Journal summary

The journal title "Sustaining company performance through partnering with suppliers", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 19 Iss: 5, pp.567 580 written by Alfred Wong, (2002) from Department of Management, Lignan University, Hong Kong are mainly focus on the arguments of the important to meet customers satisfaction in order to sustain their companies performance through implementing an effective supplier partnering which would result in satisfied suppliers where it will lead them to help companies to meet their customers need. Customer satisfaction can be explained as a customers feeling towards whether the products or services that they enjoy will meet their need and expectation or not. TQM approach has been implemented as a solution and guide for them in order to meet their customers need. The author, stated that by referring on the previous journal study by Athire et all.,1996, Black and Porter, 1996; Tamimi, 1998 said that partnering with suppliers is one of the key principles of TQM. The author, proposes an overall model for sustaining company performance through partnering with suppliers where the model include three components which are firstly, factors affecting partnering with suppliers which include commitment to supplier satisfaction, perceived goal interdependence and constructive controversy. Secondly describe the suppliers partnering relationships and lastly refer to companies relationships with their customers. Overall, the model proposes that in order to sustain their company performance through meet their customers satisfaction, companies need to satisfy their suppliers first and get their support. The data was obtained from a questionnaire survey which the analyses are form 139 companies perspectives. Thus, the findings show that commitment to supplier satisfaction was positively related to supplier satisfaction and contribution as well as cooperative goals and constructive controversy. Furthermore, supplier satisfaction and supplier

contribution were positively related towards the customer satisfaction. The result also suggest that companies understand that if they help their suppliers satisfy their goals, in turn, the suppliers would help them to give a best service in order to help the companies to satisfy their goals by meeting their customers satisfaction.

Journal critique The author had provided an ambiguous journal title which is Sustaining company performance through partnering with suppliers. Since if we looking in the content of the journal, the author had focus on the best way to satisfy their customers by teaming up with their supplier. So the more relevant title that I think will provide a clear picture to the reader about his study can be Impact of teaming up with suppliers towards customers satisfaction as a way to sustain companys performance. Abstract is an important element in the journal, since many reader will read the title and abstract in order to get first impression about what actually the author want to deliver in their paper. So its important for the author to provided clear and specific abstract in order to catch readers attention. In this journal, the author do not provide specific abstract to his readers. Only some information is written in the abstract, which it not sufficient for the readers. The author can include together additional important information like purpose of study, design methodology and originality of the papers in the abstract. Thus, the readers can get quick understanding about the research once read it for the first time. An introduction of study should show clear purpose about what actually the study is all about. In this journal, the author do not provide clear purpose about his study, after read whole journal, I realize that the author do not write his objective of the study. The objective of the study is important to be including in the paper because it acts as a purpose of study about what actually his paper wants to study as well as a guidelines to the authors. It helps the author to stay in the right track and show the main point or overall pictures about the study. Here some suggestion about the objective that the author can write e.g: to examine the impact of teaming up with suppliers towards customers satisfaction as a way to sustain companys performance. In introduction, he only touch about key important element in his study and provide relevant literature review on that point like important to meet customers need toward companies

performance and important to cooperation with the suppliers as a best way to satisfy customers. The author, should also provide research question since it not been include in his journal, so by construct a research question, he know what he should do by referring to the question and ensure all his research objective being answer.

In this paper, the author suggested that company can sustain their performance by extending TQM principles. Hence, by refer to the suggestion made by the author, I totally not agree since another principle like Lean Six Sigma (LSS) also can be used as tools. This supported by study conduct by Spector (2006) said that Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is the most effective business improvement technique made available today. In the journal, I strongly agreed with the author statement that mentioned an increasing in customer satisfaction will lead to a strong impact on the performance of the company. Moreover, satisfied customers will lead to higher customers loyalty and finally will contribute to the higher profitability of the company. This is supported by studies conducted by Anderson and Sullivan (1993) suggests a strong relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. In addition, study by Dull (1998) show the positive relationship between customer satisfaction and financial result for manufacturing companies. Other than that, since the study is conducted at Hong Kong, so the population involve are companies located at china. Therefore, the independent variable chosen by the author which are suppliers satisfaction help companies to meet their customers satisfaction and finally reflects to sustain companys performance only applicable at their country. If the study conducted at Malaysia, the area of focusing might be slightly different rather than focus on supplier such as leadership , best practices, customer focus, employee focus, community focus and productivity focus. This is supported by study by Fazli (2011) in Malaysian firms show the results of his study suggest that leadership with best practices, with the capability to focus on productivity, customer, employees and community will lead to a greater company performance. By referring on the theoretical framework construct by the author, there is unclear and not too relate with the title of the journal itself. The author does not correctly label on the theoretical framework which are the independent variable (IV) and which is the dependent variable (DV). As known, the study is about "Sustaining company performance through partnering with suppliers", but by looking on the theoretical framework, the author mainly construct about supplier and customer satisfaction. There is no point regarding company sustainability on the theoretical framework. Hence, it will

make readers confuse between the title of the journal and the information or variables used on the theoretical framework. Since based on the title, it shows that company sustainability should be the dependent variable (DV). Customers satisfactions only play as a medium for the company to measure their performance. The data that the author able to collect is only about 139 out of 1050 questionnaires that been distributed. There show a wider gap between amounts distributes and amount collected means that the authors do not handle to collect the data back with effectively. Its suggested if the author can used as more data as possible in order to ensure the result obtained more reliable. The result of the study by the author support that working together or partnering with suppliers can be very useful for improving customer satisfaction. The findings also indicate that companies that can make their suppliers satisfied and willing to contribute their best would have a higher level of customer satisfaction. I strongly agree with the finding because when suppliers satisfy with the companies, they will help the companies to meet their customers demand by offering best services to them. This supported with previous study conducted by Genna (1997) said that suppliers play an important role in helping companys obtain higher customer satisfaction.

References 1. Ahire, S., Golha, D. and Waller, M. (1996), Development and validation of TQM implementation constructs , Decision Sciences, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 23-56. 2. Anderson, E.W. and Sullivan , M (1993), The antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction for firms, Marketing Science, Vol12, Spring, pp. 125-143

3. Banocorsi, S. (2006), "The benefits of lean Six Sigma", available at: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Bonacorsi, . 4. Black, S. and Porter, L. (1996), Identification of the critical factors of TQM , Decision Sciences, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 1-21. 5. Fazli Idris (2011), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Sustainable Company Performance Examining The Relationship In Malaysian Firms, International Journal of Business and Society, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 31- 52. 6. Tamimi, N. (1998), A second-order factor analysis of critical TQM factors , International Journal of Quality Science, Vol. 3 No 1, pp. 71-9.