and organizational performance on the (total quality management) for example top management support and customer focus(Dow et al., 1999; Samson and Terziovski, 1999 and Powell, 1995). Correspondingly, studies found that there is no relation of some hard (TQM) practices such as statistical process control and (TQM) tools to the organizational performance (Powell, 1995, Samson and Terziovski, 1999; Kaynak, 2003). To summarize, these studies indicate that several soft (TQM) practices may have an influence on the organizational performance and that some results are inconclusive for the hard (TQM) practices.
(Flynn et al., 1995) tested the relationship between eight different dimensions of (TQM) and the performance of the organization, and it was shown that some of the practices of the soft and hard (TQM). It was shown that some soft and hard (TQM) influence greatly on the organizational performance. (Ho et al., 2001) theorized that there is a positive effect of soft (TQM) practices on hard (TQM) practices which eventually affect the organizational performance. They also examined those relationships using the regression analysis.
Confirming to (Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009), it was exposed that the soft and hard (total quality management) practices have an impact on the total quality management results, despite the fact that soft (total quality management) practices play a vigorous role, (Gadenne and Sharma, 2009) found that both the soft and hard practices affect and develops the organizational performance extensively such as employee and customer involvement, employee training and efficiency improvement are greatly inked to customer satisfaction.
(Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009) suggested that after using experiential data from 370 different Greek Greek companies, it was fond that soft (total quality management) practices highly impact and influence the total quality management whist hard (total quality management) practices had a limited impact.
(Dow et al., 1999) tested data from various Australian manufacturing companies and ruled in finding out that some soft (TQM) practices greatly affect the organizational performance and hard (TQM) practices did not affect the organizational performance.
According to (Abdullah et al., 2008), it was found that the soft (TQM) strongly affect the performance of the organization. According to (Abdullah, 2013), soft (TQM) practice contribute to the performance in the next way training management control, supplier relationship, and increased internal and external interaction. Hard (total quality management) practices on the other hand add to the organizational performance include benchmarking, continuous improvement, improving the effectiveness and measurement of quality.
(Ahire et a., 1996) reached a similar conclusion, they found that the product quality highly corresponded with the elements of the soft (TQM), for instance employee empowerment, employee training and employee involvement.
(Araujo and Sampaio, 2013) study showed relationships with top management support and positive effects on organizational performance. (Mann et al., 2011) reported on intensively enhanced processes and business outcome performance as compared with the industry industry average (Pipan et al., 2014).
(Sitkin et al., 1994) stated that here are three cluster of The common guiding principles of (TQM) which are, firstly, mainly focusing on customer satisfaction, secondly, those who are seeking continuous improved and lastly, those who treat the organizations as total systems. Having this said, (TQM) mainly relates to the second and third cluster.
(Lewis et al., 2006) ensured that the hard (TQM) practice scan be managed easier than the soft (TQM) practices since they can be measured. It was also figured that hard (TQM) practices were implemented more than soft (TQM) practices.
According to a numerous number of studies that investigated the impact of soft and hard (TQM) on the organizational performance, in a large number of developing counties the concept of (TQM) s relatively new and will take time to fully understand it. (Zakuan et al., 2010) stated that developed and developing counties are at different stages when it comes to (TQM) and there is a significant difference in the level of the (TQM) development in different countries. Among the Middle East region, Jordan is considered as high – ranking developing nation when it comes to (TQM).
Based on this review of the literature here is a found agreement on the importance of measuring practices that are correlated to customer focus, training and development, top management support and the employee involvement as soft (TQM) practices. Where equally, there is also an agreement on using the practices that are associated with similarly, there is agreement on the use of practices related to continuous improvement, feedback system, the statistical process control and TQM tools as hard TQM practices. To conclude, the soft practices of (TQM) mainly refer to management and the people aspect such as leadership, managing the people, customer and supplier relationships, and quality planning, whereas the hard practices of the (TQM) refer to the tools and the systems that are necessary to implement the (TQM) such as quality tools and techniques, benchmarking, measurement and product/service design. The soft practices can help and aid the development of the hard practices and both practices are equally important to successfully implement the quality management.
According to this research propose the following hypotheses of the study as follows:
H0.1 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Soft TQM Practices on the Organizational Performance in the Zain Company in Jordan.
H0.2 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Hard TQM Practices on the Organizational Performance in the Zain Company in Jordan.
< p>
3.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the research methodology that is used to evaluate the impact of Soft and Hard (TQM) practices on the Organizational Performance using Balanced Scorecard methodology of Zain Jordan Company.
This task will be done through discussing the following: Theoretical framework, operational definitions for the main variables, hypotheses, research method and design research population and sample, research duration, sources of data, data collection instrument as well as data analysis techniques, reliability and validity of research scales
3.2 Conceptual Framework
H01
H02
Figure (1) Research Model
(Kaplan and Norton, 2001a,b; Mafini and Pooe, 2013; Lewis et al., 2006; Fotopoulos and Psomas, 2009; das et al., 2008)
3.3 Research 0perational Definitions
Operational definition below developed based on the literature review that is conducted for this research, the independent variable belong to soft and hard total quality management (TQM) practices, the first practice is Soft (TQM) which includes Customer Focus, Training and Development, Top Management Support and Employee Involvement. The second practice is the Hard (TQM) which includes Continuous Improvement, Feedback System, Statistical Process Control and (TQM) Tools. The dependent variable belongs to the organizational performance which is measure through Balanced Scorecard “BSC” methodology, the “BSC” contains four main practices as follows Customers Perspective, Internal Business Processes, Learning and Growth, Financial Perspective.
Independent Variables
Soft TQM: Refers to the development and improvement of the managerial aspects, generally it concentrates on the behavioral issues and human resources. This practice wi be measured in the questionnaire from item number (1) to item number (18).
Customer Focus: returns to the company’s ability to improve their products and services, to what extent the company satisfy their customer, and does the company meet or exceed customers expectation or not. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (1) to item number (4).
Training and Development: it refers to the Management efforts towards the enhancement of the employees skills, knowledge and abilities. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (5) to item number (9).
Top Management Support: it reiterates the management policies and strategies towards (TQM) implementation and support within company. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (10) 10 item number (13).
Employee involvement: it refers to the employee ability of individual decision making and individual problem solving. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (14) to item number (18).
Hard TQM: returns to the upgrades of the technical aspects of the work process, generally it is related to the tools, system and quality management. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (19) to item number (39).
Continuous Improvement: it refers the company’s ability to continuously improve their technical aspects, such as work processes, area, procedures and manufacturing practices. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (19) to item number (23).
Feed Back System: it refers to what extent the company’s connects with their internal and external opinions. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (24) to item number (28).
Statistical Process Control: it refers to the statistical used methods and limits whether it is simple or complicated. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (29) to item number (32).
TQM Tools: it refers to the used techniques by the company such as (fish and bone diagram, Pareto char). This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (33) to item number (39).
Dependent Variable
Balanced Scorecard: A performance management system that measures the Organizational Performance from financial and non-financial perspectives represented by: financial, customer internal business process and learning and growth perspectives. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (40) to item number (61).
Customer Perspective: This includes Customer satisfaction; customer retention and market share in target markets. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (40) to item number (44).
Internal Business Processes: Refers to all internal processes, the goals achievement, employees qualification, communication networks, specification confirmation, time delivery performance and internal processes improvement. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (45) to item number (50).
Learning and Growth: Refers to how the organization manages to create continuous growth and improvement through people, systems and organizational procedures innovation encouragement, training and gained performance, the dependency of decision making and employee’s rotation. This will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (51) to item number (56).
Financial Perspective: Refers to the organizations profit that is subjectively measured through profit in recent years, profit increment ratio, the effectiveness of financial management, financial goals achievement and the effectiveness of financial measures. This practice will be measured in the questionnaire from item number (57) to item number (61).
3.4 Research Hypotheses
Based on related literature, following hypothesis be research attempts to investigate the following hypotheses:
The Fist main hypothesis of the research is
H0.1 There is no statically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Soft (TQM) practices on the organizational performance in the Zain Telecommunication Company.
Sub-hypotheses related to H0.1 hypothesis:
H0.1.1 There is no statistically significant at (α ≤ 0.05) of customer focus on the Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H0.1.2 There is no statistically significant at (α ≤ 0.05) of Training of and Development on the Organizational Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H0.1.3 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Top – Management Support on the Organizational Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H0.1.4 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Employee Involvement on the Organizational Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
The second main Hypothesis of the research is
H0.2 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Hard (TQM) practices on be organizational performan
ce in the Zain telecommunication Company.
Sub-hypotheses related to H0.2 hypothesis:
H0.2.1 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Continuous Improvement on the Organizational Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H0.2.2 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Feed-Back System on organizational performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H0.2.3 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of Statistical Process Control on the organizational performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
H02.4 There is no statistically significant impact at (α ≤ 0.05) of (TQM) Tools on the Organizational Performance in the Zain telecommunication Company.
3.5 Research Method and Design
The research design for this research was quantitative, descriptive, and co-relational A quantitative research method was chosen based on the use of quantifiable data to obtain an objectivity of the research by using a well-developed questionnaire. Objectivity could have achieved using numbers and statistics. The researcher used a descriptive research design to provide a summary of the data. By using a descriptive research design, a summary of a collected data could be presented using numbers to describe the characteristics of the variables of interest (Sekaran and Bougie, 2013).
A correlation design was used to measure the strength of the investigated relationship between variables (Keller, 2011). In this research, a correlation design assisted in analyzing the impact of (TQM) practices (Soft and Hard) on the Organizational performance dimensions using the BSC perspectives (Customer Perspective, Internal Business Processes, Learning and Growth and Financial Perspective) of the Zain telecommunication Company.
3.6 Data Collection Method
Throughout this research, there are two types of data used:
1. Secondary data:
There are several sources of secondary data including newspaper, books, databases, case studies, periodicals and other archival records.
2. Primary data:
This source is used to collect the data for the first time. This Research collects primary data from an adopted survey that was reviewed to achieve the research goals. The data collection procedures is implemented as follows. First, the researcher got the contact information of the organizations from their official websites. Second, the researcher contacted the organizations human resource department or public relations department by telephone, those who were mainly responsible for the distribution of the questionnaires inside the organization. However, the participation is voluntary, and requests the consent to contribute, and certainly the questionnaire itself (See Appendix A). To manage the data collection process the researcher uses spreadsheet for tracking the returned questionnaire.
In order to ensure high response mate, the following steps were taken, first the questionnaire written in both English and Arabic languages, to facilitate the understanding for participants, second the researcher assures the respondents of the confidentiality through the introduction letter that included the statement “please be assured that all Information you provide will be treated as highly confidential and will only be used for scientific research”, third weekly follow up cal phone after the original
survey were sent.
3.7Data Collection Instrument
The questionnaire is the instrument used to gather information from the population of the research. The questionnaire included items to measure the respondent’s views towards each TQM (Soft and Hard) and Organizational Performance through (BSC) methodology (Customer Perspective, Internal Business Processes, Learning and Growth and Financial Perspective.) Basie information regarding the organization and the response was requested. See Appendix (A).
The questionnaire starts with a cover letter that identifies the purpose of the research as well as asking the respondents simply to cooperate by filing the questionnaire as their feedback is highly recommended to draw up realistic view how TQM (Soft and Hard) dimensions affect the Organizational Performance of the Zain telecommunication company.
This structured questionnaire consists of (61) questions distributes in three sections as below:
Section One: Demographic Variables. This section covers general information which contained: (gender, age, educational level, experience, job position).
Section Tow: Total Quality Management. This section measured the Total Quality Management through two dimensions (Soft and Hard TQM): (39) items as follows in table (2):
Table (2): Items 0f S0ft and Hard TCOM
Total Quality Management Soft TQM Hard TQM
Number of items 18 21
Items arrangement 1-18 19-39
All items of soft table (3) and hard TQM measured on a Likert-scale five points a follow in table (3):
Table (3): Measurement of Soft and Hard TQM
Strongly Agree Agree Moderate Disagree Strongly Disagree
5 4 3 2 1
Section Three: organizational performance through balanced scorecard perspective. This section measured the organizational performance by using the balanced scorecard Perspectives through four perspectives (Customer Perspective, Internal Business Processes, Learning and Growth and Financial Perspective), (22) items as follows in table (4):
Table (4): Items organizational Performance
Organizational performance Customer Perspective Internal Business Processes Learning and Growth Financial Perspective
Number of Items 5 6 6 5
Items
Arrangement 40-44 45-50 51-56 57-61
All items of Organizational Performance measured on a Likert-scale five points as follows in table (5) Table (5):
Table (5): Measurement of organizational Performance