Abstract

As customer service quality becomes an important factor that is responsible for the firms’ overall successes, many organizations are trying to seek all related clues which can help them to enhance it. Thus, this research aimed to examine how job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment affected customer service quality among bank employees in Cambodia. To accomplish this objective, 630 bank employees working at different banks in Cambodia were invited to answer questionnaires. Furthermore, a structural equation model was used to analyse data. Results indicated that banks could receive high organizational commitment when their employees obtained significant changes in job satisfaction and job stress. Meanwhile, banks could improve customer service quality if there were significant changes in organizational commitment and job stress, except job satisfaction. Finally, a mediation testing result confirmed organizational commitment as a full mediator between job satisfaction and customer service quality. Despite the results highlighted the significant impacts of job stress and organizational commitment on customer service quality, organizational commitment was the stronger factor promoting better customer service quality as this factor contributed higher degree of impact on customer service quality. Therefore, banks should pay more attention to prioritize and promote their organizational commitment among their employees.

Introduction

Customer service quality represents a critical component of business success, encompassing the delivery of accurate information and high-performance interactions to meet consumers’ needs [ 1 ]. Extensive research has underscored the pivotal role of superior customer service quality in garnering positive evaluations from customers, thereby fostering heightened satisfaction with firms [ 2 ]. Furthermore, it has been well-established that high service quality serves as a potent risk mitigator, engendering greater customer trust [ 3 ] and fostering enduring loyalty towards the same firms [ 4 ]. This symbiotic relationship between customer service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty not only fortifies customer retention rates but also contributes substantially to sustained revenues and business sustainability [ 5 , 6 ]. Given the prevalence of research in this area, including the focus of Goh et al. (2016) [ 7 ] on examining satisfaction in Internet banking within the Malaysian context, it is clear that a nuanced understanding of the root causes underpinning customer service quality is imperative for firms seeking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Meanwhile, amidst the economic resurgence of Cambodia, a dynamic Southeast Asian nation, following the upheaval wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation has demonstrated an impressive average economic growth rate of approximately 5.1 % [ 8 ]. This economic revitalization has catalysed the resumption of business operations across various sectors, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), underscoring the country’s resilient spirit and commitment to progress [ 9 ]. Notably, banks have played a pivotal role in this resurgence, extending an array of financial services to support businesses in Cambodia’s evolving economic landscape [ 10 , 11 ]. Amidst the proliferation of financial service offerings, banks have emerged as crucial facilitators, providing essential services such as e-banking, loans, and various card services (ATM, debit, and credit cards) to meet the diverse needs of businesses [ 11 ]. In this context, the delivery of exemplary customer service quality emerges as a paramount differentiator for banks seeking to distinguish themselves amidst intensifying competition [ 12 ]. Failure to meet customer expectations in terms of service quality may not only jeopardize satisfaction and trust but also impede customer retention, as businesses vie to attract and retain customers amidst an increasingly crowded marketplace [ 10 ]. Thus, it is imperative for banks to discern and comprehend the underlying factors influencing customer service quality to maintain their competitive edge and foster sustainable growth.

Conclusion

The main goal of this research was to examine the effects of job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment on customer service quality in the banking industry. To achieve this aim, 630 bank employees who were from different banks in Cambodia were invited to fill in the survey with 100 % response rate. The results of this study indicated that banks’ organizational commitment was significantly influenced by their employees’ job stress and satisfaction. Moreover, organizational commitment and job stress significantly affected customer service quality while job satisfaction did not show any significant impact on customer service quality. Finally, the mediation testing result confirmed that organizational commitment was the mediator between job satisfaction and customer service quality. To sum up, organizational commitment was the main predictor of customer service quality because this factor had the strongest effect on customer service quality.

Despite achieving its primary objectives, this research is not without limitations. Firstly, reliance on self-reported responses from respondents may introduce bias into the findings. Respondents’ subjective interpretations of questionnaire items could influence their responses, potentially skewing the results. Future studies could mitigate this limitation by employing structured interviews to control for respondent bias and ensure more objective data collection. Secondly, the findings of this research are primarily contextualised within the banking industry, limiting their generalizability to other sectors such as airlines, tourism, and online shopping services. Variables affecting customer service quality may vary across industries due to unique customer expectations and service delivery mechanisms. Thus, future research should explore the applicability of identified variables in diverse industry contexts to enhance understanding of customer service quality across sectors.

Abstract

We review dynamic quality models both in single-agent setup and in a competitive framework. Our objectives are: (1) to give the reader a vantage point on the state of the art in this area, (2) to identify the boundaries between the different concepts of quality to help build a bridge between the various communities interested in the management of quality, and (3) to sketch out a research agenda for the area. The paper should not only be of interest to active researchers in the field, but also to a broader community of scholars and practitioners working in operations management, marketing, industrial engineering and operations research, who are interested in quality dynamics.

Introduction

During the three last decades or so, a large literature has developed on product quality management, with one stream using a dynamic model to reflect the idea that firms can improve the quality of their products over time. This paper surveys this dynamic literature both in a one-firm framework and in a competitive setup. There are several reasons for adopting a dynamic model when dealing with product’s quality. First, consumers’ tastes change over time and if the firm wants to remain competitive (not to say survive) in the market, it must upgrade continuously the quality of its products. Second, changing product’s quality requires constant investments over time to, e.g., improve production processes and use better materials. Third, environmental and safety regulations change over time and so must the product’s quality about may impose some. Finally, establishing a high-quality reputation needs sustained marketing as well as operations efforts.

We all have probably witnessed two friends discussing a product quality or brand’s quality and ending in a deadlock. One likely reason for this outcome is that each party had her own personal definition of quality. Such differences in opinion also occasionally involve consumers and firms. For instance, a new product can be a true marvel from an engineering and production point of view, but be snubbed by consumers because it does not suit their tastes, and therefore be labeled a poor-quality product. Then, one can ask the following simple question: can quality be assessed through a reliable and valid measurement scale? In a seminal paper, Garvin (1988) suggested the following eight dimensions to measure this construct:

Conclusion
This paper surveyed the contributions on quality dynamics both in single-agent and in competitive situations. In this section, we propose some ideas for future investigations, with some of them being relatively straightforward extensions to what has been done, and others being more conceptual (and sometime speculative) ones.

Stochastic models: Looking at the “Model” column in the Appendix, we clearly see that the literature has largely adopted a deterministic model. Given that one can hardly argue that e.g., future demands and costs are known with certainty, the choice of a deterministic setup is, at least partially, motivated by mathematical tractability. Still, this choice has allowed researchers to obtain a series of insights into the management of quality over time. Extending most of the proposed deterministic models to a stochastic environment is conceptually easy, but it will come with the cost of losing the opportunity of having closed-form solutions. Also, depending on how uncertainty is introduced, obtaining a numerical solution may be computationally challenging, especially for multi-agent models with strategic interactions. One good place to start the analysis is to consider a two-stage model where quality decision is made once, while other decisions, e.g., pricing and advertising, are made in both periods. This would allow one to gain intuition on how uncertainties in, e.g., demand or cost, affect the quality decision in current and future periods. Next, one can move to a multistage model where quality decision is made in each period.

Abstract

     The literature on quality-management standards has generally focused on the drivers, motivations, and performance effects of adopting such standards. Yet the last decade has witnessed a substantial degree of decertification behavior, as organizations have increasingly decided to voluntarily withdraw from quality-management standards by not recertifying. While the drivers of the decision to initially adopt quality-management standards have been extensively studied, the drivers of the decision to decertify have received scant scholarly attention. We argue that innovative organizations are generally prone to retaining quality-management certification and thus exhibit a tendency to not abandon certification; however, radically-innovative organizations are more prone than incrementally-innovative organizations to discontinue quality-management standards and thereby exhibit a tendency to withdraw from quality certification. We compile World Bank data surveying facilities based in 50 countries and 103 industrial sectors across the 2003 to 2017 period. Taking advantage of the data’s panel properties yields a dataset composed of up to 1755 facility-level observations of recertification decisions for empirical analysis. Our empirical testing employs a probit estimation technique that accounts for the appropriate fixed effects and generates results that support our theoretical priors regarding decertification behavior.

Introduction

     Certification in internationally-recognized quality standards (e.g., ISO 9000, QS 9000, ISO 13485, and IATF 16949) across the globe by millions of firms and facilities over the last three decades has spurred a great deal of literature—see the reviews by Corbett and Yeung (2008), Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral (2013), and Castka and Corbett (2015). While many studies have focused on the internal and external performance effects of adopting these standards (e.g., Blind, 2001; Hendricks and Singhal, 2001; Corbett et al., 2005; Martínez-Costa et al., 2009; Levine and Toffel, 2010; Singh et al., 2011), Anderson et al.’s (1999) pioneering study established that deciphering the forces which lead to the adoption of quality-management standards represents a central research question within this literature. Factors such as organizational size, firm age, government mandates, customer pressure, supply chains, and export considerations (Corbett and Kirsch, 2001; Vastag, 2004; Corbett, 2006; Delmas and Montiel, 2009) have all been considered instrumental in explaining the decision of a particular facility to incur the costs to seek and obtain a quality-management standard.

Discussion and conclusions

     While a healthy amount of scholarship exists regarding the factors influencing organizational adoption of quality-management standards, Castka and Corbett (2015), Cândido and Ferreira (2021b) and others have pointed out the share scarcity of scholarship focusing on the decision to voluntarily withdraw and decertify from quality standards. This relative neglect with respect to the drivers of decertification is somewhat out of step with a contemporary reality where organizations have been increasingly abandoning quality standards over the last decade (Castka and Corbett, 2015; Cândido et al., 2016, Cândido et al., 2021; Kafel and Simon, 2017; Mastrogiacomo et al., 2021). By neglecting the potential for withdrawal from quality-management standards, the certification literature has made incorrect inferences regarding the universal presence of continued adoption behavior. That is, the quality-certification literature has essentially assumed that adoption pressures unequivocally build for a focal organization when in fact these pressures can be alleviated to such a degree that organizations will begin to withdraw from quality standards.

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Results
Conclusions
References

Abstract

     Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) is an emerging technology that enables a comfortable, safe, and efficient travel experience by providing mechanisms to execute applications related to traffic congestions, road accidents, autonomous driving, and entertainment. The mobile vehicles in VANET are characterized by low computational and storage capabilities. In such scenarios, to meet applications’ performance requirements, requests from vehicles are offloaded to edge and cloud servers. The high energy consumption of these servers increases operating costs and threatens the environment. Energy-aware offloading strategies have been introduced to tackle this problem. Existing works on computation offloading focus on optimizing the energy consumption of either the IoT devices/mobile/vehicles and/or the edge servers. This paper proposes a novel offloading algorithm that optimizes the energy of edge–cloud integrated computing platforms based on Evolutionary Genetic Algorithm (EGA) while maintaining applications’ Service Level Agreement (SLA). The proposed algorithm employs an adaptive penalty function to incorporate the optimization constraints within EGA. Comparative analysis and numerical experiments are carried out between the proposed algorithm, random and genetic algorithm-based offloading, and no offloading baseline approaches.

Introduction

     Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) [1] is an emerging technology where vehicles acting as network nodes are equipped with computational resources and connectivity such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-roadside (V2R), vehicle-to-sensors (V2S), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. It enables a comfortable, safer, convenient, and efficient travel experience for users by using applications such as sending alerts for congestions and accidents, autonomous driving, video-enabled real-time navigation, interactive gaming, and entertainment [2], [3], [4]. These applications often require high computation and storage resources, and low latency to process complex operations. However, mobile vehicles have limited onboard computing and storage capabilities to process resource-intensive applications while maintaining the Quality of Services (QoS). To address this issue, a cloud-based vehicular network has been introduced. Cloud computing [5], [6] provides on-demand computational and storage resources to mobile vehicles over the Internet. The remote cloud servers have high computation capabilities that would satisfy applications processing times. However, a high latency between the vehicle and cloud resources hinders the deployment of time-critical applications such as autonomous driving. In addition, a delayed response for applications such as traffic congestion and interactive gaming becomes less reliable. To overcome vehicles-to-cloud latency issues, Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) [7] has been introduced.

Conclusions and future work

     Computation offloading is important in edge–cloud integrated vehicular networks to execute computationally intensive applications having strict SLA requirements. However, the energy consumption of the edge–cloud integrated computing platform should be considered energy-efficiency is crucial. In this paper, an Energy-SLA-Aware evolutionary genetic algorithm is proposed for edge–cloud computation offloading in a vehicular network that executes a vehicle’s request either on the edge server to which the request is submitted or offloads the request to one of the cloud servers. The offloading decision is made in a way that the total energy consumption of a set of requests is minimized and the SLA requirements of each request are maintained in terms of latency and processing time. The SLA constraints in the proposed algorithm are handled using the adaptive penalty function. This is the first work to propose an energy-SLA-aware offloading in the vehicular network using EGA that optimizes the energy consumption of the edge and cloud servers simultaneously, while adhering to the latency and processing time constraints. Comparative analysis and numerical experiments carried out revealed that the proposed algorithm outperforms no offloading and random offloading approaches in terms of energy consumption, and no offloading, random and energy-non-SLA-aware genetic-based baseline approaches in terms of percentage of SLA violations.

Abstract

     Privacy concerns are an important aspect of business-to-business customers’ adoption decision of advanced product—service systems and a significant inhibiting factor. However, empirical evidence on its effect is scarce and anecdotal. Based on the observation that customers assess the “privacy vs. service/benefit” trade-off in a calculative way, this study examines how customers’ privacy concerns affect their price sensitivity and in turn, the provider’s profitability. Specifically, we propose value-based selling as an approach for providers to alleviate the potential negative effects of customers’ privacy concerns. The results of a sample of 250 US firms confirm value-based selling’s power to disable the privacy concerns–price sensitivity mechanism and mitigate the negative effect of price sensitivity on product-service system provider profitability. However, value-based selling’s positive impact on performance is dependent on the level of contract specificity. Thus, value-based selling and contract specificity are complementary arrangements.

Introduction

     In many industries, emphasis is shifting from selling products to selling innovative product-service systems (PSS) (Suppatvech, Godsell, & Day, 2019). Enabled by sensor technology and digitalization, these PSS generally rely on remote monitoring, extensive data sharing and analyses, and predictive analytics to improve system performance and drive down cost (Porter & Heppelmann, 2015). However, despite the rapid growth and potential of these advanced services, getting customers to accept them continues to be a challenge (Paluch, 2014).

     There are very good reasons for customers’ reluctance. The adoption of PSS often comes with serious security issues and privacy concerns for the customer firm, as well as with the danger of opportunistic behavior by the PSS provider (Paluch & Wunderlich, 2016; Vendrell-Herrero, Bustinza, Parry, & Georgantzis, 2017; Weinberg, Milne, Andonova, & Hajjat, 2015). Data transmission may not be secure, data leakage may occur, and providers may use sensitive competitive information for other purposes than agreed upon. This can make the customer vulnerable and could seriously hurt its firm’s competitive sustainability. More importantly, Paluch and Wunderlich (2016, p. 2429) argue that “providers are aware of the customers’ security concerns, but they underestimate their urgency.”

Findings

5.1. Main findings
Table 1 shows the PROCESS results for the full model. The model fit (see R2 ) shows that our independent variables explain a fair amount of variance in our dependent variables, i.e. 34% of price sensitivity and 66% of provider profitability (Table 1). Thus, the model specification is adequate.

     The detailed results show that VBS significantly moderates the relationship between customer privacy concerns and customer price sensitivity, turning it negative (B = − 0.16, p < .01). This lends support to H1; under conditions of high VBS privacy concerns do not affect customer price sensitivity, whereas under low value-based selling a strong positive relationship between privacy concerns and price sensitivity exists. In other words, VBS deactivates the potential privacy calculus mechanism.

     However, VBS does not moderate the customer price sensitivity–PSS provider profitability relationship (B = 0.04, p > .10). So, H2 is not supported.

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Literature review and hypotheses

3. Research method

4. Analysis and results

5. Discussion and conclusions

Funding details

Declaration of Competing Interest

Appendix A. Direct effects

References

Abstract

This study analyzes the influence of quality management practices on organizational ambidexterity and on performance, and the mediating role of ambidexterity in the relationship between quality management practices and performance in the hotel industry. The paper uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis based on data from 365 Spanish hotels. The results show that quality management practices favor the development of organizational ambidexterity, that is, they help balance exploitation and exploration activities, and this contributes to improving hotel performance. Moreover, ambidexterity acts as a partial mediator between quality management practices and hotel performance. These findings imply that quality management practices can create an appropriate organizational context to simultaneously develop both service improvements (exploitative innovations) and service innovations (explorative innovations). This paper contributes to theory by developing new knowledge regarding quality management as a facilitator of ambidexterity, and the mediating role of ambidexterity in the relationship between quality management and hotel performance.

1. Introduction

Organizational ambidexterity refers to a firm’s ability to develop both the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties (March, 1991). Exploitation of current resources and capabilities is needed to increase competitiveness in the current market, whereas exploration prepares for dealing with future needs (Asif and De Vries, 2015). Both activities are essential for organizations to achieve long-term performance (Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996). Nevertheless, the literature on organizational ambidexterity points out that the activities of exploration and exploitation compete for scarce resources and create paradoxical challenges, because they require substantially different structures, processes, strategies, capabilities, and cultures (Backström, 2017; He and Wong, 2004). Consequently, it could be difficult for organizations to reach a high degree of exploration and exploitation simultaneously (Asif and De Vries, 2015).

1- Introduction

2- Related literature and hypotheses development

3- Data

4- Results

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

We examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is used to signal product quality and whether CSR affects firm value through its positive effect on product market perception. Using a proprietary database, we find that visible CSR, such as environmental and community involvement, positively impacts product market perception, particularly for standardized goods and in competitive industries, and that this impact is more pronounced for product quality attributes. Furthermore, we find that CSR indirectly increases firm value through an improvement in product market perception. We conclude that product market perception is a channel through which CSR creates firm value.

Introduction

“Corporate social responsibility (CSR) occurs when firms engage in activity that appears to advance social agenda beyond that which is required by law.” (Siegel and Vitaliano, 2007). The importance of CSR has been growing in the last few years. In January of 2018, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, called for the corporate CEOs to think not just about profits, but also about making a “positive contribution to society”. In August of 2019 more than 180 of CEOs pledged that their firms’ purpose was no longer to serve their owners alone, but customers, employees, suppliers and communities, too. Harjoto and Jo (2011) summarize the existing theories as to why firms undertake CSR and argue that one of the ways firms use CSR is to signal product quality. Such signals deal with adverse selection arising from information asymmetry about product quality (Kirmani and Rao, 2000). As a result, while CSR is costly, it has strategic implications and is a source of competitive advantage for companies across different industries (Baron, 2001; McWilliams et al., 2006; Porter and Kramer, 2006). However, the literature on the empirical relationship between CSR and firm value is inconclusive, with many of the studies showing a positive impact of CSR on firm value, but some providing evidence in the opposite direction.

1- Introduction

2- Overview of targeted ISO standards

3- Agile metrics to support monitoring and control processes

4- Conformance with targeted ISO standards

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Agile approaches are well perceived in software development companies. These approaches are not faced with traditional process models. This research analyses how by defining and monitoring a set of Agile metrics, Agile mature companies can be also conformant with the best practices proposed by the targeted ISO process reference models. Conformance has been identified with five Technical Management processes of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 standard and with two activities of the Project Management process of the ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2 standard. The findings may be of the interest of those Agile settings that need to work according to the process model established in the company.

Introduction

Since the emergence of Agile in the early 1990s, Information Technology (IT) companies have had an increasing interest in applying Agile software development methods. Many settings claim to be Agile or wish to adopt these methods [1]. Implementation of Agile approaches helps software development companies to tailor their services and products, thus providing the ability to adapt to current dynamics in the market [2], [3]. The use of Agile has caused a significant change on how projects are organized and executed [4], [5]. Due to its optimization effect and reduction of overhead, Agile practices can help mature organizations to become more flexible [6], [7]. As a consequence, Agile approaches are well perceived by both management and developers [8], and software development organizations recognize the need for agility in nearly every project they execute [9]. Agile approaches are also appropriate for organizations that develop critical software, as well as for other settings in other critical sectors such as automobile, medical or aerospace, among others. Although this kind of companies need to show conformance to recognized and widely accepted standards such as CMMI or SPICE, they need to be more agile. In any case, it is not incompatible to have a certification according to a maturity model and work following an Agile approach.

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical background

3- Materials and methods

4- Findings and discussion

5- Conclusions

References

Abstract

For many companies, the servitization of business grounded on Product Service Systems is proving to be a winning value proposition based as it is on a distinctive mix of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable solutions aimed at satisfying customer’s needs. This research investigates the conjoint effect of three potential sources of PSS’s competitive advantage: the type of PSS, i.e. a value proposition directed at a market segment based on specific customer behaviour, the core resources, competences and organizational processes on which the PSS’s business model is based and their level of protection from competitor’s replication. We adopted a multiple case study methodology to take into account the complex interrelation of the variables characterizing the phenomenon investigated by sampling 10 companies and collecting data by means of semi-structured interviews. Results of within- and cross-case analysis reveal that Use-Oriented PSS business models gain a competitive advantage from physical resources and organizational processes, whether protected against replication threat or not, while Result-Oriented PSS business models from people competences. Human capital is fundamental also for ProductOriented PSS business models, but companies can reach a competitive advantage only if protected against replication threat from competitors. The paper contributes to the expanding PSS literature by identifying potentially distinctive factors of the PSS business model and by providing useful considerations on PSS competitive and strategic potential, with an in-depth analysis of success elements.

Introduction

The Servitization of business refers to a shift from an exclusive focus on products or an exclusive focus on services toward integrated systems or bundles of products and services, with services playing an ever more relevant role as compared with products (Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988). Servitization can be based on a Product Service System, “a business model focused toward the provision of a marketable set of products and services, designed to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, with the final aim of fulfilling customer’s needs” (Annarelli et al., 2016: 1017). The integration of products and services can bring a non-negligible innovative potential, securing competitiveness while at the same time allowing companies to address environmental concerns and provide more sustainable offerings on the market. Indeed, PSS brings within it an incentive for companies to prolong the useful products’ life cycle, so as to ensure a better exploitation of physical resources and offering customers a more satisfactory experience (Tukker, 2015). Although there has been substantial research into Servitization and PSS for more than 20 years, there are still some important gaps concerning the analysis of the strategic value of PSS and its ability to constitute a value proposition (Baines et al., 2017; Kuijken et al., 2017). It is essential to investigate the current role of PSS as a value proposition and, to this end, evaluate the competitive advantage obtained by firms thanks to PSS implementation (Lightfoot et al., 2013). In their review, Annarelli et al. (2016) show that only a small number of papers (if compared to the total academic production on PSS) (~10%) have provided an analysis of PSS’s competitive potential. A considerable amount of contributions investigated the sustainability potential. Baines et al. (2007) underlined the impact of PSS on environmental dimension of sustainability: the reduction of consumption of inputs, of waste production and of public pressure on environmental issues. Lee et al. (2012) highlighted that PSS can impact positively on social sustainability by improving customers’ quality of life, comfortability of living environment, income level and health status. As regards the empirical base, some authors have focused on manufacturing firms. Azarenko et al. (2009) conducted a demonstration case study to investigate the feasibility of PSS for machine tool providers operating in a B2B context. Rese et al.

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical foundation and hypotheses development

3- Research methodology

4- Discussion, implications, and limitations

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Considering the environmental deterioration and dwindling natural resources, the present study aims to investigate the structural relationship between total quality management (TQM) and corporate sustainability (CS), and examines how TQM practices can facilitate firms to achieve CS objectives. This study also analyses the important role of knowledge management (KM) in the relationship between TQM and CS and investigates how KM mediates the relationship between TQM and CS. Six TQM practices were taken from The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) model; CS was comprised of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and KM was measured through knowledge creation, acquisition, sharing, and application. The data was collected from medium and large-sized organizations from the manufacturing and services firms located in Pakistan. The theoretical model and hypotheses were tested through structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicate that TQM has a significant and positive impact on CS, and KM partially mediates the relationship between them. The dimensional level analysis indicates that TQM has an insignificant relationship with knowledge creation and KM has an insignificant relationship with environmental sustainability. The findings provide valuable insights to the management of manufacturing and services industries and how they can ensure the sustainability in their organizations through TQM and KM.

Introduction

Considering the technological, social, political, and environmental changes occurred during the last few decades, an organization’s ability to acquire and sustain competitive advantage has become a real challenge (Cancino et al., 2018). These changes not only lead to more options for customers but have also altered their preferences and demands (Habib et al., 2019). Moreover, the increased customers’ awareness about the dwindling natural resources, water, air and soil pollution (Li et al., 2018), and change in natural climate are forcing firms to adopt environmentfriendly practices and minimise their reliance on fossil fuel resulting in ecological vulnerabilities (Yuan and Xiang, 2018). In the present era, dynamic organizations prefer to follow multiple strategies at the same time and support their prime strategy with subsequent strategies (Yusr et al., 2017) so that they can achieve the goal of sustainable development (SD) in an efficient and effective manner (Abbas, 2019). According to United Nations’ Brundtland Commission report, organizational development will be considered as SD if it fulfils the present generation’s needs without compromising the future generation’s ability to meet their needs (UN, 1987). This definition indicates the value of stakeholders and the environment, such as future generations and natural resources (particularly non-renewable ones), and symbolize that to achieve sustainability, organizations must behave ethically and value them. Corporate sustainability(CS) consists of three dimensions, namely social sustainability, which relates to people and society, environmental sustainability, which focuses on earth and natural resources, and economic sustainability, which concentrates on the financial aspects of firms (Shahzad et al., 2019). Some studies also used the term Triple Bottom Line (TBL) for these dimensions.