An Evaluation of the Implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) Within the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector in Jordan

Recognising quality to be a key focus for competitiveness, Total Quality Management
(TQM) was established and used in developed countries as a new philosophy for managing
organisations. However, TQM in developing countries has received little attention and little
research has been conducted into the successful implementation of TQM systems in these
countries.

The research described in this thesis assesses the adoption of TQM factors in the
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Jordan and identifies the
main impediments to successful adoption. In addition, this research explores the impact of
TQM implementation on improving competitiveness and the role of environmental factors
(government policy and social culture) in encouraging the implementation and sustainability
of TQM in the Jordanian ICT sector.

Both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to fulfil the study
objectives. The questionnaire aimed to investigate the implementation of TQM in the ICT
sector, while, semi-structured interviews with General and TQM managers aimed to gain an
understanding of themes which had emerged from the questionnaire. In order to fully
understand company performance, customers of the ten largest companies in the Jordanian
ICT sector were also interviewed.

Analysis of the data identified three potential impediments to the successful implementation
of TQM. These impediments being; the internal cultural characteristics of organisations, the
level of employee empowerment and the degree of continuous improvement that takes
place. The results also indicate the critical impact that successful TQM implementation has
on improving company competitiveness. The results also show the success of government
reward policy, government policy identifying quality performance levels of organisations
and the national education system as the source of qualified staff. These are seen as
encouraging and supporting TQM implementation. Conversely, governmental policy
towards taxation and new licences, bureaucracy and customer perspective regarding quality
which gives a priority to price rather than quality as the discouraging factor. The research
findings have enabled the development of a model to support TQM implementation within
the Jordanian ICT sector.

The study has made an original contribution to the academic and practical knowledge of
quality management. This is an important first exploratory empirical study of TQM
implementation in the ICT sector in Jordan. Some recommendations for further research
have been derived from this research.