Relationship between Quality Management Practices and Innovation: The State-of-the-art

Purpose: The establishment of a knowledge-based economy has recognized innovation as the driver of economic growth and productivity along with quality management which has the potential to enhance operational and financial performance giving companies privileged position on the increasing market competition. However, an issue emanates from the lack of consensus in the literature whether quality management drives or inhibits the innovative capacity of a company. The objective of this literature review is to verify the greater tendency, any possible mediator effect between quality management and innovation and to clarify what has been done so far involving those concepts looking for less explored fields that could serve as a basis for development of future research in this area.
Design/ methodology/ approach: The selected articles were divided into two main groups, those supporting the positive relationship between quality management practices and innovation, and those supporting the negative relationship analyzing both schools of thought in a narrative model.
Findings: It was observed the standpoint supporting the positive relation between quality management and innovation is stronger than the negative one and very few studies deal with the extension of how quality management programs influence the innovative capacity of organizations, becoming then a promising area to explore.
Originality/ value: A clear understanding of the relationship between quality management and innovation allows an organization to properly allocate knowledge and resources to achieve higher business performance.

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Quality management, innovation, mediator effect