Reed et al. [28] argue that the content of TQM
can be distinguished based on the issue of two
business orientations: customer orientation and
process orientation. With customer orientation,
organizations will focus on gaining a market
advantage where they can outperform their competitors
in terms of attracting more customers with
distinguished products and charge a premium
price. Although not implicitly stated, this notion
suggests that under customer orientation TQM is
associated with a differentiation strategy. On other
hand, under process orientation, companies will
pursue process efficiency improvements to eliminate
defects and wastes. This view can be traced
back to the origins of TQM as rooted in the principles
of statistical process control (SPC). The concept
of kaizen [29] that dominated the TQM
literature during the 1980s and 1990s also underscored
the importance of process improvement
rather than product innovation. Reed et al. [28]
pointed out that through the concept of continuous
improvement, TQM elevates the importance
of cost reduction through defect preventions, as
also noted by Hackman and Wageman [30, p. 310]:
A fundamental premise of TQM is that the costs of
poor quality (such as inspection, rework, lost customers,
and so on) are far greater than the costs of
developing processes that produce high-quality
products and services.