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The Value Dynamics of Total Quality Management: Ethics and the Foundations of TQM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Andrew C. Wicks
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Abstract:

Total Quality Management (TQM) has been the object of extensive discussion within the popular literature and is increasingly of interest among management scholars. Recent scholarship has focused on the theoretical foundations of TQM, particularly what makes it work, why so many firms have had problems implementing it, and under what circumstances it may create a sustainable advantage for individual firms. This paper extends the work in theory development regarding TQM and offers an empirically testable theoretical model of its function. The central claim of the paper is that embedded within TQM there are a set of moral values (“value dynamics”) that must be developed and maintained if it is to work, and that seeing them as moral values has significant theoretical and practical implications. That is, how TQM is understood and “enacted” (Weick 1979) by managers plays a significant role in determining its success. The discussion is linked to the ethics literature, normative implications of the model are explored, and directions for future research are outlined.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 2001 , pp. 501 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2001

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