Determinants of the use of quality management practices in Latin America: the case of Argentina and Uruguay

Abstract

Although the benefits of the use of quality management practices (QMP) in manufacturing firms are well known around the world, their implementation is quite different in different development contexts. This paper reports a study of the implementation of QMP in southern Latin American countries, specifically in 301 manufacturing firms in Argentina and Uruguay. No previous study has analysed this issue for this region. In addition, we compare the implementation of these practices in these two countries with that in Spain, through the use of the same questionnaire completed in both regions. In doing so, this paper achieves three aims. First, it provides new evidence about the diffusion of QMP in the River Plate (RP) region. Second, it provides new evidence on the implementation of QMP through cross-country comparison in different development contexts. Third, it tests a number of hypotheses about the influence of contextual and organisational factors on the levels of implementation of QMP in manufacturing firms in the RP region.

Keywords:

• quality management practices
• Uruguay
• Argentina
• structural and contextual factors
• cross-country comparison

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain (ECO2010-21242-C03-03; ECO2010-21393-C03-04) and from the AECI – Spanish Agency of International Cooperation. The authors would like to thank the help provided by the University ORT Uruguay, especially to professors Ricardo Kaufmann and Gaston Labadie. Finally, the authors would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version.

Notes

Argentina and Uruguay form a contiguous block in the southern cone of Latin America and share various economic and cultural characteristics. The coasts of the Río de la Plata are the most densely populated areas of Argentina and Uruguay, around the capital cities, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, respectively. This region is known as the RP region.

Both countries are middle-income countries that receive from low-to-moderate levels of R&D investment. They also are similar in terms of per capita income and population-adjusted R&D inputs and outputs (World Bank, 2008). In addition, the similar cultural characteristics of these countries can be observed in the levels registered on Hofstede's four cultural dimensions.

The firms in charge were Research Uruguay and Research Argentina. Interviewers of both companies were trained in the different subjects of the questionnaire in Montevideo in April 2009. They actively participated in the pre-test stage, and in the adaptation of the final questionnaire.