Influence of Soft Total Quality Management Practices and University Performance

Abstract

This study aims to assess the influence of soft total quality management practices on university performance. In addition to that, it also assesses the mediating role of data analytics knowledge between soft quality management practices and university performance. The data was collected from the middle and lower middle management of the both public and private universities of Pakistan and 219 responses were found suitable for analysis. The data was analyze using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of the analysis showed that out of three dimensions of soft total quality management; human resource and customer focus found to be significant while top management appears as insignificant. Moreover, the data analytics knowledge has a significant influence on university performance. In the mediation analysis, data analytics knowledge significantly mediates the relationship between top management, human resource, customer focus and university performance. The results suggested that in order to enhance the university performance, management need to recognize the importance of soft total quality management practices through the lens of data analytics knowledge. It is worth to allocate resources to develop strong soft quality management practices to achieve overall quality management system and superior performance.