The impact of total quality management on innovation: Findings from a developing country

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and innovation performance in the Vietnamese industry context.

The method of confirmatory factor analysis was applied to refine TQM and innovation scales for empirical analysis in Vietnam. The structural equation modelling method was applied to test the theoretical models.

This study confirms the results of previous studies that considered TQM as a set of practices. It confirms that TQM – considered as a set of practices – has a positive impact on the firm's innovativeness. It discovers that not all TQM practices enhance firm innovativeness. Only leadership and people management, process and strategic management, and open organization showed a positive impact on the firm's innovation performance.

The sample was not random. Future research should select different random samples to allow for more generalization of the results. The study assessed the concept of “newness” with the company boundaries. Future research should measure “newness” within the boundaries of the specific industry. The unclear evidence found in this study on the impact of the firm's education and training policy on innovation needs to be further investigated.

The findings are useful for business managers in developing countries such as Vietnam, who want to enhance business performance through implementing TQM practices that support their firm's product and services innovation efforts.

The study has contributed to develop a measurement system of TQM practices and innovation performance that facilitates more quality management research in developing countries. It has contributed to clarifying the disputed relationship between TQM practices and the firm's innovativeness, and shows empirical evidence in Vietnam to confirm that the TQM practice set deployed by a firm has a positive impact on its innovation performance.