Balancing the “hard” and the “soft” shades of TQM: bridging conceptual advancements and managerial insights”

Due to the drawbacks and disruptions produced by COVID-19, the original deadline of the paper submission to the special issue of the TQM journal has been postponed to March, 31st 2021.

The special issue aims to push forward our understanding of “soft” issues in the TQM discourse, paving the way for a systematic conceptualization of factors that determine business excellence. Proposing a synoptic view of the macro, meso-, and micro-layers of “soft” TQM, it emphasizes Human Resource Management Practices (HRMP) as a managerial bridge to mould the softness of TQM interventions and embed them in hard TQM initiatives. This Special Issue is timely and will have an impact for two reasons: first, there is a revamp in the field of TQM and soft issues have a critical role in the recipe for performance excellence in both public and private sector organizations; second, HRMPs have been only partially investigated in their interplay with TQM. From this point of view, the special issue is expected to significantly contribute to the advancement of what we currently know about the determinants and implications of quality excellence.

At the following links a pdf with the call for papers and full details of the Conference hosted by the Tor Vergata University: PDW Rome SI_TQM and details