Qual Quant (2013) 47:20492063 DOI 10.

1007/s11135-011-9641-8

TQM practice in real-estate industry using AHP

P. Sanjay Sarathy

Received: 4 August 2011 / Accepted: 7 November 2011 / Published online: 8 February 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Total quality management (TQM) has been recognized as a successful management philosophy that can be successfully practiced in the Real-estate industry. The purpose of this research is to determine the important factors that inuence the TQM practice in real estate industry. The research methods employed included a literature review, in-depth interviews and focus group techniques which were used as a rst to identify ten constructs of TQM in organizations. That is Top Management Commitment, Customer Focus, Benchmarking, Continuous Improvement, Supplier Quality Management, Product Innovation, Product Quality, Employees Involvement, Rewards and Recognition, Educational and Training. The AHP questionnaires were sent as 142 organizations of members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India, in the metro city of Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. The sampling procedure resulted in an overall response rate of 51% and the result was categorized based on organization sizesmall, medium and large. Then, the empirical study adopted the techniques of the Analytic Hierarchy Process to solicit opinions from 72 expert opinion collected through mail questionnaire. The results show that Employee involvement, top management commitment, employee customer focus, plays very important role for TQM practice in organizations. The results show that the Employees Involvement is most important to TQM practice in India. This is not difcult to understand, since the less than desirable record of real-estate industry. Therefore, the key to a successful strategy is to rebuild the condence of TQM practice in real-estate industry. Keywords TQM Real-estate AHP

1 Introduction Quality management has been recognized and as an important area in Indian real estate industry. Quality holds the key to competitiveness in todays global market, regardless of the size

P. S. Sarathy (B ) XLRI, School of Business & Human Resources, Circuit House Area East, Jamshedpur 831 035, India e-mail: r09019@astra.xlri.ac.in; sanjay.sarathy@yahoo.com

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of the real estate organization. Total quality management (TQM) programmers and practices are primarily embraced in large multinational organizations. Little has been written about the principles that inuence TQM implemented in Indian Real Estate industry. Within the last two decades, TQM has evolved as a strategic approach in most manufacturing and service organizations to respond to the challenges posed by the competitive business world. This evolution is very widespread across the globe (Lakhe and Mohanty 1994). TQM is a customer-oriented, quality focused management philosophy for continuous improvement (Rogers 1996). It is often termed a journey, not a destination (Burati and Oswald 1993). TQM has but a single purpose: to improve the performance of ones business. It is a means to that end, not an end in itself (Anschutz 1995). Quality assurance methods are being developed and statistical quality control tools are being applied in considerable detail from design to delivery of products and services. Larger real-estate organizations have undertaken practice of TQM projects. These projects have been of remarkable success to some, but failures for many. The literature implies that as the leaders and decision makers focus on constructs of TQM as successful factors, improvements will occur in the quality of products and processes in productivity of resources, and ultimately will result in improved market share and nancial performance. Most of the quality gurus believe that management and the system, rather than the workers, are the cause of a lack in quality. These and others have synthesized each others ideas, and have developed two general views covering: (1) those who focus on technical processes and tools and (2) those who focus on management dimensions (Ross 1994). Tang and Bauer (1995) proposed two fundamental quality approaches that organizations should practice. They are: (1) Conformance to specications and standards (systems approach), and (2) theories and practices of quality experts (humanistic approach). A better understanding is therefore required to investigate the construct that inuences the TQM practice as well as their relative weight age of organization sizes in real-estate industry.

2 Literature review 2.1 Total quality management The evolutionary philosophy of TQM which stands as a testimony today is due to the pioneering contributions made by Juran, Deming, Crosby, Feigenbaum and many others. Juran (1991) stressed upon planning, improvement and control as essentials of quality management. Feigenbaum (1990) proposed the concepts of organization-wide quality control. Deming (1986) recommended 14 principles for effectively managing quality. Crosby (1991) proposed a 14-step zero defect quality improvement programme. The dominant emphasis of these pioneers was on top management leadership for quality, supplier quality management, process design and control, employee training and employee involvement in quality. Sink (1991) emphasized collective ownership and common concern as prerequisites to TQM. There are many definitions of TQM; different researchers have adopted different definitions. Oakland (1989) has dened TQM as an approach to improving the effectiveness and exibility of business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organization and involving the whole organization: every department, every activity and every single person at every level. Zaire (1991) identied process exibility, workplace design, user-supplier chain and management control system as the pillars on which the TQM system is built.

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Harrington (1997) mentioned that the quality practices being recommended by the quality professionals had been accepted based on gut feelings. He further said that there is not a statistically sound data base by which one can verify the impact of various factors on a organizations performance. Mohanty (1997) proposed a research agenda in the eld of TQM, which according to him is to arrive at an integration of structure and processes, theory and empiricism, top-down and bottom-up, management methods and engineering technology. Saraph et al. (1989) made the most remarkable attempt to develop an instrument for measuring the critical factors of quality management. Benson (1991) proposed a system -structural model of quality management, and in fact rst used the organization theory to explain the fundamentals of quality management. Flynn et al. (1994) opined that very little empirical research focuses specication on quality management practices, despite the prevalence of this topic in the descriptive literature. They have established a very comprehensive relationship of quality management to dimensions of world class manufacturing. Bohoris (1995) made a comparative assessment of some major quality awards and remarked that it is very difcult to dene a total quality organization. Mohanty (1996) presented a comparative study between scientic management, socio-technological systems approach and TQM by bringing out the fundamental assumptions, practical implications, potentialities and limitations of these approaches. The commonality in ideology and the distinctive identity of each approach have been discussed in this research paper. Lam (1996) conducted a research study in Hong Kong-based organizations and the results of this research suggest that different organizations have adopted different objectives while carrying out TQM. The quality of the survey instruments used in different studies varies considerably. The majority of the papers have no explicit discussion of reliability and validity of the instruments. Mohanty (1995) has presented a number of Indian examples where TQM has been implemented. He has identied the reasons for the relative success/failure of many TQM programmes. Today, most leading Indian real estate organizations are making efforts to integrate their businesses with the global economy. This integration requires an inside-in cultural transformation. As a result, many corporations are accepting TQM as a strategic management approach for growth and survival. Therefore, this research is an attempt to identify the set of important constructs that can inuence TQM practice in Indian real-estate industry and aims at carrying forward the discussions on empirical research in the evolutionary eld of TQM. 2.2 Indian real-estate industry Real-estate performance issuescontinued strong growth in the Indian economy, deregulation of the Indian capital markets since 2004, and less restrictive guidelines for foreign direct investment in real estate in India since February 2005have seen significant improvements in the real-estate environment in India, for both local and international players. This has taken on increased importance as India significantly expands its economic growth to potentially be the worlds third largest economy by 2020, and international real-estate investors seek global investment opportunities, particularly, in the emerging Asian real-estate markets. With New Delhi as the political center, Mumbai as the nancial center, and Bangalore as the IT center in India, are cities the main contributors to the real-estate market in India?

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Currently, Mumbai and Bangalore are seen as the top two Asian cities in terms of investor sentiment being largely driven by strong economic performance and offshoring demand for ofce space (Naidu et al. 2005). Newell and Kamineni (2005) state that the development of the Indian real-estate markets is also reected in many of the leading real-estate advisory rmsJones Lang LaSalle, Cushman and Wakeeld, now being actively involved in India. Prior to February 2005, foreign direct real-estate investment was not allowed in India for ofce and retail real estate, with permission from the Reserve Bank of India for foreign organizations to acquire the real estate necessary for their business activities in India. One hundred percent of foreign direct investment was only allowed for IT/business parks or hotels, and large residential developments. In February 2005, India allowed 100% foreign direct investment in the construction and development sector to facilitate investment in the infrastructure sector covering housing, commercial real estate, hotels, resorts, recreational facilities, and infrastructure. In 2004, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed capital funds to invest in India. This move made the international real-estate fund organization to start investing based on project potential in India. Presently, apart from local real-estate funds organizations such as ICICI, HDFC, and Kotak Reality, international players such as Tishman Speyer, Starwood capital, Apollo Sun, GE Commercial Financial Real Estate and Macquarie joins hand with developers to do projects successfully (Sarathy 2011). 2.3 Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) The AHP, developed at the Wharton Scholl of Business by Saaty (1980, 1994), allows decision makers to model a complex problem in a hierarchical structure showing the relationships of the goal, objectives (criteria), sub-objectives, and alternatives. Thus, a typical hierarchy consists of at least three levels, the goal(s), the objectives, and the alternatives. Zahedi (1986) provided an extensive list of references on the AHP methodology and its applications. Further research extended by Marsh et al. (1991) developed a more specic method directly for decision-making. The Marshs AHP had three steps ordering the factors (i.e. attributes) of a decision such that the most important ones receive greatest weight. AHP enables decision-makers to derive ratio scale priorities or weights as opposed to arbitrarily assigning them. In so doing, AHP not only supports decision makers by enabling them to structure complexity and exercise judgment, but allows them to incorporate both objective and subjective considerations in the decision process.AHP has advantages in group making are (Dyer and Forman 1991): All values, individual and/or group, tangible and/or intangible are contented in group decision process with AHP. The discussion focuses on goal instead of options into the group. The discussion media in which is considered all factors is established with AHP. The discussion continues until consensus, due to provide opinions from each member. The AHP is a method for breaking down a complex and unstructured situation into its component parts, then arranging those parts (or variables) into a hierarchical order. This method is based on the assignment of numerical values for subjective judgments on the relative importance of each variable, then synthesizing the judgments to determine which variables have the highest priority (Saaty 1994). The AHP is ideally suited to help resolve certain problems that arise when multiple criteria are used in performance evaluation. For example, the pair wise comparisons for measure(s) priority can be done using a ratio scale. This facilitates the incorporation of non-quantitative

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measures into the evaluation scheme, since it forces participants to translate all criteria into relative priority structures based on the scale. Thus, using the AHP means that non-quantitative assessments can be combined with quantitative assessments in rating a unit or an individual. The AHP has been widely and successfully applied in a variety of decision-making environments (Zahedi 1986; Golden et al. 1989; Zopounidis and Doumpos 1997, 1998, 1999a,b, 2000a,b). The study is based on group decision making. In addition to nal preference weights, the AHP permits calculation of a value called the consistency index. This index measures transitivity of preference for the person doing the pair wise comparisons (Sinuany-Stern 1988). To illustrate the meaning of transitivity of preference, if a person prefers choice A over B, and B over C, then do they in consistent fashion prefer A over C? This index provides a useful check, because the AHP method does not inherently prevent the expression of intransitivity of preferences when ratings are being performed. The AHP consistency index compares a persons informed preferences ratings to those generated by a random preference expression process. An arbitrary but generally accepted as tolerable level of inconsistent preference scoring with the AHP is less than or equal to 0.1 (Sinuany-Stern 1988). A consistency ratio CR is computed for each comparison matrix. In an interactive application of AHP a matrix classied as being inconsistent (CR > 0.1) was given back to the decision making for modication until it fullls the consistency condition. All of them were less of 0.1 (Mirkazemi et al. 2009). For determining weight of every alternative, arithmetic means was used based on formula 1: ri j = ai j /
n i =1

ai j

J = 1, 2 , 3, . . . m ,

Formula 1

Vectors of the arithmetic means of the coefcients of importance were rescaled in the manner that their sum equaled one. Then the symphonic means were calculated based on formula 2: Wi =
n i =1

ri j / n

J = 1, 2 , 3, . . . , m

Formula 2

For the real-estate industries, identifying the factors that inuence the organizational innovation is just as important as other decisions. The AHP can also be utilized to rank the importance of various alternatives. In this study, the application of the AHP technique helps identifying what are the factors that inuence the organization innovations and their relative importance.

3 Research construct for TQM This section deals with dening constructs identied from the literature and generating items that represent manifestations of these constructs. Constructs are a latent variable, which means they cannot be measured directly. For example, top management commitment to quality is a construct that cannot be measured directly. However, when top management is committed to quality, adequate resources will be allocated to quality improvement efforts. Thus, allocation of adequate resources to quality improvement efforts can be one of the manifestations of Top Management Commitment to quality. For a eld study, each manifestation is measured with an item in a scale (Ahire et al. 1996).

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There is a consensus view that organizations should follow a number of constructs in an integrated way for successful TQM practice (Claver et al. 2003). The TQM constructs discussed in the literature have common themes such as top management commitment, supplier quality management, continuous improvement, product innovation, benchmarking, employee involvement, reward and recognition, education and training, customer focus, product quality (Claver et al. 2003; Tari 2005) and design quality management, SPC usage, internal quality information systems (Ahire et al. 1996). In our research, we are nding the relative importance of constructs for successful practice of TQM across the real-estate organization. Based on the literature review, the following constructs have been identied. The literature supporting each construct is studied and well established as below. Figure 1 shows the TQM wheel in the organizational. 3.1 Top management commitment Top management support is one of the major pre-requisites of successful TQM practice (Ahire et al. 1996; Deming 2000; Flynn and Saladin 2001; Kaynak 2003). Samson and Terziovski (1999) found that top management leadership is a strong predictor of rm performance. Top management acts as a driver of QM practice, creating values, goals, and systems to satisfy customer expectations and to improve an organizations performance. The clarity of quality goals for an organization determines the effectiveness of the quality efforts.

Product Quality

Employees Involvement

Product Innovation

Rewards and Recognition

Supplier Quality Management

Educational and Training

Continuous Improvement

Top Management Commitment

Bench Marking Customer Focus

Fig. 1 TQM wheel in organizational

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Top management committed to quality must convey the philosophy that quality will receive a higher priority over cost or schedule, and that in the long-run, superior and consistent quality will lead to improvements in cost and delivery performance (Ahirey and OShaughnessy 1998). Almost all the quality awards recognize the crucial role of top management leadership creating the goals, values and systems to satisfy customer expectations and to improve performance of organizations. Performance assessment for corporate top executives should also include a critical component: their performance on quality dimension (Kaynak 2003). The top management should not only give high priority to quality, but should also demonstrate its quality commitment by providing adequate resources to the practice of QM efforts (Chou and Chou 2007). Thus, Top Management Commitment is very important for TQM practice. 3.2 Customer focus Customer focus is often regarded as the most fundamental value of TQM (Juran and Gryna 1993; Flynn et al. 1994; Ahire et al. 1996; Zhang et al. 2000; Lagrosen 2001; Chong and Rundus 2004; Taylor and Wright 2006). Most of the quality gurus, like Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa, and Juran emphasize on improving customer satisfaction (Chong and Rundus 2004). Taylor and Wright (2006) found that organizations who recognized that TQM was about making the customer the focus of all business processes gain more success than those who saw it solely as an internally-focused problem solving activity. A close relationship with the customers is necessary to fully determine their requirements and for acquiring feedback on the extent to which those requirements are being met (Johnson and Gustafsson 2000). Market research should be conducted with the aim of collecting suggestions to improve product quality (Ahire et al. 1996; Zhang et al. 2000; Chong and Rundus 2004; Tari 2005; Taylor and Wright 2006). Thus, the customer focus is further improved and essential of TQM practice. 3.3 Benchmarking Effective management of quality of products and internal processes without losing perspective of the external factors, such as competition, requires judicious use of benchmarking. Benchmarking consists of analyzing the best products and processes of leading competitors in the same industry, or leading organizations in other industries, using similar processes. An organization should, then, use this knowledge to improve its own products and processes. The importance of adequate, accurate and timely information on best practices of various processes is acknowledged by leading organizations (Ahire et al. 1996). Benchmarking is a systematic method by which an organization can compare its services and practices against peers in order to enhance performance (Qayoumi 2000; Goetsch and Davis 2003). The rapid changes in the competitive market environment has led to the need for organizations to benchmark their products and processes with their competitors (Atkinson and Brown 2001; Maiga and Jacobs 2004; Peschiera 2004; Wauters 2005). Benchmarking must be done with a clear focus on the goal of improving product quality and reducing cost. Appropriate planning and execution of benchmarking goes a long way in improving processes. To take advantage of the benchmarking technique, an organization should benchmark its products as well as processes. Thus, Benchmarking process is an integral part of TQM practices.

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3.4 Continuous improvement Continuous improvement is the philosophy of improvement initiatives that increases success and reduces failure (Juergensen 2000; Goetsch and Davis 2003). A formal evaluation of quality provides a starting point by establishing an understanding of the size of quality issue and the area demanding attention (Juran and Gryna 1993). Precise documentation of various process procedures is necessary for process capability; and unambiguous instructions for equipment operation and maintenance can help to reduce the likelihood of operator errors (Zhang et al. 2000; Tan 2001). Organizations should have an efcient database that will provide information on internal operations; quality of raw materials and nal products; costs and nances to track capability, efciency and reliability of process; quality measures as parts-per million defective and percent parts rejected as well as on-time delivery performance and percent of incoming materials acceptable (Tan 2001; Jonas et al. 2002). Plan-do-check-action (PDCA) cycle, quality control (QC) tools, statistical process control (SPC), sampling and inspection are methods widely used for continuous improvement (Zhang et al. 2000; Ahire and Dreyfus 2000; Kaynak 2003). Therefore, continuous improvements are essential for TQM practice at any point of period as well as across various industries. 3.5 Supplier quality management An organization must ensure quality at all stages of manufacturing. As such, an effective supplier quality management approach should form the basis for procuring quality parts. The suppliers role is critical in many ways. First, the quality of incoming parts from suppliers determines the level of inspection efforts of a buyer organization. Second, the quality of the supplied material, to an extent, determines the nal product quality. Third, suppliers capability to react to a buyer rms needs, in turn, can determine the buyers exibility in responding to the customers needs. Giunipero and Brewer (1993) present a performance-based supplier evaluation procedure. A continuous supply of raw materials and parts with the required quality is essential in all stages of manufacturing (Motwani 2001). By efcient supplier quality management organizations can enhance organizational competitiveness across a demand chain by minimizing operational costs, shortening process cycle, rening quality performance and enhancing customer satisfaction (Shin et al. 2000). With the objectives of minimizing incoming material inspection and receiving reliable, frequent deliveries through long-term relationships, quality-oriented rms like Xerox and Ford have developed extensive supplier evaluation systems. Extensive, long-term relationship with suppliers helps minimize inspection cost of the raw materials (Juran and Gryna 1993; Lo et al. 2006). Thus, Supplier Quality Management plays a vital part in TQM practice. 3.6 Product innovation Juran and Gryna (1993) advocate investment and time in product innovation. Product innovation should be better than the competitors and aimed at meeting and exceeding the requirements and expectations of customers (Maiga and Jacobs 2004). Customer requirements; acceptance in the market; cost requirements; performance, reliability and regulations should be thoroughly considered for product innovation (Zhang et al. 2000; Cooper 2003; Ozer 2005). Approaches such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and experimental design help organizations translate customer requirements into action by cross functional product innovation teams (Ozer 2005). New product designs should be thoroughly reviewed before

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production, in order to avoid problems during production (Zhang et al. 2000; Ozer 2005). Thus, product innovation is critical for TQM practice in any organizational growth. 3.7 Product quality TQM has been focused on customer satisfaction with the quality of product in its core (Ahire et al. 1996; Grandzol and Gershon 1998; Choi and Eboch 1998; Zhang et al. 2000; Dhafr et al. 2006). Four dimensions of product quality are commonly used industry-wide to reduce the defect rates and inspecting of quality of the parts before moving to the next process: specifically, durability, reliability, performance and conformance (Ahire et al. 1996; Grandzol and Gershon 1998; Zhang et al. 2000). The quality perception of a product could be improved and production cost reduced by reducing defect rates. Line workers should inspect the quality of their own work before sending it to the next process and if they nd a problem they should x it immediately (Choi and Eboch 1998; Dhafr et al. 2006). Nowadays, Product Quality is becoming mandatory for TQM practice, whereas it will increase the product quality, at the same time with reducing the cost involving in defects. 3.8 Employee involvement Employee involvement practices are extensively cited in the context of TQM (Flynn et al. 1994; Ahire et al. 1996; Deming 2000; Kathuria and Davis 2001; Sila and Ebrahimpour 2002; Taylor and Wright 2003; Sumukadas 2006). For improving performance organizations need to change their management systems to be more participative by involving employees in problem solving, decision making, and strategy formulation (Kathuria and Davis 2001). Consequently, employees will acquire new knowledge, realize the benets of the quality disciplines, and obtain a sense of accomplishment by solving quality problems (Zhang et al. 2000). Taylor and Wright (2003) found that it is necessary for any organizations that they must motivate the majority of their employees to become involved in TQM for successful practice. Cross functional quality improvement teams or quality circles, along with an appropriate evaluation and reward system for quality improvement projects are helpful for improving quality (Ahire et al. 1996; Daily and Bishop 2003; Sumukadas 2006). Thus, employee involvement management is essential for TQM practice. 3.9 Reward and recognition Reward and recognition is one of the prerequisites for motivating employees in TQM practice, which will in turn inuence customers satisfaction (Flynn et al. 1994; Choi and Eboch 1998; Anderson and Sohal 1999; Zhang et al. 2000; Tari 2005; Sumukadas 2006). Organizations must develop formal compensation systems to encourage, evaluate, reward and recognize the individual or team effort for quality enhancement and improved customer satisfaction (Brown et al. 1994; Choi and Eboch 1998). Reward and recognition systems might include working condition improvements, salary promotions, position promotions, monetary or non-monetary rewards, and nancial awards for excellent suggestions (Flynn et al. 1994; Choi and Eboch 1998; Zhang et al. 2000; Yukongdi 2001; Tari 2005; Sumukadas 2006). Therefore, it is necessary to reward and recognize the employees, so that they involve for TQM process and make it successful practice.

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3.10 Education and training Education and training has also received much coverage in the TQM literature (Flynn et al. 1994; Ahire et al. 1996; Ahire and Dreyfus 2000; Zhang et al. 2000; Sila and Ebrahimpour 2002; Kaynak 2003; Sumukadas 2006). Employee education and training play a very important role in initiating significant changes in an organization, like, implementing TQM (Kaynak 2003). Training costs are insignificant comparing to its outcomes (Ahire et al. 1996; Zhang et al. 2000; Sumukadas 2006). Employee satisfaction associated with training stems from the fact that employees gain condence of producing high quality, perceive potential for career advancement, and appreciate their organizations investment in them (Saks 1996). Thus, Educational and Training is latest thread and approach for proper TQM practice.

4 Methodology The constructs for TQM practice are well established through literature review. Further, this study conducted expert groups twice to validate these 10 constructs in real-estate industry. The AHP framework contains three levelsthe goal level, the objective level, and the attribute level. The goal level refers to TQM practice in real-estate industries. The objective level consists of real-estate organizations practicing TQM, which is classied as small, medium, large organizations. Finally, the attribute level includes Top Management Commitment, Customer Focus, Benchmarking, Continuous Improvements, Supplier Quality Management, Product Innovation, Product Quality, Employees Involvement, Rewards and Recognition, Educational and Training. Based on these attributes, a questionnaire called an AHP-designed questionnaire was developed.

5 Samples The AHP questionnaires were sent as 142 organizations of members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI), in the metro city of Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. CREDAI is the largest apex body for private real-estate developers in India, and represents over 4,000 developers through its19-member associations across the country, which was selected to serve as the universe for this study. Membership in CREDIA means that these organizations have all been accredited in the real-estate industry regardless of size. The survey was sent to the top management person who was handling these organizations via mail as well as in person asking people to participate in the survey. The primary respondents were owners, chief executive ofcers (CEOs), directors, vicepresidents and regional managers. The given deadline for data collection for the responses was of one month. The sampling procedure resulted in an overall response rate of 51% is considered to be a strong indicator. Extreme care was taken to ensure data quality (Table 1).

6 Finding and discussion Figure 1 shows the weight age in the objective level, by which small organizations (32.14%), Medium size organization (39.29%) and larger size organization (28.57%). After calculation, as shown in Table 2, the order of the weights at the attribute level is: Top Management Commitment (relative weight is 0.18518 0.32.14 + 0.1818 39.29 +

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TQM practice in real-estate industry using AHP Table 1 Organization participation percentage in accordance with its size Organizational size Size of organization respondent 27 33 24 84

2059 In percentage 32.14 39.29 28.57 100.00

Small (less than 50 employees) Medium (50200 employees) Large (above 200 employees) Total

Table 2 Ranking order and relative weight age percentage of all attributes Goal Objective TQM practice in real-estate industry Small organizations 0.3214 Attributes >50 employees 0.0595 0.0357 0.0238 0.0357 0.0357 0.0000 0.0238 0.0714 0.0357 0.0000 0.3214 Medium organizations 0.3929 50250 employees 0.0714 0.0476 0.0357 0.0238 0.0238 0.0119 0.0119 0.0952 0.0357 0.0357 0.3929 Larger organizations 0.2857 <250 employees 0.0476 0.0357 0.0238 0.0238 0.0119 0.0119 0.0357 0.0357 0.0357 0.0238 0.2857 0.1786 0.1190 0.0833 0.0833 0.0714 0.0238 0.0714 0.2024 0.1071 0.0595 1.0000 2 3 5 5 6 8 6 1 4 7 Overall all weight-age Ranking order

Top management commitment Customer focus Benchmarking Continuous improvement Supplier quality management Product innovation Product quality Employees involvement Rewards and recognition Educational and training Total

0.1666 0.2857 = 17.86%), Customer Focus (relative weight is 0.1111 0.32.14 + 0.1212 39.29 + 0.12506 0.2857 = 11.90%), Benchmarking (relative weight is 0.0740 0.32.14 + 0.0909 39.29 + 0.08333 0.2857 = 8.33%), Continuous Improvement 04016 0.2857 = 7.14%), Product Innovation (relative weight is 0 0.32.14 + 0.0303 39.29 + 0.04016 0.2857 = 2.38%), Product quality (relative weight is 0.0740 0.32.14 + 0.0303 39.29 + 0.01250 0.2857 = 7.14%), Employees Involvement (relative weight is 0.2222 0.32.14 + 0.2424 39.29 + 0.01250 0.2857 = 20.24%), Rewards and Recognition (relative weight is 0.1111 0.32.14 + 0.0909 39.29 + 0.01250 0.2857 = 10.71%), and Education and training (relative weight is 0 0.32.14 + 0.0909 39.29 + 0.08330 0.2857 = 5.95%) (relative weight is 0.1111 0.32.14 + 0.0606 39.29 + 0.08333 0.2857 = 8.33%), Supplier Quality Management (relative weight is 0.1111 0.32.14 + 0.0606 39.29 + 0). Their

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SMALL COMPANIES

MEDIUM COMPANIES

LARGER COMPANIES

Top management commitment

Customer Focus

Benchmarking

Continuous Improvement

Supplier Quality Management

Product Innovation

Product Quality

Employees Involvement

Rewards and Recognition

Educational and Training

Fig. 2 AHP framework for TQM practice in real-estate industry

results indicated that top three attributes got ranked as employees involvement (20.24%), top management commitment (17.86%), customer focus (11.36%). Here, employees involvement is still the highest. It clearly demonstrates that employee involvement is key factor in TQM practice in Indian real-estate. The nding shows that for TQM practice, top management commitments constructed by the leaders and is the critical factors for real-estate larger organizations (Fig. 2). The results show that the Employees Involvement is most important to TQM practice in India. This is not difcult to understand, since the less than desirable record of real-estate industry. Therefore, the key to a successful strategy is to rebuild the condence of TQM practice in real-estate industry. Although the selected criteria are strongly inuenced by the local environment and culture, the proposed factor structure can easily be transformed and extended to the conditions and culture in other markets in any particular environment.

7 Conclusion Every manager is responsible for quality; especially senior management and the CEO, however, only latter can provide the leadership system to achieve results. Senior management has multifarious responsibilities. They must practice the philosophy of management by wondering around. Managers should get out of the ofce and visit the customers, suppliers and departments within the organization, so that managers learn what is happening with a particular customer, supplier or project. The idea is to let employees think for themselves. Senior management s role is no longer to make the nal decision, but to make sure the team s decision is coordinated with the quality statements of the organization. Push problem solving and decision making to the lowest appropriate level by authority delegation and responsibility. The needed resources must be provided to train employees in the TQM tools and techniques, the technical requirements of the job, appropriate equipment and security. The TQM practice process begins with senior management. Leadership, i.e. top management commitment is essential during every phase of the practice process and particularly at the start. when TQM is implemented properly employees indicate that they are more focused. This was the perception even when the workers actually had to work harder. TQM also leads to better communication throughout an organization and this is one area where employees are completely in support of the program. When employees are made to feel that they are involved in their organization then they do not mind becoming involved in their organization. There are many ways that leadership and employees both can affect TQM programs. Keeping in mind that leadership and employees have two very distinct outlooks in general

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theory we can see that leadership has a much greater chance to affect the success or failure of a TQM practice. Employees view their work from the viewpoint of how the organization choices personally affect them. When they perceive a positive affect they will provide support and when they perceive a negative affect they will not. Leadership viewpoint is generally focused more on benet to the organization and their decision will be made with organizational benet in mind. Employees can affect the success or failure of TQM through their perceptions. Leadership can affect TQM through their perceptions and even more so through their actions. Leadership must direct the employees in the proper direction as well as direct the TQM program to ensure that the practice of TQM is successful. The ndings demonstrate that the key factors of TQM practice in real-estate industry are employee involvement, top management commitment and customer focus. It is, therefore, suggested that the CEOs, owners, president and other leaders must encourage employees for active participation and involvement in TQM process and especially in internal auditing role. Future studies could compare the results between developed and undeveloped countries, to other industries.

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