Innovation capability and its role in enhancing the relationship between TQM practices and innovation performance

Innovation plays a critical role in predicting the long-term survival of organizations, determining an organization’s success and sustaining its global competitiveness, especially in an environment where technologies, competitive position and customer demands can change almost overnight, and where the life-cycle of products and services are becoming shorter.Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to extend the existing knowledge as to the relationship between TQM practices and innovation performance by exploring the expected role of innovation capability as mediator to enhance this relationship.At the same time, this study attempted to shed a light on how to improve innovation performance of manufacturing companies in Malaysia.The gained results indicated that innovation capability mediates the relationship between TQM practices and innovation performance. More importantly, this study supports the findings of the past studies that questioned the role of TQM practices in improving innovation performance. Finally, in light of the obtained results, several recommendations were introduced to assist decision makers in manufacturing companies

Study for selection of industrial areas suitable to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Korea

In this study, the investigation into basic methodology for selecting the industrial areas suitable to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Korea was performed by using the statistical data about the corporations (2010 ~ 2012) as the quantitative evidences containing the number of companies, the number of workers, the annual sales, and the indices of market concentration and growth potential. From the Statistics Korea and the KISTI Market Analysis and Prediction System (K-MAPS), the statistical data organized by the Korean Standard Industrial Classification (KSIC) were obtained to conduct this research through the following procedure. First of all, the numbers of enterprises and employees and the annual sales of all industries were investigated and the largest number of workers and the highest annual sales were found in the sector of manufacturing among all sectors of KSIC. Secondly, the top three divisions with the highest annual sales in all divisions of manufacturing sector were selected. Thirdly, the subclasses having high values of annual sales and SMEs proportions among all subclasses in the top three divisions of the previous step were chosen as the candidates of SMEs-recommendable fields. Fourthly, the degree of market concentration was analyzed by using three-firm concentration ratio (CR3) and Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) of the selected subclasses. Finally, the study for growth potential of chosen subclasses was performed through the analysis of compound annual growth rate (CAGR). After the overall process of this study was carried out with the synthetic consideration of the above-mentioned factors, the three subclasses of KSIC as industrial areas suitable to the SMEs could be found: (1) Manufacture of printed circuit boards, (2) Manufacture of parts and accessories for motor engines, and (3) Manufacture of parts and accessories for motor vehicle body. From this result, it was found that the values of annual sales, CR3, HHI, and CAGR can be very useful factors to discover the recommendable industry fields to the SMEs