Identification of A Set of Appropriate Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for Successful TQM Implementation in Construction, and Other Industries

best practices, world-class continuous improvement, quality improvement, quality

Total quality management (TQM) is a management philosophy that emphasizes on non-stop quality improvement within all aspects of the organizations. Its main aims are to satisfy customers and survive in the market. Thus, it is very vital to specify the factors that cause implementing TQM successfully. Specially, the identification of the TQM critical success factors (CSFs) is more important in the construction firms than other industries, because the majority of construction organizations are confusing related to TQM CSFs, and often they do not develop a proper framework with right and essential factors for TQM implementation. Numerous studies showed construction companies usually fail to implement TQM and achieve performance excellence at project and enterprise levels. The main purpose of this study is to determine these factors as critical success factors of TQM implementation in construction industry. For this aim, the study carried out an extensive literature review to specify the most frequently used CSFs from TQM frameworks of 37 empirical studies in different industries, in order to propose a set of appropriate TQM CSFs. So, Pareto analysis was employed to analyze comprehensively the 37 TQM frameworks. Finally, the findings of this study revealed the seven CSFs, which are as most vital elements in developing an effective model for successful TQM implementation in construction industry.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………... Introduction:-
Some studies reported that the implementation of TQM practices is very difficult in construction organizations because of "a lack of standardization" and "many parties" (Hoonakker et al., 2010). Thus, the identification of "critical factors" that cause the success in implementing TQM is extremely vital in the organizations (Hietschold et al., 2014;Kalpande et al., 2012). In other words, "the construction companies need to understand the TQM CSFs for the successful implementation of TQM" (Metri, 2005, p. 62). Forbes and Ahmed (2011) justified because the contractors and managers are very busy to explore and determine critical success factors (CSFs) in the construction firms. Therefore, the best way is to select CSFs from the criteria of quality awards, in order to achieve a high level of quality in construction processes. While Oakland (2003) as one of the influential TQM gurus in 21 th Century, stressed that formal TQM like MBNQA and EQA give only broad guidelines, and their criteria often promote the elements that do not seem to provide any "business value" for an organization. Consequently, it is necessary that the organizations construct their own TQM frameworks based on their needs. This aim can be done by adopting suitable TQM practices (e.g. process management, leadership, etc.) through previous empirical studies, with the aim of implementing TQM successfully (Hietschold et al., 2014;Kalpande et al., 2012). Interestingly "CSFs identify the issues that determine an organization's health and vitality" (Parmenter, 2007, p. 23). In fact, many studies revealed that construction firms are often unsuccessful in adopting suitable TQM practices (CSFs) within their TQM implementation frameworks (Delgado-Hernandez and Aspinwall, 2008). As stated by Metri (2005, p. 62), there is a "pressing need" to identify TQM CSFs in construction organizations.
In the academic aspect, Karuppusami and Gandhinathan (2006) stated researchers should understand the importance of CSFs as "vital few" CSFs to conduct their researches. This can be a good way to develop "reliable instruments", and investigate the effects of TQM on the organizations. Amazingly, although identifying TQM CSFs is an important issue in implementing TQM in the construction industry, but literature survey showed that a few study just carried out to determine TQM CSFs into construction field. Some studies were proven that critical factors of successful TQM implementation are the same in all sectors, because the business and behavior issues are tightly related to TQM CSFs, not the context of business and sector (Delgado-Hernandez and Aspinwall, 2008; Arumugam et al., 2011;Cheng and Liu, 2007). Accordingly, it seems that the best solution for this problem in construction industry is to identify the most frequently used TQM practices by scholars in different industries from past studies. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive study on the TQM critical success factors (CSFs) from existing literature, and likewise evaluate different TQM models that formulated by scholars in different sectors and countries, in order to determine and propose a set of TQM CSFs in constructing an appropriate TQM implementation framework for construction firms at project and enterprise levels.

Literature Review:-
Although "the definitions of TQM has been debated for many years by quality management researchers" (Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2003, p. 235). But the previous definitions of TQM mostly have the same view on the scope of this quality management program. Initially, both academics and practitioners considered it as a management approach that improves the products and services quality continuously through the production process for satisfying customers. Burli et al. (2012) and Martinez-Costa et al. (2008) defined TQM as a "systematic quality practices" for the management of the company to generate desirable change in the performance with the aim of promoting "quality, productivity, customer's satisfaction and profitability". TQM practices are able to generate effective processes that bring consistency to improve performance and business processes for satisfying customers (Al-Otaibi et al., 2015). Many empirical studies have indicated the significant correlation between the vital TQM practices (CSFs) and quality performance in the organizations (Talib et al., 2010). Consequently, it is very essential to specify and consider the practices, or elements that are critical to implement TQM. In other words, the CSFs are the "best practices", "enablers", and vital factors that contribute to the success of TQM implementation. These factors are TQM CSFs can also be defined as "the behavioral aspects of management styles" or the human factors (activities), which should be practiced to achieve quality management goals and organizational objectives (Arumugam et al., 2011). Kaur and Sharma (2014) argued that CSFs of TQM can be demonstrated as "finest approaches" adopted in all key activities of every kind of the business. But there is no generic set of CSFs as they vary from organization to organization and manager to manager as it depends on where the organization is and where it wants to be (Santos-Vijande and Alvarez-Gonzalez, 2007; Arshida and Agil, 2013). Similarly, some surveys showed there are differences between the critical success factors of TQM practices in different countries, for example, USA and Mexico. In both countries, social responsibilities and supplier quality were meaningfully different, because of possessing different culture. But customer focus and satisfaction were similar between two countries as most important factor in business and TQM. However, the differences in the "degree of TQM implementation" in different countries exist (Zakuan et al., 2012;Al-Otaibi et al., 2015). Oakland (2003) stated the key to strategic planning and goal development is just to identify a set of appropriate TQM practices. He stressed exceedingly that the positive changes in improving quality can be happened by the emphasis of using critical TQM practices (factors), instead of focusing on just formal structures of TQM in the organizations. In construction, companies also need study and identify vital TQM practices in implementing TQM successfully. Delgado-Hernandez and Aspinwall (2008) and Metri (2005) argued that construction companies need to select and adopt a set of TQM CSFs from TQM studies in different industries, the especially manufacturing sector as "survival factors, or indicators of corporate quality". But construction and manufacturing are not quite the same, and there are many differences between them. So, there is a significant question related this issue, can extract TQM CSFs of manufacturing, or service sectors be suitable and fitted for developing an effective TQM model in construction organizations? Surprisingly, the results of some studies have justified, all industries recognized the same CSFs for TQM implementation. Because TQM CSFs are more depended upon "working environments", "work attitudes and leadership styles", which influence the implementation of the TQM approach than the context of business. Thus, it is important that companies understand their organizational culture profiles and environments (Cheng and Liu, 2007). As depicted in Figure 1

Methodology:-
The general objective of this study is to investigate and suggest a set of TQM CSFs for developing a poweful TQM framework at project and enterprise levels in the construction industry. For this aim, the methodology of current study designed based on an extensive literature review on empirical studies concerning CSFs of TQM implementation, or quality management practices from different industries in various countries. Therefore, a comprehensive search was carried out using online databases to find empirical studies, which published in English and referred journals in the period from 2004 to 2015. These databases were namely; Elsevier Science, Google Scholar, Emerald (MCB) Database, EBSCO, ProQuest and Anbar International Management. Furthermore, the study was being searched based on the 15 phrases, or keywords, which Sila and Ebrahimpour (2003, p. 239) determined in the literature for interpreting "TQM-related factors, and critical practices in implementing successful TQM. These keywords are namely: "total quality management, quality management, strategic quality management, total quality, total quality improvement, total quality control, business excellence, performance excellence, quality excellence, best practices, world-class manufacturing, continuous improvement, continuous quality improvement, quality improvement, quality assurance".
In this study, the review of the literature from online databases yielded 258 studies that the majority of the studies within the literature were before 2004. Thus, the researcher identified the only 72 studies that published between 2004 and 2015. In next step, the content analysis was used by the researcher to review and examine qualitatively/subjectively papers (72 articles), in order to ensure that their contents are relevant to CSFs of TQM implementation, or quality management practices as well as the objective of this study. Accordingly, a total of 37 TQM studies selected and finalized for further study as illustrated in Table 2. Finally, extracted data from literature review was categorized, coded and entered into Microsoft Excell for data analysis. For data analysis, Pareto analysis was employed as most suitable method in identifying TQM "CSFs-vital few" (80 percent) and "CSFs-useful many" (20 percent) of existing TQM practices from these 37 studies. According to Talib et al (2010, p. 158), "Pareto analysis is a statistical technique in decision making that should be used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It is one of the most commonly used, and easy to implement method". Pareto analysis uses frequency distribution as one of the techniques of exploratory data analysis that is often used to interpret data. It arranges and presents elements and data from highest to lowest frequency of occurrences respectively, which can assist this research to identify easily the most important factors to implement successful TQM in the construction industry from previous TQM studies in different industries.

Results and Discussion:-
As mentioned previously, the literature review unearthed 37 studies that were fitted and suitable to use for this research, by reviewing these papers, it was revealed that the majority of the studies conducted by researchers in manufacturing and service sectors with a percentage of 78.4%, and the only 21.6% of the articles belonged to construction area. Furthermore, these TQM studies were carried out in three periodical stages (the period from 2004 to 2007, 2008 to 2011, and 2012 to 2015). Table 1 indicated the majority of TQM papers that are about 21 studies with a percentage of 56.8 % of the total articles were performed by scholars between 2012 and 2015. main factors were highlighted and indicated as TQM critical success factors (CSFs) of these empirical studies, and there is no similarity between the content of each of these 22 TQM CSFs and others, as illustrated in Table 2.           22
As stated previously, this study was used Pareto analysis for identifying a set of CSFs from 37 studies. In this method, TQM CSFs can be ranked and arranged from highest (Top of Table) to lowest frequency of occurrences in ISSN: 2320-5407 International Journal of Advanced Research (2016), Volume 4, Issue 11, 1581-1591 lower part of Table. As can be seen in Table 3, the frequency of occurrences, percent frequency, and percent cumulative frequency for each of the TQM CSFs was presented based on Pareto analysis (from highest to lowest frequency). The frequency of occurrences for each CSFs has interpreted its importance in success or failure of TQM implementation. Specially, the first few of CSFs have the essential role in implementing TQM successfully. Talib et al (2010) and Mahboob et al. (2015) called the first few TQM CSFs as "vital few CSFs that accounted for 80 percent of occurrences", and the rest of TQM CSFs (20%) are "useful many CSFs".
In addition, data analysis of the eight empirical studies that were conducted in construction industry (Gherbal et  Interestingly, the "vital few CSFs" of all empirical studies are almost similar with construction studies. While there is just a difference between the "vital few CSFs" of the studies on construction (teamwork) and all industries (continuous quality improvement). Doubtlessly, the adoption of these TQM practices are critical for improving quality performance in construction organizations, but there is an important question. Do the practitioners and scholars need to use all "vital few CSFs" for constructing an appropriate TQM model at project and enterprise levels in the construction industry?
As Parmenter (2007, p. 24) noted, the practitioners and scholars might initially be found even up to 30 CSFs that are "critical for the continued health of their organization based on the investigations. Better practice suggests that there should be only between five and eight CSFs". "Once the right CSFs determined", then the suitable indicators are easy to find for generating an effective TQM implementation frameworks. Therefore, there is no a certain number in adopting TQM practices, but it should be minimum 5 and maximum 8 TQM CSFs. In this study, the literature review reported that the empirical studies selected different numbers of TQM CSFs in their frameworks.
As shown in Table 3, the total frequency of occurrences of the 37 CSFs is about 270, which means the average of number of TQM CSFs adopted from these studies in different industries is approximately seven CSFs (270÷37=7.3). Accordingly, these seven most frequently used CSFs can be introduced as critical practices in successful TQM implementation, which are namely: . They noticed and reported that "process management", "leadership", and "customer focus" are common into the frameworks of TQM implementation, while the majority of studies adopted "education and training", "supplier management", "information and analysis", "employee involvement". Likewise, these seven TQM CSFs of this study are similar with ten CSFs that recommended by Metri (2005) for developing an effective TQM framwork in construction industry.

Conclusions:-
The study was focused on specifying the most critical TQM practices in successful TQM implementation within construction, and other industries. However, the study examined 37 TQM models that extracted from main databases, these frameworks were developed by scholars in different industries and countries, in order to evaluate the impact of TQM and its elements on different performance indicators. From the review, the 22 CSFs of TQM revealed from these frameworks, then Pareto analysis highlighted that the only ten most frequently of CSFs were as "vital few CSFs".
The analysis of the TQM frameworks indicated that the adoption of a total of the seven most frequently cited TQM CSFs is the best way in developing a TQM framework in construction industry, and likewise there is no difference between theses CSFs in construction and other industries.