Adoption of quality management practices An investigation of its relationship with labor productivity for labor-intensive manufacturing companies Alemu Moges Belay Department of Engineering Design and Materials, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway and Department of Production Technology, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland Fentahun Moges Kasie Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia Petri Helo Department of Production Technology, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland Josu Takala University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland, and Daryl J. Powell Department of Production and Quality Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing nation and benchmark with the world average. Design/methodology/approach – Primary and secondary data were collected from 34 selected companies. The primary data were obtained using a questionnaire survey to determine the quality management adoption level of each company using the European Business Excellence Model. Secondary data also collected in order to compute labor productivity of each organization and benchmark with international norms. Findings – In this research, labor productivity is measured by revenues per employee and total assets per employee and found that adopting quality management has strong relationships with revenue per employee unlike total asset per employee that is weakly related. Originality/value – Several authors suggest a positive relationship between adoption quality management principles and productivity in large organizations located in developed countries. However, this paper particularly focuses on labor productivity of labor-intensive companies. Keywords TQM, Quality management, Labor productivity, Labor intensive, Benchmark, Concurrent engineering Paper type Research paper The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-5771.htm Received 20 February 2012 Revised 9 May 2012 Accepted 24 May 2012 Benchmarking: An International Journal Vol. 21 No. 1, 2014 pp. 77-100 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1463-5771 DOI 10.1108/BIJ-02-2012-0011 Quality management practices 77