The Mediating Effect of Kaizen between Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Performance

Every customer preference is different but yet important. The global market is shifting rapidly, organizations are needed to continuously identify new opportunity to obtain competitive advantages. Literature suggested that manufacturing companies are needed to differentiate themselves through emphasize on quality and continuous improvement in product and services as a crucial part to secure and success in the future. The Total Quality Management (TQM) practices has developed a strong bearing on growth and competitiveness in market. Therefore, a proper continuous improvement (Kaizen) practice is needed to eliminate waste and value added in production to remain competitiveness and retained the potential customer. However, based on the previous study it had indicated an inconsistent result between TQM and BP. Besides that, researcher also less emphasized on mediator in previous work. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to recommend the relationship between TQM and business performance with a mediator's effect of Kaizen. This proposed model attempt to create knowledge to both academician and company players to acquire a better understanding among the TQM and Kaizen practices. Consequently, the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques is applying to identify and evaluate the relationship among TQM, Kaizen, and business performance in developing a new TQM model.