Social Media and Quality Management: Exploring the Connections

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between social media and quality management. Although the development of social media and web 2.0 has had a substantial impact on many management disciplines, the connections to quality management remain largely unexplored. The research question is: How do the advances in social media affect the theory and practice of quality management in industry and organisations? This paper is conceptual and is built on a review of research on social media marketing and management as well as quality management, and a conceptual analysis. Connections between quality management and social media marketing and management are identified and a framework is constructed. The research limitation is that this paper is conceptual and does not present any new empirical data. The implication is that it suggests a new framework for handling quality management and social media marketing and management built on previous research that will be useful for further studies. The framework developed in this paper will be useful for practitioners of quality management and/or social media marketing and management in clarifying the connections and implications of previous research. Although social media profoundly influence organisations and individuals alike, the amount of research on the connection of social media to quality management has hitherto been scant.