A Comparative Assessment of Quality Management Practices in Manufacturing Firms and Service Firms: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis

There are significant structural differences between the manufacturing and service sectors at the firm level, but quality management research has not yet identified similarities or differences in the quality management practices of these two sectors. This study examined 15 years of repeated cross-sectional data for manufacturing firms and service firms that applied to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award between 1991 and 2006. Based on contingency theory, we looked for differences between manufacturing firms and service firms in their implementation of quality management. More specifically, we looked for differences between the two sectors in scores on the Baldrige criteria, using 351 observations from both industry sectors. We found significant differences between manufacturing firms and service firms in two quality management practices: human resource development and management, and customer focus and satisfaction. We also found significant differences between manufacturing firms and service firms in the relationship between the Baldrige criteria and organizational quality outcomes.