Quality culture in the Brazilian car dealerships

Abstract

This article identifies the adoption level of quality management practices (QMP) and verifies the existence of a quality culture (QC) in the Brazilian car dealerships, motivated by the following research question: Is there an organizational culture in these dealerships that leads a high application of QMP? To address this question, diagnostic tools were applied to identify the cultural profile and QMP adoption levels with quality managers of 80 car dealerships with one of ISO 9000 family of quality management systems implemented. The results stressed that the dealerships implement QMP in a satisfactory level, however, the QC is not developed enough to implement these practices properly. This is a worrying scenario to the Brazilian car dealerships, once they work in a competitive market and deals with a rigorous customer.