THE IMPACT OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT ON HEALTHCARE SERVICE QUALITY IN JORDAN AND UAE: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

In the healthcare industry, total quality management (TQM) has been widely recognized as a crucial approach to improvingservice quality. As the gap between expected level of service and delivered medical service is expanding due to lack ofTQM. Hence, the mediating role of strategic management in between TQM and healthcare service quality will help hospitalsto implement TQM to deliver a high level of medical service for the patients. Yet, there is a lack of empirical evidence tovalidate the mediating role of strategic management on this relationship. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine therelationships between total quality management and healthcare service quality in hospitals. Quantitative methodology wasapplied to test the hypothesized relationships. Questionnaire is data collection instrument. The population consists ofdoctors, medical workers, administrative staff from different departments working in six hospitals in Jordan and UAE.Simple random sampling technique was applied in the survey procedure. The results showed that TQM has a significanteffect on healthcare service quality in hospitals. In addition, strategic management partially mediates this relationship. Asa result, both TQM and strategic management create a synergy that drives healthcare organizations towards deliveringexceptional patient care and achieving sustainable success by providing high degree of healthcare service quality. Theoutcome of this paper contributes to the theory of quality management in healthcare sector. Our study recommends that thepolicymakers in hospitals to consider the findings of this paper in developing strategic future plans based on the principlesof TQM.