Preliminary communication
Measuring the impact of total quality management on financial performance of croatian companies
Dubravka Pekanov Starčević
Josipa Mijoč
Tadija Vrdoljak
Abstract
Changes in the business environment have resulted in increasing the importance of the quality of
products and services of a company. Insisting on quality has become a strategic goal of a company and
a determiner of competitiveness both in the home and international market. The traditional approach
to quality included determination of product quality after production was completed. High costs of
testing to determine the quality of products and services concludes that quality assurance must be
approached differently. Product controls and tests used until that moment had to be replaced with a
more modern, more efficient and more effective approach known as total quality management (TQM).
TQM supporters suggest that TQM implementation results in improved product quality, reduced
product return, reduced costs of serving unsatisfied customers and other benefits that ultimately lead
to improved financial performance of the company. This paper examines the impact of TQM imple-
mentation on the financial performance of Croatian companies whose securities are traded within the
regulated market. General characteristics of companies were compared in terms of (non)systematic
application of total quality management. Furthermore, the financial performance of the companies
that have successfully implemented the method was measured.
Keywords
total quality management; the cost of quality; cost management; measurement; financial performance
Hrčak ID:
94219
URI
Publication date:
3.12.2012.
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