Resumen:
Purpose¿Literature refers to the key factors of total quality management (TQM) based on studies carriedout in individual countries. However, few studies focus on studying the TQM factors in service companiesbased on multinational data. The purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the key TQM factors andtheir impact on internal and external customer performance measures across different countries.Design/methodology/approach¿The research questions regarding the TQM factors and their effectswere examined using a sample of service organisations from three countries (131 from Greece, 70 from Mexicoand 151 from Spain). TQM factors and their impact on employee and customer satisfaction were analysedseparately for each country. Exploratory factor analyses, coupled with multiple linear regression analyses,were conducted.Findings¿The key TQM factors identified are common among the three participating countries and can besummarised as follows: quality practices of top management, process management, employee qualitymanagement, customer focus, and employee knowledge and education. The adoption level of these five keyfactors of TQM varies across service organisations in different countries. The results also confirmed thatsome of the TQM elements are antecedents of customer- and employee-focused performance.Practical implications¿Multinational service organisations may use such an instrument to evaluate TQMimplementation among worldwide operations and then benchmark their performan
