DSpace at VNU: Supply chain quality management practices and performance: An empirical study

Oper Manag Res (2013) 6:19–31 DOI 10.1007/s12063-012-0074-x Supply chain quality management practices and performance: An empirical study Jing Zeng & Chi Anh Phan & Yoshiki Matsui Received: 11 May 2012 / Revised: November 2012 / Accepted: 18 December 2012 / Published online: 13 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract This study proposed a conceptual framework to study the relationships among three dimensions of supply chain quality management (SCQM) – in-house quality management practices (internal QM), interaction for quality with suppliers on the upstream side of supply chain (upstream QM), and interaction for quality with customers on the downstream side of supply chain (downstream QM) – and their impact on two types of quality performance (conformance quality, and customer satisfaction) Survey data were collected from 238 plants in three industries across eight countries and structural equation modeling was used to test this framework The results indicate a dominant role of the internal QM in SCQM which has a positive impact on the other SCQM dimensions and two types of quality performance Downstream QM is found to mediate the relationship between internal QM and customer satisfaction, while there is a lack of direct impact of upstream QM on either type of quality performance Keywords Supply chain Quality management Quality performance Empirical study J Zeng (*) International Graduate School of Social Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan e-mail: zengzx1028@yahoo.co.jp C A Phan Department: Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics and Business - Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam e-mail: anhpc@yahoo.com Y Matsui Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan e-mail: ymatsui@ynu.ac.jp Introduction As competition intensified and markets became global in the 1990s, supply chain management (SCM) began to take center stage as a means to respond rapidly, correctly, and profitably to market demands This is a holistic approach advocating the “philosophy by which firms can operate inter-organizationally and merge both strategic initiatives and upstream and downstream processes in order to achieve business excellence” (Robinson and Malhotra, 2005, p.316) The concept of SCM has evolved from two separate paths: “purchasing and supply management, and transportation and logistics management” (Li et al., 2006, p.108), and quality management (QM) usually is not considered as a significant dimension of SCM (Robinson and Malhotra, 2005) Since 1980s, QM has been widely adopted by many organizations as an approach to achieve competitive advantage However, research in QM has besen criticized for focusing too much on the internal view of quality (Foster, 2008) The adoption of the system approach implicit in SCM necessitates externalizing the view of quality improvement by focusing on customers and developing suppliers (Foster and Ogden, 2008) Quality practices must advance even further “from traditional firm centric and productbased mindsets to an inter-organizational supply chain orientation” (Robinson and Malhotra, 2005, p.315) A merging of these two approaches can be seen within recent research as “Supply Chain Quality Management” (SCQM) (Kuei et al., 2001; Lin et al., 2005; Sila et al., 2006) However, this merging is still far from complete and “essential features that lead to achieving SCQM have not yet been fully explored” (Lin et al., 2005, p.356) The purpose of this study is therefore to empirically examine the relationship among critical factors for SCQM and their impact on quality performance The practices of SCQM are proposed to be a multi-dimensional concept, including the 20 upstream, internal and downstream QM from a supply chain perspective In addition, two types of quality performance – conformance quality, and customer satisfaction – are examined A conceptual framework is developed in this study to postulate causal linkages between these SCQM dimensions and quality performance Data for this study were collected from 283 plants in eight countries across three industries and the framework is tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) It is expected that addressing SCQM practices simultaneously from upstream, internal, and downstream aspects will expand the understanding of the scope and the activities in regards to SCQM and the interactions among the dimensions of SCQM Further, the empirical evidence concerning the impact of SCQM on quality performance would benefit supply chain members by offering useful guidance for integrating quality initiatives into the supply chain The remainder of this paper is organized as follows In the next section, a review of relevant literature on SCQM is presented Based on the review of the literature, a research model and related hypotheses are proposed in section three Section four describes the research methodology Section five presents the results of hypotheses testing carried out The main findings and implications stemming from this research are discussed in section six Section seven contains limitations of this study and future research Finally, the conclusions are summarized in the last section Literature The trend of integrating quality and supply chain management has been suggested by several researchers Levy (1998) refer to “total quality supply chain management” as a paradigm shift in which supplier-customer relationships and co-making quality products would emerge as the major concern instead of the traditionally firm-centered concern such as price, quality and delivery time Ross (1998) points out the three general trends leading to an increased emphasis on supply chain quality: expansion of quality initiatives, deregulation in the transportation sector, and expansion of logistics activities SCQM can be seen as “the latest stage in the total quality movement”, and can be defined as “the formal coordination and integration of business processes involving all partner organizations in the supply channel to measure, analyze and continually improve products, services, and processes in order to create value and achieve satisfaction of intermediate and final customers in the market place” (Ross, 1998) Kuei et al (2002) argue that SCQM should be distinguished from supply chain technology management The former emphasizes the customer-driven culture, which is the social base to facilitate the supply chain’s workflow, while the latter addresses the development of the technical base to facilitate the information sharing SCQM is more and J Zeng et al more recognized as a significant dimension of the supply chain With a comprehensive literature review, Robinson and Malhotra (2005) point out that SCQM has received scant research attention SCQM is an important emerging field that needs to be further studied (Sila et al., 2006; Foster, 2008) Much of the current research on SCQM focuses on only the upstream side of the supply chain Forker et al (1997) demonstrate that the proper implementation and coordination of quality management activities in the upstream side of the supply chain improve supplier quality performance Their work is extended by Park et al (2001), including the supplier’s overall rating as a performance measure Their findings suggest that supplier can obtain a higher rating by its buyer through emphasis on process management and employee satisfaction Trent and Monczka (1999) propose a hierarchy of QM activities which can support world-class supplier quality performance Shin et al (2000) conclude that an improvement in supply management orientation has impact on both suppliers’ and buyers’ performance, particular in terms of delivery- and quality-related performance Fynes et al (2005) found a positive impact of supply chain relationship quality on quality performance Lai et al (2005) suggest that supplier firms regard a stable relationship as being positively linked to supplier commitment to quality Tracey and Tan (2001) state that customer satisfaction can be improved through supplier involvement and selecting suppliers based on product quality, delivery reliability, and product performance Some studies consider quality process integration both with suppliers on the upstream side and with customers on the downstream side simultaneously, however, the internal quality activities and their relationships with the upstream and downstream quality management have not been addressed Forza (1996) investigates how interactions with suppliers and customers for quality and flow are related to quality and time performance Salvador et al (2001) demonstrate that by interacting with suppliers and with customers regarding materials flow and quality, a firm can obtain better time-related operational performance in terms of speed and delivery punctuality Romano and Vinelli (2001), in their case study, examine the two different supply chains operated by a textile and apparel manufacturer – one is traditionally managed without formal integration, whereas the other is more coordinated with suppliers and customers Their findings indicate that the integrated supply network is able to better meet the quality expectations of the final customers through the joint definition and co-management of quality practices While SCQM requires simultaneous integration of internal practices, upstream supplier quality performance and downstream customer requirements, only a few studies have simultaneously addressed all these dimensions Tan et al (1999) investigate the impact of in-house quality management, supply base management and customer relations practices on corporate Supply chain quality management practices and performance: an empirical study performance Kuei et al (2001) extend the QM instrument proposed by Saraph et al (1989) by including four quality factors (supplier selection, supplier participation, customer relations and benchmarking) to study the association between SCQM and organizational performance Though these two studies consider the dimensions of SCQM from the internal, upstream and downstream sides of supply chain, the relationships among these dimensions are not examined Lin et al (2005) identify three dimensions of SCQM (QM practices, supplier participation and supplier selection) and investigate the causal relationship between them and organizational performance using two data sets collected from Taiwan and Hong Kong The results show that organization performance can be improved directly by supplier participation strategy which is significantly correlated with both supplier selection and QM practices In their study, the construct of customer relations is not treated as an independent dimension of SCQM but lumped together with internal quality practices such as training and employee relations The relationships between customer relations and internal/upstream quality management are not examined either Kaynak and Hartley (2008) which uses supplier quality management and customer focus to extend the causal framework for QM practices and performance in Kaynak (2003) into the supply chain This study examines how these two upstream and downstream practices lead to improved performance and how other practices mediate those relationships The findings reveal that supply chain members need each develop interclocking practices based on communication, collaboration and integration to improve quality performance at the end of the supply chain This study examines the detailed interplay between quality practices both internal and external A further study which captures SCQM by three major dimensions of internal, upstream and downstream QM would be valuable to provide more macro guidance for quality integration throughout the entire supply chain, and help practitioners identify the most significant dimension and leverage its linkage with the other dimensions From this literature review, we can see that studies on SCQM suffer incomplete consideration of the dimensions of SCQM covering internal, upstream and downstream sides of supply chain, and insufficient examination of the causal linkages among these dimensions This empirical study will try to fill this void by proposing a comprehensive framework covering all these dimensions and testing their causal linkages as discussed in more detail below Research framework SCM consists of internal practices, which are contained within a firm, and external practices, which cross organizational boundaries to integrate a firm with its customers and suppliers (Dröge et al., 2004; Li et al., 2006) From the 21 operations management perspective, flow management and quality management are the two dimensions of the supply chain (Forza, 1996) Maintaining high conformity in the upstream stages helps to avoid the extra inspection activities or the management of return flows for repairs in the downstream phases, facilitating the supply chain’s workflow As one significant dimension of supply chain, SCQM not only requires QM to be implemented internally within each supply chain member’s organization, but also requires communication, collaboration, and integration with both upstream and downstream supply chain members with respect to quality (Kaynak and Hartley, 2008) Based on this concept, we conceptualize SCQM as three components: internally implemented QM (internal QM), interaction with suppliers for quality (upstream QM), and interaction with customers for quality (downstream QM) The latter two QM practices, upstream QM and downstream QM, are clearly in the domain of SCM, and extend QM into the supply chain Based on a comprehensive literature view, QM practices with internal focus have been identified as internal QM – Top management leadership, Strategic planning, Quality information, Process management, Workforce management, and Product design process Upstream QM contains the following supply management practices identified from the literature, such as a long-term relationship with suppliers, supplier involvement in product development and quality improvement, quality focus in selecting suppliers, and supplier certification Downstream QM includes such practices as frequent meetings with customers, customer visits to the plant, encouragement of customer feedback on quality; customer involvement in product design and use of customer needs survey In addition, we adopt Juran (1992)’s concept of “Little Q” and “Big Q” to examine quality performance “Little Q” relates to the internal dimensions of quality linking to the production point of view, while “Big Q” considers external or marketplace quality linking to the user’s point of view Conformance quality refers to the ability to meet targets for quality within the manufacturing unit (Flynn et al., 1994), and responds to “Little Q” Customer satisfaction reflects not only delivered quality but also intangibles such as value and customer expectations (Flynn et al., 1994; Anderson et al., 1995), and relates to the aspect of “Big Q” The above SCQM practices and quality performance, and the associated supporting literature are showed in Table Figure presents the proposed conceptual framework in a structural equation model In this model, internal QM is presented as a latent construct which is linked to each of its measurement scales (Top management leadership, Strategic planning, Quality information, Process management, Workforce management, and Product design process) In addition, the structural relationships depicted by arrows H1-H8 correspond to the hypotheses developed as below From a cooperation perspective, Hillebrand and Biemans (2003) propose that internal cooperation may function as a 22 J Zeng et al Table Description of the constructs of SCQM and supporting literature Construct Internal QM Top management support Strategic planning Quality information Process management Workforce management Product design process Upstream QM Downstream QM Description Studies Involvement in and constant commitment of the company top management in all its functions to quality improvement Adam et al.(1997), Ahire et al (1996), Ahire and O’Shaughnessy (1998), Anderson et al (1995), Flynn et al (1994), Kaynak (2003), Saraph et al (1989), Powell (1995), Samson and Terziovski (1999) Choi and Eboch (1998), Samson and Terziovski (1999) Ahire et al (1996), Choi and Eboch (1998), Flynn et al (1994), Kaynak (2003), Samson and Terziovski (1999), Kaynak (2003), Saraph et al (1989), Ahire et al (1996), Anderson et al (1995), Ahire and O’Shaughnessy (1998), Choi and Eboch (1998), Flynn et al (1994), Forza and Filippini (1998), Kaynak (2003), Powell (1995), Samson and Terziovski (1999), Saraph et al (1989) Designing internal functions to reflect the organization’s mission Availability of information on quality performance and productivity, charts posted on the shopfloor showing defect rates, schedule compliance and machine breakdowns Monitoring of manufacturing process through the techniques and tools applied to a process to reduce process variation Use of statistical process control to maintain control over production processes and reduce variance in processes (Process control); Preventive maintenance; clean and organization of the workplace (Housekeeping) Implementation of employee involvement and quality circles (Small group problem solving); provision of quality-related training for all employees (Task-related training for employees); employee suggestion regarding improvements (Employee suggestion) Involvement and cooperation of all affected departments and the entire staff in design reviews Long-term relationships with suppliers; supplier involvement in product development; quality rather than price focus in selecting suppliers; supplier certification; suppliers involvement in quality improvement; Frequent meetings with customers, customer visits to the plant, encouragement of customer feedback on quality; customers involvement in product design; use of customer needs survey Adam et al.(1997), Ahire et al (1996), Ahire and O’Shaughnessy (1998), Choi and Eboch (1998), Flynn et al (1994), Forza and Filippini (1998), Kaynak (2003), Samson and Terziovski (1999), Saraph et al (1989) Adam et al.(1997), Ahire et al (1996), Ahire and Dreyfus (2000), Flynn et al (1994), Kaynak (2003), Saraph et al (1989) Ahire et al (1996), Flynn et al (1994); Forza (1996), Forza and Filippini (1998), Kaynak (2003), Lin et al (2005), Shin et al (2000), Tan et al (1999), Tracey and Tan (2001), Salvador et al (2001) Flynn et al (1994), Forza (1996), Forza and Filippini (1998), Tan et al (1999), Salvador et al (2001) Quality performance Conformance quality Customer satisfaction Conformity to product specifications which the product reaches at the end of the production process Global customer satisfaction as regards products and services received prerequisite coordination mechanism for external cooperation Also, the literature on supply chain integration suggests that companies should strengthen their internal integration before attempting to integrate themselves with suppliers and customers (King and Teo, 1997) Koufteros et al (2005) empirically demonstrate that internal integration has a positive influence on customer integration and supplier product and process integration in new product design Based on the reviewed literature, we propose that internal QM should precede the Ahire and Dreyfus (2000), Forza (1996), Forza and Filippini (1998), Flynn et al (1995), Juran (1992), Anderson et al (1995), Ahire and Dreyfus (2000), Forza (1996), Forza and Filippini (1998), Flynn et al (1995), Juran (1992) external QM with suppliers and customers and hypothesize the following: H1: Internal QM has a positive impact on upstream QM H2: Internal QM has a positive impact on downstream QM In a case study by Carter and Ellram (1994), supplier involvement in product design is found to improve defect rate in the later manufacturing stage Shin et al (2000) demonstrate Supply chain quality management practices and performance: an empirical study 23 Fig Proposed model that supplier management orientation such as a long-term relationship with suppliers, supplier involvement in the product development process and a quality focus, improves not only supplier performance but also buyer’s quality performance Tracey and Tan (2001) conclude that supplier selection criterion (quality, delivery and product performance), the supplier involvement in product development and in continuous improvement programs have positive impact on customer satisfaction Flynn and Flynn (2005) empirically verify Trent and Monczka (1999)’s hierarchical model for supplier quality management practices and demonstrate that co-makership practices such as supplier product and process design involvement positively influence supply chain performances Lin et al (2005) suggest that supplier participation in product design and kaizen projects/workshops improves organizational performance directly Consequently, the following hypotheses are proposed: H3: Upstream QM has a positive impact on conformance quality H4: Upstream QM has a positive impact on customer satisfaction The positive relationships between the internally focused QM practices examined in this study (top management leadership, strategic planning, workforce management, quality information, process management and product design process) and quality performance has been supported by many empirical studies, such as Adam (1997), Flynn et al (1995), Choi and Eboch (1998), Forza and Filippini (1998), Ahire and Dreyfus (2000), Kaynak (2003), to name a few Top management’s commitment to quality could act as a driving force for quality effort As managerial commitment is translated into specific strategies, employee participation in decision making processed through training and empowerment are fostered This can support the implementation of designing quality into products and services, and assuring in-process quality through the use of quality information, leading to higher quality performance Tan et al (1998) investigate three firms’ in-house QM approaches (designing quality into the product, process control, process improvement) Their results indicate that these approaches complement with supply base management to enhance firms’ competitive performance This leads to the following hypotheses: H5: Internal QM has a positive impact on conformance quality H6: Internal QM has a positive impact on customer satisfaction In an effective supply chain network, members maintain and sustain a customer-driven culture, offering the right product in the right place, at the right time and at the right price (Kuei et al., 2001) The integration and collaboration activities with customers permit customers’ needs to be satisfied in a much more targeted way (Forza and Filippini, 1998) Customer feedback facilitates fast corrective action to be made to the product or to the process and thus leads to an increase in outgoing conformity Rungtusanatham et al (2003), using the resource-based view of the firm, argue that both upstream linkages with suppliers and downstream linkages with customers can serve as a resource to provide operational performance benefits to a firm Tan et al (1999) empirically found that customer relation practices had a positive impact on performance Therefore, we hypothesize: H7: Downstream QM has a positive impact on conformance quality 24 J Zeng et al H8: Downstream QM has a positive impact on customer satisfaction Methodology 4.1 Sample The sample is comprised of data collected through an international joint research named High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) The aim of this project is to study management practices and their impact on plant performance within global competition The sample consists of 238 manufacturing plants which are both traditional and world-class plants, and was stratified by industry and nation Countries included the United States, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Korea, Germany and Finland, and the industries included machinery, electronics and transportation Since these industries were the ones in transition, a great deal of variability in performance and practices was expected to be present (Schroeder and Flynn, 2001) All plants in the sample represented different parent corporations and each had at least 250 employees A sample of 366 plants was randomly drawn from a master list of manufacturing plants for each country All of these plants were solicited for participation by calling or personal visit Two hundred thirty eight plants agreed to participate and each plant received a batch of questionnaires The question items were assigned to multiple questionnaires and distributed to the appropriate respondents The final response rate accounted for 65 % Table summarizes the key characteristics of these plants, by industry and country 4.2 Measures To operationalize internal QM, upstream QM and downstream QM, we identify suitable measurement scales from the HPM database that would be consistent with the meaning of the dimensions Internal QM is a multi-dimensional construct, and its six dimensions – Top management leadership, Strategic planning, Quality information, Process management, Workforce management, and Product design process have been suggested by the previous literature (Table 1) Among them, process management refers to monitoring of manufacturing process through the techniques and tools applied to a process to reduce process variation, so that it operates as expected, without breakdowns, missing materials, fixtures, tools, etc and despite work force variability (Flynn et al., 1994) Process management includes the use of statistical process control to track process performance for in-production quality assurance (Deming, 1986; Ahire and Dreyfus, 2000), heavy reliance on preventive maintenance aiming to conduct safety activities and avoid equipment breakdowns through scheduled maintenance (Flynn et al., 1995; Arauz et al., 2009), and emphasis on housekeeping which keeps the cleanliness and organization of the workplace to avoid clutter that hides defects and their causes (Flynn et al., 1994; Schonberger, 2007) Therefore, Process management is constructed as a super-scale consisting of three individual measurement scales: Process control, Preventive maintenance, and Housekeeping Workforce management should be managed in concert with methodological manufacturing practices (Snell and Dean, 1992), and has been underlined as one of the fundamental dimensions in quality management (e.g Flynn et al., 1994; Forza and Filippini, 1998) The developing and encouraging team problem-solving approaches (Flynn et al., 1995), providing quality-oriented and job-specific training (Garvin, 1984; Flynn et al., 1994), and taking advantage of employees’ ability to make proposals for improvements (Forza and Filippini, 1998) all have been highlighted as important areas of workforce management by previous literature Thus Workforce management is also constructed as a super-scale by three individual measurement scales: Small group problem solving, Task- Table Demographic of sample plants Country Electrical & Electronic Machinery Automobile Total Plant characteristics Average Market Share (%) Average Sale ($000) Average of Number of Employee (salaried person) Total US Japan Italy Sweden Austria Korea Finland Germany 11 29 10 12 13 35 10 10 27 10 24 10 21 10 10 11 31 14 10 30 13 19 41 25.50 25.05 23.38 27.14 20.03 31.54 22.48 30.21 284181 153 1118492 474 71209 296 584371 348 64474 122 2266962 2556 47705 87 173621 161 79 79 80 238 Supply chain quality management practices and performance: an empirical study related training for employees, and Employee suggestions Each of other four dimensions (Top management leadership, Strategic planning, Quality information, and Product design process) is measured by a single measurement scale respectively with the question items shown in the Appendix In total, a set of ten measurement scales is identified to measure the six dimensions of internal QM Upstream QM is measured by one measurement scale which contains seven question items addressing various issues regarding supply management for quality, such as supplier selection, supplier relationship, supplier involvement, etc Downstream QM is also measured by a multi-item measurement scale constituted by six question items covering various practices regarding the links with customers for quality The above twelve measurement scales are measured through perceptual questions over seven-points on the Likert scale, where a value of indicates the worst performance and a value of indicates the best performance Each of these measurement scales has multiple respondents from the same plant These respondents are from nine positions: direct workers, human resource manager, quality manager, supervisors, process engineer, plant superintendent, inventory manager, member of product development team, and plant manager As noted earlier, we consider two measures of quality performances – Conformance quality and Customer satisfaction The measure of conformance quality was judged by the plant manager on a five-point Likert scale, where a high score indicates that plant management perceives that the plant has been relatively successful pursuing quality conformance comparing to its competitors Customer satisfaction was evaluated by multiple informants on a seven-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 4=neither agree nor disagree, 7=strongly agree) Then, we assess the measurement quality of each multi-item measurement scale, and with satisfactory measurement quality Table Summary of measurement analysis 25 results, we average the item scores for the measurement scale All scale responses are averaged into a single plant response per scale; analysis is at the plant level Aggregating respondents across respondent category and collecting the same data from different respondents can help to address the issue of common method bias 4.3 Testing measurement instruments The validation process for the survey instrument includes three steps: reliability, content validity and construct validity The reliability and validity tests for the ten measurement scales for internal QM from Top management leadership to Product design process as well as Upstream QM and Downstream QM in Table are conducted on a dataset at an individual level consisting of response from each respondent Reliability is operationalized through the internal consistency method and Cronbach’s alpha is used as the reliability indicator Cronbach’s alpha value of at least 0.6 is considered acceptable, and items that not strongly contribute to alpha and whose content is not critical are eliminated Table shows the alpha value for all scales and most the scales exceed the lower limit by a substantial margin, indicating that the scales are internally consistent Content validity is ensured through an extensive review of literature and empirical studies Construct validity measures the extent to which the items in a scale all measure the same multivariate construct It is established through the use of factor analysis, demonstrating that all scales are onedimensional Table presents the summary of the eigenvalues for each of the scales and the Appendix shows the factor loadings by item The eigenvalue of the first factor for each scale is more than two exceeding the minimum eigenvalue of 1.00, and all factor loadings meet the criterion of larger Measurement Scale Mean S.D Cronbach Alpha Eigenvalue (% variance) Top management leadership Strategic planning Quality information Process control 5.505 5.239 4.878 4.811 0.613 0.864 0.843 0.827 0.795 0.799 0.791 0.824 3.068(51) 2.524(63) 2.759(55) 2.964(59) Preventive maintenance Housekeeping Small group problem solving Task-related training for employees Employee suggestion Product design process Upstream QM Downstream QM Process management Workforce management 4.858 5.516 5.046 5.187 5.171 4.825 5.050 5.324 4.987 5.153 0.666 0.687 0.640 0.625 0.624 0.711 0.507 0.519 0.577 0.551 0.675 0.817 0.824 0.792 0.834 0.700 0.770 0.682 0.696 0.820 2.202(44) 2.847(57) 3.211(54) 2.477(62) 3.025(60) 2.438(41) 2.874(48) 2.348(47) 1.878(63) 2.205(73) 26 J Zeng et al than 0.4, indicating all of items contribute to their respective scales After establishing satisfactory measurement performance, a dataset at the plant level is aggregated by calculating the average value of all the valid responses at the plant Based on this plant-level data, the two super-scales Process Management consisting of Process control, Preventive maintenance, and Housekeeping, and Workforce Management consisting of Small group problem solving, Task-related training for employees, and Employee suggestions are subject to the same process of testing reliability and validity as above The two super-scales are found to be reliable and valid as shown at the bottom of Table 3, and then they are computed by averaging the scores of their corresponding measurement scales respectively Hypothesis testing Hypotheses are tested using AMOS program A number of indices are used to determine the fit of the data to the model (e.g χ2/df, CFI, RMSEA and PNFI) The overall fit statistics for the hypothesized model are χ2 =101.383, df=31, χ2/ df=3.270, p