* 1.1 Introduction The implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) has delivered extensive improvement in quality, costs, and capabilities across a range of industries around the world. However, the adaptation of TQM and continuous improvement (CI) approaches is quite minimal in the Arab businesses, especially in the manufacturing sector. TQM is a philosophy that has been applied worldwide in various economic sectors. The aim of this research is to identify some management approaches to TQM within the manufacturing companies in the Arab nations. TQM has been a well-known quality management concept since the 1980’s and significant research is still being carried out in this field to understand the critical factors for successful implementation and adoption, increasingly important in the context of different geographical location and cultures (Jha et.al, 2012). This research seeks to understand the challenges involved in the ever-increasing demand for highest level quality management systems through an assessment of the different models of performance management and process or continuous improvement in the manufacturing sector, which have been adopted across the developed countries. As highlighted by Valmohammadi (2011), the manufacturing companies in the Arab countries must concentrate on improving the quality management implementation issues to survive the global competition. 1.2 The Research Problem and Its Significance 2 According to Argia and Ismail (2013), TQM has been viewed to be a critical facilitating factor in the development of customer satisfaction and has been identified as an important approach adopted by many business organisations worldwide. TQM, through its emphasis on the matching of product or service to customer requirements can improve the satisfaction of customers to a large extent. Customer satisfaction is linked with quality at the source. Studies in TQM emphasise the critical role of leadership in the implantation process of TQM. According to Manufacturer (2003), TQM demands increased continuous effort from everyone in the organisation to satisfy the customer. Without clear and consistent quality leadership, quality initiatives cannot be successfully achieved. Thus is it necessary for quality leadership to be made strategic objectives of the Arab organisations Jonas (2003) stated that TQM drives the culture of an organisation towards commitment to total customer satisfaction through CI such a culture, materials, resources, equipment and quality management systems are implemented cost effectively and completely utilises, although in contrast, Temtime (2003) identified that culture has a strong influence upon organisational performance and individual satisfaction. Therefore, cultural awareness is very important for the organisation. The organisational development in developed nations, the considerations for local work culture is minimal in comparison to the business organisation in the Arab nations. Research shows that Arab work culture poses many difficulties for successful TQM benefits. As agreed by Rahman and Tannock (2005), this leads to conflict between organisational values and local values. Such a situation has affected many manufacturing organisations in the gulf countries when competing in global business
