The Interdependencies of Quality Management, Knowledge Management and Innovation Performance. A Literature Review

Abstract

Quality management should represent one of the most common approaches to improving quality and innovation performance. Still, it is shown that this is not always the case. To find the real cause of the contradictory results, a literature review was conducted. Some authors propose that knowledge management might present the missing link between quality management and innovation performance. Therefore, in this research, the importance of knowledge management will be considered, as a key mediator between quality management on innovation performance. Thus, this paper aims to provide answers to: "What does quality management need to provide, to support innovation performance?", "How does knowledge management contribute to innovation performance?" and "How does knowledge management mediate the relationship between quality management and innovation performance?". Knowledge management provides benefits for innovation performance, under certain organizational conditions and mechanisms. The lack of proper knowledge management among employees can be the cause of shortcomings in the relation between quality management and innovation performance.

Unleashing the Importance of TQM and Knowledge Management for Organizational Sustainability in the Age of Circular Economy

“…Moreover, KM has every potential to improve the company's innovative potential which is a critical factor of competitive advantage for an organization. According to Zizakov et al [56], for the ability of a company to develop new products, the process of workflow is highly dependent on efficient KM practices. Thus, KM creates a footing for enterprises to become more advanced and competitive in the market.…”

Investigating the Key Factors Influencing the Process Innovation Capability in Organizations: Evidence from the Republic of Serbia

“…Several studies presented the same results and contended that quality management could be one of the prerequisites for innovation [14][15][16][17]. However, some authors claim the opposite [13,18,[21][22][23] and debate the influence of quality management on innovation [22,24,25]. Innovation can be observed as product innovation and process innovation.…”

“…Secondly, when observing KM, the literature review concluded that the factors with the highest frequency are knowledge creation, knowledge application, and knowledge dissemination [25]. Therefore, the research model sets these factors as second-order constructs.…”

“…The authors previously conducted and published a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the principles determining QM, KM, and PI to discover organizations' most commonly applied principles [25]. The said principles influence the operationalization level of QM, KM, and PI in organizations and are later utilized as constructs in a research model.…”

“…However, there is a gap in research relating to the influence of QM on process innovation (PI) [24]. More importantly, some authors propose that knowledge management (KM) might present the missing link between these two factors [25][26][27][28][29].…”