Total Quality Management, organizational agility and service quality: addressing the needs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

To run a competitive advantage, small and medium enterprises need special strategic capabilities and technical skills. Thus, this study explores the influence of total quality management on service quality via the mediating role of organizational agility, i.e. sensing agility, decision-making, and acting agility in small and medium enterprises. The study targets top- and medium-level management in the gulf cooperation council countries. Using a convenient sampling approach, the study administers a designed survey questionnaire among the respondents. Smart Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling was employed to test the proposed research hypotheses. The study proposes that total quality management significantly and positively influences organizational sensing agility, decision-making agility, acting agility, and service quality. Additionally, the study proposes that two dimensions of organizational agility (i.e. sensing agility and acting agility) significantly and positively influence service quality. Still, decision-making agility failed to enhance service quality. Additionally, both sensing agility and acting agility mediate the relationship between total quality management and service quality, and there were partial mediations. The study provides practical implications for the managers to ensure an approved system of total quality management so that organizational agility support it to enhance service quality, but they need to focus more on decision-making skills and capabilities.