Organizational Sustainability and TQM in SMEs: A Proposed Model

Abstract

Organizational sustainability has become of great interest, and a high priority in today’s business environment by practitioners and researchers.  Successful implementation of sustainability practices is becoming the cornerstone of organizational survival, success, superior performance, and competitive advantages.  For organizations to be sustainable, organizations must determine working models on how to modulate organizational operations, and therefore the purpose of this paper is to critically attempts to offer an insight into the determining factors that influence organization sustainability in SMEs and assess the role of TQM towards achieving business sustenance.  In the context of SMEs, they were chosen due to their vital key role in sustainable development and their dominance in any nation’s economy and contribution.  In achieving the objectives of the study, explorative and descriptive analysis of literature were performed to offer a better understanding and develop a framework for SMEs.  The study findings concluded that realizing the benefits of sustainability is dependent on the extent of activities performed by SMEs and the level of employee participation.  The study revealed further that there is a significant correlation between TQM and sustainability based on the effective implementation of the proposed model of sustainability dimension.

Keywords: Sustainability, SMEs, TQM, Sustainable practices, Employee participation, Top management commitment.

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-4-09

Publication date: February 28^th 2021