An Empirical Study of Top Management Commitment and Its Relationship With Quality Management System Leadership

Abstract

Implementation of a Quality Management System (QMS) involves both technical arrangements and management behaviour. This study focused on the relationship between top management commitment and QMS leadership among respondents from ISO 9001 certified Malaysian manufacturing organisations in the fabricated metal products sector, excluding machinery and equipment. Management commitment was represented by participation, support, priority, empowerment and customer focus. A total of 146 complete questionnaires were received. Pearson correlation was used to assess the direct bivariate association, while PLS‐SEM was used to examine the relationship within the measurement and structural model with five multivariate outliers were excluded before the PLS‐SEM stage, leaving 141 cases. Pearson analysis recorded r = 0.479 ( p  = 0.001), indicating a moderate and statistically significant positive association. SmartPLS produced a smaller positive path coefficient of β = 0.117, which represents a weak effect. Reliability assessment indicated high internal consistency, while the measurement evaluation identified areas for further refinement. VIF values were treated as a collinearity diagnostic rather than as the sole basis for construct validity. The results support a positive association between top management commitment and QMS leadership.