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.