Impact of organizational citizenship behavior on corporate sustainability through the mediation of TQM: focus on the textile industry in Bangladesh

PurposeThis study investigates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), total quality management (TQM), and corporate sustainability (CS). Specifically, the authors propose that TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. The authors intend to demonstrate that TQM practice may be able to balance the interests of all stakeholders and hence improve the performance of all three CS elements, namely economic, social and environmental.Design/methodology/approachThe authors designed a survey questionnaire. The authors then collected data from managers that were in charge of quality control in 216 companies. Hypotheses were developed and regression and path analyses were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsOCB has a positive effect on both TQM and CS. TQM also is positively related to CS. Further, TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. Further analyses show that the full mediation only applies to economic aspects of CS but not social and environmental.Practical implicationsCompanies that aim to achieve overall CS performance should not only encourage OCB in an organization, but also pay attention to TQM. Moreover, when deciding on hard and soft TQM, the priority should be given to hard TQM.Originality/valueThe authors investigate the relationship between OCB, TQM and CS in detail. The authors treat TQM in two elements of soft TQM and hard TQM while treating CS performance in three elements of economic, social and environmental performances. The authors further examine how both hard and soft TQM impacts CS performance differently.