The Role of Applying Total Quality Management in Improving Incentives: A Comparative Study between Jordanian and United Arab Emirate Hospitals

This study aims to identify the reality of a Total Quality Management (TQM) system and the level of its application on a sample of hospitals in Jordan and United Arab Emirates (UAE), together with determining the differences between both the Jordanian hospitals and UAE hospitals in their application of TQM. It also aims to identify the monetary and non-monetary incentives in hospitals, and to study the role of each dimension of various TQM dimensions on monetary and non-monetary incentives. A total of 160 questionnaires were distributed in six hospitals that were selected using a convenient sampling method. A total of 129 questionnaires were received, 74 of them were from Jordanian hospitals and 55 questionnaires were from UAEs hospitals. The participants were doctors, nurses, technicians, and administrators of six hospitals in Jordan and the UAE. An independent samples T-test and multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the application of TQM in both Jordanian and UAE hospitals was good, of a high level, and with a relative advantage for UAE hospitals. The results also showed that the incentives in Jordanian hospitals were generally better than those of the UAE hospitals, particularly in terms of the monetary incentives, while non-monetary incentives were the advantage for UAE hospitals. Moreover, it was found that only one dimension of the TQM dimensions, the participation of employees, had a significant effect on the monetary and non-monetary incentives in each of the Jordanian and the UAE hospitals (P value ≤ 0.05). While the rest of the dimensions of TQM (focus on the customer, continuous improvement, top management commitment, and teamwork) had no significant effect on both monetary and non-monetary incentives in both the Jordanian and the UAE hospitals.