Moderating role of organizational culture in the relationship between total quality management and organizational innovation among manufacturing SMEs in Nigeria

Previous studies on the total quality management and innovation relationship have had mixed findings. We predict that organizational culture could moderate the relationship between total quality management and organizational innovation. The study collected empirical data from 433 small and medium-sized enterprises in Lagos, Nigeria. Structural equation modelling–partial least squares were used to test the conceptualized model to determine the examined relationship with a moderating effect of organizational culture, customer relation, and employee relations that were positively and significantly related to innovation. However, management leadership was found to be negatively related to innovation. Organizational culture positively and significantly moderates the relationship between continuous improvement, management leadership and innovation, while it had a positive but insignificant moderating role on the relationship between employee relation and innovation. The study contributes to a better understanding of how organizations adopt a combination of cultural components to achieve total quality management and innovation performance. The study concludes that organizational culture interacts with continuous improvement and management leadership to influence positively the innovation performance of SMEs in Nigeria. The findings imply that the model of this study can be used in management literature as empirical evidence for selecting the critical elements for total quality management implementation and innovative culture. Using an extended method of analysis such as the importance performance map analysis to establish the direct and indirect relationships has provided the methodological rigor required for theory confirmation. Finally, the study made a significant contribution to the existing literature through testing and proving of the moderating role of organizational culture in the underlying relationship using empirical evidence.