Strategic Quality Management Practices and Competitiveness of Manufacturing Firms in Nairobi

Abstract

Strategic quality management practices are the effective ways through which organizations can achieve improved performance levels and gain competitive edge in a cut-throat competitive industry, for they ensure monitoring of the firm’s operations in order to have high quality products hence meeting and exceeding customers’ satisfaction. Previous literatures on the study topic had not provided comprehensive and adequate evidence on SQM practices and competitiveness implemented in manufacturing firms. The main objective of this study was to establish strategic quality management practices and competitiveness of manufacturing firms in Nairobi. Specifically, the study aimed at determining the extent to which strategic quality management practices are adopted in the manufacturing companies in Nairobi County and to establish the association that may exist between strategic quality management practices and competitiveness of manufacturing firms in Nairobi County. Theories used were: Quality Improvement Theory, Theory of constraints and Resource-based view. The research adopted a descriptive survey research design in trying to focus on manufacturing firms operating in Nairobi. The population of the study in this research comprised of manufacturing firms that are 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. This data was collected 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 independent variables were analyzed through descriptive statistics in the form of mean, frequencies and percentages; and regression analysis was employed to analyze objective two which was the dependent variable. 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. 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. The study recommended that for enhanced strategic quality management application, then manufacturing firms should institute and involve the support of strategic administration department to monitor their adoption and implementation.