The effect of hard and soft quality management and innovationperformance (Case study: Saipa Automotive Company)

Today, in the competitive business scenario, numerous paradigms, initiatives, andoperational practices have emerged in response to competitive pressures of the automotiveindustry that demand improved product quality, inflated responsiveness, and shorter leadtimes, however at lower prices. For this purpose, this analysis has been conducted with theaim of investigating the impact of TQM to boost and upgrade the extent of product qualityand innovation performance in Saipa Automobile Company.

From the applied purpose and collecting descriptive data perspective and thekind of it is explanatory. The statistical population of the research consists of 140 high, middleand operational managers (supervisors) and experts who are knowledgeable about the subjectunder investigation of Saipa Automobile Company. The minimum sample required to use thestructural equation modeling method based on partial least squares (SEM-PLS), using the firstrule of Barclay et al. (1995), was estimated to be 70 samples. Therefore, in order to make amore accurate estimate, the questionnaire was distributed among 120 senior, middle andoperational managers and the number of 100 completed questionnaires, received, wasanalyzed.

To be successful in the field of quality, having the soft and hard aspects of TQM atthe same time is very crucial.

Soft TQM has a positive effect on hard TQM. It was also found that soft TQM failedto influence the innovation performance of Saipa Automobile Company. Finally, the resultsindicate that hard TQM has a positive effect on the innovation performance of SaipaAutomobile Company. In addition, the results of the ''T'' test indicate that using soft and hardTQM as well as innovative function of Saipa Automotive Company has considerably beenmore impressive.