Total quality management barriers: Malaysia's SME perspective

Abstract

This paper is aimed at identifying barriers that prohibit the implementation of total quality management (TQM). It posits six hypotheses to establish the negative association between TQM barriers and TQM implementation in manufacturing SMEs. The findings are affirming that the six proposed TQM barriers have a significant negative impact towards TQM implementation. The study highlights TQM barriers to managers and enables them to devise resilient tactics to counter them. The conceptual model is simplified because the sub-barriers were classified into the main barriers making it easy to understand on which part of the organisation will be affected and the model only focuses on barriers that are relevant to Malaysian SME. This research is one of very few studies to offer insights into the topic area by emphasising on Malaysian manufacturing SMEs. Limitations have encountered from the aspects of geographical coverage, changes in SME statistics, nature of survey questions and time horizon adopted.