QM as a determinant factor of productivity in manufacturing contexts: a literature review

The objective of this research is to provide a systematic literature review concerning the study of the the relationship between quality management and productivity at the plant level, to analyze the findings and to identify the gaps and future research in the field of study, considering 142 papers that study this relationship between 1997 and 2017 and a further 34 diferents papers that study the internal determinants of productivity. The findings revealed that the study of the relationship of these two variables has been little explored, indicating a direction of future investigations, in which also must be included an operationalization of productivity with indicators that allow obtaining objective data. On the other hand, human resource management, top management and process management were identified as relevant constructs of quality management practices related to productivity, and are associated with 78% of the internal determinants of productivity, thus suggesting that quality management actually is an internal determinant of productivity, thus guiding future studies towards the validation of this finding with empirical studies.