Quality Management Practices and Competitiveness of Manufacturing Firms in Nairobi

Jacqueline Wangui Muiruri () and Dr. Magutu Obara Peterson ()

International Journal of Supply Chain and Logistics, 2020, vol. 4, issue 1, 27 - 45

Abstract: Purpose: The main objective of this study was to establish the influence of quality management practices on competitiveness of manufacturing firms in Nairobi.Methodology: The research adopted a descriptive survey research design in trying to focus on manufacturing firms operating in Nairobi. This study used the list of manufacturing firms in Nairobi as provided in the KAM directory that showed a total of 499 manufacturing firms operating in Nairobi. The research study used stratified random sampling. The sample size of the research study was 50 manufacturing firms. The data was collected by use of structured questionnaires. It was done from operations managers, quality assurance managers and supply chain managers or their equivalents since they were deemed to be well versed and had good understanding of strategic quality management practices and operational activities of manufacturing firms. The information from the analysis was presented by use of pie charts, graphs, bar charts and tables to search for any correlation between strategic quality management practices and firms' competitiveness.Results and conclusion: The results revealed that bench marking and competitiveness were positively and significantly correlated (r=0.578, p=0.000). The results further showed that continuous improvement and competitiveness were positively and significantly related (r=0.620, p=0.000). It was additionally verified that supplier partnering and competitiveness were positively and significantly related (r=0.510, p=0.000). Equally, the results showed that six sigma and competitiveness were positively and significantly related (r=0.529, p=0.000). Finally, the results revealed that quality management practices and competitiveness were positively and significantly related (r=0.642, p=0.000). The results indicated that the overall model was statistically significant. Further, the results imply that the independent variables are good predictors of firm competitiveness. This was reinforced by an F statistic of 21.769 and the reported p value (0.000) which was less than the conventional probability of 0.05 significance level. Policy recommendation: The author recommended that manufacturing firms should institute and involve the support of strategic leadership to monitor the adoption and implementation of quality management practices as a way of improving their competitiveness in their respective industries. Further, firms should come up with as many benchmarking approaches and to also hold several of them so as to increase on adoption of effective mechanism that makes firms more competitive

Keywords: Benchmarking practices; Supplier Partnering Practices; Continuous Improvement Practices; Quality Management Practices Six Sigma Practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.carijournals.org/journals/index.php/IJSCL/article/view/425/576 (application/pdf)
Access to full texts is restricted to International Journal of Supply Chain and Logistics

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bhx:oijscl:v:4:y:2020:i:1:p:27-45:id:425

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Supply Chain and Logistics from CARI Journals Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chief Editor ().