Soft total quality management practices and business performance: The mediating role of an integrated quality management system

This study examines how information sharing, top management commitment, and managerial competence influence business performance through Integrated Quality Management System as a mediating mechanism among East Java beverage manufacturers. Drawing on Resource-Based View and General Systems Theory, a ten-hypothesis model was tested using Consistent Partial Least Squares estimation via SmartPLS on census data from 108 managers across 42 firms. All three soft TQM practices exert significant positive effects on IQMS, while their direct effects on business performance are uniformly non-significant a structural configuration confirming full mediation whereby IQMS absorbs the total performance-relevant variance of each antecedent. Top management commitment produces the most robust mediated pathway, with information sharing demonstrating near-complete transmission through the mediator. These findings resolve two persistent empirical inconsistencies in TQM scholarship: the contested directness of soft practice-to-performance relationships and the context-dependent variability of IQMS performance effects. The study extends RBV capability orchestration theory, advances Systems Theory's organisational application, and provides actionable guidance for managers and policymakers seeking to replicate East Java's counter-cyclical manufacturing resilience at national scale.