Sustainability

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Qin Su

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Interests: quality management theory and applications; industrial engineering; manufacturing and service systems management

Dr. Chenglong Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Interests: quality management and quality engineering; statistical decisions

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The unprecedented global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complexed and ambiguous) environment has posed a wide range of threats and hazards to organizations. In response to internal and external drivers of the VUCA, total quality management (TQM) practices serve as guarantees of normal organizational functioning, achievements of performance excellence and cornerstones of sustainable development. While the ubiquity of big data is challenging the old wisdoms of quality management and sustainability ideas from digital and ecosystem-level perspectives, it also arms organizations with tremendous information resources to support their managerial decisions. Since the intertwined organizational activities result in high-level interdependence among organizations, international standards require managers to invest in sustainability from the ecosystem perspective. Implementations of QEODS, namely, quality (ISO: 9000), environment (ISO: 14000), occupational health (ISO: 45001), data security (ISO: 27001), and social responsibility (SA: 8000) become the path for organizations to gain sustainable competitiveness. To seize the opportunity and build sustainable organizations, it is fundamentally critical to clarify the effectiveness of TQM practices in VUCA environments, design proactive QEODS implementations for organizations, and print a practical roadmap of quality ecosystems.

This Special Issue aims to collect high-quality papers covering various aspects of total quality management and sustainability, including but not limited to the roles of data-driven TQM methods in sustainable business excellence, identifications of digital TQM dimensions in sustainable organizations, business TQM practice and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, information technologies usage and TQM innovations for business sustainability, strategies of digital quality management decisions, and sustainable quality ecosystem design. We welcome original papers related to these and other aspects of TQM and sustainability, without any limitations in terms of research methodologies.

Prof. Dr. Qin Su
Dr. Chenglong Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

total quality management
sustainable organizations
data-driven quality and sustainable decisions
business sustainability and ESG performance
digital quality management
quality ecosystem
QEODS implementations

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

24 pages, 733 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of Total Quality Management Practices on Financial and Operational Performance of Hospitals

by Songul Zehir and Cemal Zehir

Sustainability 2023, 15(21), 15430; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115430 - 30 Oct 2023

Viewed by 2304

Abstract

The Total Quality Management (TQM) system is known to have a beneficial impact on sustainability. This study aimed to elucidate the achievement of hospital sustainability by analyzing the relationship between the implementation of TQM practices (leadership of management, decision making, continuous improvement, customer focus, employee involvement, process management, and relations with suppliers), and their impact on the financial and operational performance of hospitals. The gathered data underwent analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM) to empirically investigate the impact of TQM methods on the financial and operational performance of hospitals. A total of 1069 surveys were completed in 6 privately-owned and 26 publicly-owned hospitals located in the Marmara region of Turkey. This study contributes significantly by addressing gaps in the existing literature. There is a lack of empirical research that has examined the potential correlation between TQM, operational success, and financial performance in both public and private hospitals. Especially in developing nations like Turkey, the focus is on the early phases of implementing TQM principles, with a primary emphasis on continuous improvement and sustainable performance. The results demonstrate that Total Quality Management (TQM) exerts a substantial impact on the financial and operational performance of hospitals in the service industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Total Quality Management and Sustainability: Digital Quality Management and Quality Ecosystem)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 2184 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Significant Factors Affecting the Quality of Housing Infrastructure Project Construction in Saudi Arabia Using PLS-SEM

by Nasser Aljarallah, Abdullah M. Alsugair, Abdulmohsen S. Almohsen and Khalid S. Al-Gahtani

Sustainability 2023, 15(20), 14998; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014998 - 18 Oct 2023

Viewed by 1213

Abstract

Quality construction contributes to the overall sustainability of the built environment, especially for infrastructure projects. High-quality housing infrastructure projects benefit individuals, communities, and the economy. Most studies are concerned with identifying the reasons for the quality of a construction project. However, only a few of them have been concerned with housing infrastructure. In addition, no studies have considered the interdependencies among the factors affecting the quality of housing infrastructure projects, leading to these causes not being evaluated effectively. This paper aims to specify and organize the significant factors affecting the quality of housing infrastructure projects. These projects suffer from the availability of all infrastructure services simultaneously before their execution. A comprehensive literature review was implemented to collect all the factors affecting their quality. Construction sector experts designed and filled out a questionnaire based on the collected data. The survey data were then statistically analyzed using a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) to organize the causes and examine the interdependencies among the quality of each cause. Our main finding revealed that based on the PLS-SEM, the top three factors affecting the construction quality were the skill and experience of supervisory staff, errors and omissions in design documents, and the lack of communication between supervisors and laborers. Based on the PLS-SEM ranking, labor, equipment, and site staff were responsible for more than half of the top 10 causes. The PLS-SEM results showed that the contractor material (CM) and project design (PD) percentages were 20% and 30%.. In addition, there is an interaction influence between the labor/equipment/site staff (LES) causes and PD causes. This study assists stakeholders in understanding how to use Six Sigma construction concepts to enhance performance in the nation’s construction industry, which helps contractors make improvements in variability reduction and save costs in construction projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Total Quality Management and Sustainability: Digital Quality Management and Quality Ecosystem)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Total Quality Management and Sustainability: Digital Quality Management and Quality Ecosystem

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (2 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI