TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND PERFORMANCE OF MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN KENYA: CASE OF BAMBURI CEMENT LIMITED
Abdi Siyad Keinan - Masters of Business Administration Degree in Strategic Management, Kenyatta University, Kenya
Dr. Janesther Karugu - Lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
A firm’s performance is a function of how well managers use quality management practices to improve the quality of products and services. In today’s global environment, organizations are constantly looking for ways to expand and improve their businesses in terms of quality to enhance performance. Quality management practices have been used by manufacturing firms in Kenya to improve on performance. However, customers are still complaining that the quality of manufactured products has been compromised. Quality management practices contribute greatly to business improvement as a whole through making awareness in each and every part of an organization in order to remove errors and minimize waste. Manufacturing industries have thus resulted in making use of various total quality aspects to ensure profitability. The main objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between total quality management practices and performance of manufacturing industries in Kenya with a special reference to Bamburi Cement Limited. The specific objectives were to establish how product continual improvement, customer focus, employee empowerment and top management commitment influence performance of Bamburi Cement Limited in Kenya. The research was based on resource-based view theory and quality improvement theory. Empirical reviews will be done on the four total quality management practices and how they influence performance thereby indicating research gaps. This research study applied the descriptive research design. The target population composed of the 165 management staffs employed at Bamburi Cement in Kenya. A sample of 25% was selected from within each group in proportions using stratified random sampling technique. This generated a sample of 42 respondents. The study used a semi-structured questionnaire administered using a drop and pick later method. The questionnaire had both open and close-ended questions. Data collected was purely quantitative and was analyzed by descriptive analysis. The descriptive statistical tools such as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 21.0) and MS Excel was used to extract frequencies, percentages, means and other central tendencies. Tables and figures will be used to summarize responses for further analysis and facilitate comparison. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to show the strength of the relationship between the variables.
