Purpose Total quality management (TQM) is a part of the total quality assurance perspective. This system, which is considered as a type of managerial philosophy, employs all organizational levels to constantly ameliorate the quality of goods and service. The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect of hard and soft TQM factors on the behavior of customers based on the role of innovation and continuous improvement. Design/methodology/approach The research model was extracted from TQM variables in hard and soft parts, customer behavior, innovation and continuous improvement by reviewing the literature and research background. Based on this, a questionnaire was prepared and then, distributed among the statistical population including 374 project managers, quality assurance managers as well as quality control managers by using simple random sampling. All sub-criteria of questionnaire were determined using Delphi technique, to test the research model. Having gathered the questionnaire, the hypotheses were analyzed by using structural equation modeling and AMOS software. Findings According to the statistical analyses, TQM has a significant effect on customer behavior through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation. Also, regarding the obtained results, the highest effect was related to the effect of hard TQM factors on customer behavior through innovation as 0.62. Furtheremore, TQM soft factors such as human resource management have significant effect on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation. Moreover, TQM hard factors are effective on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation. Research limitations/implications The questionnaire was designed and distributed in order to evaluate the hypotheses in this study. One of the primary rationales behind utilizing this method instead of other methods such as interview was high geographical distribution of organizations. Using other moderator variables such as knowledge management, customer knowledge management and customer emotions can be conducted in the future in this area. Practical implications Changing the organizational relationships from task orientation to the process orientation, and controlling the organizational performance by measuring process innovations and improvements, while paying attention to the customer satisfaction system are suggested in this paper. These implications should be implemented in construction projects by department of project management office. Furtheremore, providing different communication for receiving the opinions of the customer and imposing them in the product and service, paying attention to the response system and customer complaint, implementation of this process in the organization, and having a process approach for presenting and developing services are the main subjects in this regard. Originality/value Unlike previous studies on this subject, a structural equation model is used for assessing unobservable latent constructs and their related interrelationship in measuring the impact of TQM factors. Focusing on customer behavior which is a broader domain than customer satisfation through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation is another value of this research.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the role of organizational forgetting in the impact of strategic thinking on the implementation of an organizational excellence model. Furthermore, the factors with main effects on the implementation success of the organizational excellence model are investigated. The two main causes of organizational forgetting, including purposefulness and randomness, along with the three main factors of strategic thinking (vision, creativity and systematic thinking) also are explored. Enablers and results, which are the two key parts of an organizational excellence model are considered as well. Design/methodology/approach A model based on structural equations is designed, in which organizational forgetting factors, strategic thinking measures and main parts of a business excellence model are incorporated based on the literature. A total of 297 Iranian companies in which an organizational excellence model had been implemented are selected for investigation. A questionnaire is designed and distributed among the experts, middle managers and top managers of these companies. Based on Cochran’s formula, the sample size of 168 is obtained, for which the response rate is 100 percent. Main statistical measures such as χ2 ratio to degree of freedom, non-soft fitness index (RMSEA), fitness index (GFI) and modified fitness index (AGFI) are used to assess the performance of the proposed model. Findings According to the results of the statistical significance tests, the role of organizational obsessive mediators in the establishment of the organizational excellence model has been largely confirmed. Furthermore, the mediator role of organizational forgetting in the final impact of strategic thinking on implementing an organizational excellence model has been widely endorsed. Failure to use knowledge from learning, the inability of a company in coding and documenting knowledge and lack of incentives to share it are the most important factors in the forgetting of knowledge in companies. Research limitations/implications As top managers, middle managers and experts are hard to reach due to the wide geographical spread of the organization under study, a questionnaire is designed and distributed among them. The impact of organizational forgetting on other quality management systems such as ISO 9001 and ISO 4001 needs another research to be conducted in the future. Practical implications Using new experiences, increasing the competency of employees and managers experience through organizational learning, employee and managerial assessment and organizational strategy assessment are the main practical methods for considering organizational forgetting in the process of implementing organizational excellence models. Originality/value This research addresses organizational forgetting besides strategic thinking as joint main roles for implementing organizational excellence, whereas previous research works only considered strategic thinking as a factor. Furthermore, a structural equation model is developed for appraisal of effect of different factors.

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