Introduction

TQM is counted as one of the most prominent management ideas of twentieth century. Total quality management is rooted in various disciplines, which are connected with quality. Meanwhile, management practices of TQM might be seen from a cultural standpoint. This approach ties style of management and traditional values; TQM is a concept that emerged in Japan could be viewed as a phenomenon whose roots are found in culture of ancient Nippon.

Being popular as a philosophy of management in Japan and the US since 1950s, it started to gain popularity worldwide three decades later. The globalizations created new problems: Dominant cultural values are inconsistent with total quality management approach (Roney 1997, Yen et al. 2002, Tata & Prasad 1998).

Another problem that emerged with implementation of total quality management was inconsistency of corporate culture with this approach (Claver et al. 2001, Spencer 1994).
The goal of this paper is to show how organizational culture and TQM affects each other and which role cultural values play in success or failure of TQM implementation.

I am going to analyze the concept of TQM, to show which sources it came from and to demonstrate some examples of implementation the concept in companies from different cultures.

Total quality management’s basics

The term “total quality control” was first introduced by Armand Feigenbaum in 1956, who defined it as “an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction.” (Ishikawa 1994, 155)

Another quality guru, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, developed concepts of management responsibility and intrinsic motivation of workers and their relationship to statistical process control. (Costin 1994, 11) According to Deming, only management has the power to change the systems which are responsible for 85 percent of all defects (the remaining 15 percent are “specific to a certain worker or a machine. A statistical signal defects the existence of a special cause, which the worker can usually identify and correct.”)(Deming 1994, 96)

Dr. Juran’s contribution to total quality management is what he called “quality trilogy,” or three basic quality-oriented processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. Quality planning is “creating a process that will be able to meet 0established goals and do so under operating conditions” (cited at Costin 1994, 11); quality control limits define the zone of operating forces whose responsibility is “to run the process as optimal effectiveness” (Juran 1994, 115). Quality improvement is “the process for breaking through to unprecedented levels of performance.” (cited at Costin 1994, 12)

The basic idea behind the Shewhart cycle (in Japan – Deming cycle), considered to be the essence of the Japanese approach to Total Quality Control, (Costin 1994, 12) is:
• Plan: The basic planning process described by Juran
• Do: The implementation of the plan
• Check: Evaluation of performance according to critical measures
• Act: Quality improvement efforts based on the lessons learned from experience. These experience feed into the new plan, since PDCA is a cyclical process.

A contribution made by Deming, Juran and Crosby was generalized by by Quality Function Deployment Team from GOAL/QPC organization, which built the TQM Wheel model (see Fig. 1). GOAL/QPC is a non-profit organization, which is involved in research in total quality.

The hub of the wheel is Customer-Driven Master Plan, which “describes fundamental improvements that an organization needs to make and how the improvements will be accomplished” (GOAL QPC Research Report 1994, 322).

The wheel contains three units; each unit is divided into three parts and is a stage of Juron’s trilogy planning-control-improvement. Every stage is described by “who, what and how” subunits. The units, beginning from the top, are: unit optimization (first phase of TQM implementation), vertical alignment (regards to Hoshin planning) and horizontal integration (cross-functional management).

Hoshin planning is a method used to “ensure that the mission, vision, goals and annual objectives of an organization are communicated to and implemented by everyone, from the executive level to the “frontine”
level.” (Costin 1994, 16)

The most used idea in TQM is quality. It has been defined as “fitness to use” (Juran) (cited at Costin 1994, 13) or “quality of work, quality of service, quality of information, quality of process, quality of division, quality of people… quality of system, quality of company, quality of objectives, etc.” (Ishikawa) (cited in Costin 1994, 12)

Two out of three organizations that tried to implement TQM as a management philosophy failed (Yen et al 2002, 335). There is no doubt that TQM should be perceived as philosophy rather than a tool: Deming argued that TQM is philosophy “that requires a radical cultural change from traditional management to continuous improvement management style in an organization.” (Yen et al. 2002, 335) So, what is the secret of successful ones?

As Woods points out, “for managers to successfully direct their organization’s systems, there must be a clearly understood culture in place” (Woods 1997, 49). To be implemented successfully, total quality management should be seen as a style of corporate culture by both employees and management.

The culture consists of some combination of artifacts (also called practices, expressive symbols, or forms), values and beliefs, and underlying assumptions that organizational members share about appropriate behavior. (Detert et al. 2000, 851)

Let’s compare principles of successful quality culture, according to Woods, which are in the left column (Woods 1997) and major components of total quality management (right column, Spencer 1994), we’ll get following table:

Table 1. Principles of quality culture and components of TQM

Principles of quality culture	Components of TQM
We’re all in this together: company, suppliers, and customers. The goal is win-win-win for all these parties Role of environment – entities previously regarded as outsiders (e.g. suppliers or customers), becomes a part of organization.	We’re all in this together: company, suppliers, and customers. The goal is win-win-win for all these parties Role of environment – entities previously regarded as outsiders (e.g. suppliers or customers), becomes a part of organization.
No subordinates or superiors allowed. That means that managers should use authority and power to support mutual interests of their teams openly and conscientiously.	Role of management – to create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service, managers are responsible for poor quality.
Open, honest communication is vital.	Definition of quality – satisfying or delighting the customer.
Everyone has the access to all information on all operations.	Role of employees – to make decisions, build relationships, take steps needed to improve quality within the system designed by management.
Focus on processes.	Structural rationality – the teams are organized around processes to facilitate task accomplishment.
There are no successes or failures, just learning experiences.	Philosophy toward change – change, continuous improvement and learning are encouraged.
	Goal – quality enhancement as a dominant priority

As we can easily see, components of total quality management in fact are based on shared values that consists the quality culture. Therefore we can conclude that total quality management is not a concept that was artificially created, but rather, natural philosophy of management that has beliefs and values, which are shared by consumers, employees and management. In the next chapter we’ll show that values of TQM have their sources in Eastern thought and tradition.

Cross-cultural differences and implementation of TQM

In addition to Feigenbaum, Deming, Juran and Crosby, the “founding fathers” of the TQM movement were Japanese scholars and managers: Ishikawa, Kano, Imai, Mizuno and others (Costin 1994, 8). All principles listed above in fact are based on traditional Japanese culture. Knakal (1994) cites Pascale and Athos: “Japanese see each individual as having economic, psychological and spiritual needs, much as we do when we step back and think about it. But Japanese executives assume it is their task to attend to much more of the whole person, and not leave so much to other institutions (such as government, family, or religious ones).

And they believe it is only when the individual’s needs are well met within the subculture of a corporation that they can largely be freed for productive work that is in larger part outstanding” (Knakal 1994, 342).

Talking about sources of Japanese work ethics, Inazo Nitobe pointed out in Buddhism, Shinto, and the teachings of Confucius (Knakal 1994, 346). That rituals and services have to do with such values like discipline, respect to elder and pragmatism (in the sense of applying of what was learned). All that has to do with cultural values, or “building blocks” of culture, discovered by Hofstede.

He conducted his research in more than forty countries and described four dimensions of culture (Griffin 2003, 420). They were:
• power distance (the extent to which the less powerful members of society accept that power is distributed unequally.);
• masculinity (clearly defined sex roles with male values of success, money and things dominant in society);
• uncertainty avoidance (the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguity and create beliefs and institutions to try to avoid it);
• individualism (people look out for themselves and their immediate families as opposed to identifying with a larger group that is responsible for taking care of them in exchange for group loyalty) (Griffin 2003, 420-421).

The United States fell on the high end of the masculinity and individualism and on the low end in power distance and uncertainty avoidance, while Japan fell on the high end of the masculinity, power distance and uncertainty avoidance and low end of the individualism (http://www.pittstate.edu/mgmkt/culture.html).

As it was mentioned above, some organizational values could be inconsistent to TQM culture. To adjust company’s values to TQM concept Roney (1997) recommends the following steps:
• To isolate values underlying management approach to be implemented.
• To isolate national culture values and characterize them in comparison to the techniques.
• To chart the degrees of consistency or inconsistency on each of the key values.
• To address conflict in value orientations with management plans that promote values that are consistent with the management approach or that adjust this approach to be consistent with the cultural context.

Cultural implications of implementing TQM include not only inconsistency of collective values (Roney 1997) but also differences in manager’s personality types (Yen et al. 2002). Managers from two diverse cultures -- the US and Taiwan -- have different types of personalities.

While US managers often see TQM as a complex of tools, Taiwanese managers more likely view the philosophical issues of TQM as critical to the perceived implementation success of TQM; consequently, they are more successful in creating of the environment for implementing TQM (Yen et al. 2002, 343). MBTI tests conducted by researchers showed that Taiwanese and US managers differ on scale extraversion/introversion. This scale, as well as sensory/intuition scale, is significant for TQM.

Observing cases of TQM implementation in different countries: Taiwan (Yen et al. 2002), United Kingdom (Sinclair & Zairi 2001), Spain (Claver et al. 2001), Poland (Roney 1997), we can conclude that TQM will be successful more likely in countries where following dimensions fall on the low end: power distance (they have less centralized control over decision-making, what makes implementation of TQM more successful (Tata & Prasad 1998, 706)).

The uncertainty avoidance should falls on the low end (otherwise people feel necessary in policies and procedures), as in the countries like Singapore, the UK and the US (Tata & Prasad 1998, 706).

Discussion that emerged from these observations is the discussion about ethnocentrism versus polycentrism or geocentrism in human relations management for transnational companies (Tata & Prasad 1998,707). It deals with whether management should be chosen from local staff or appointed from the country where headquarters are located etc. So, we see now that we should always take into account cultural peculiarities when dealing with implementation of total quality management.

Conclusions

The relationship between TQM and culture that Kanji and Yui describe TQM as the culture of an organization committed to customer satisfaction through continuous improvement (Claver et al. 2001, 470).

The idea of total quality management implies continuous changes, what refers it to Japanese traditional culture with its ideas of tides of life, the interaction of the “Yin and Yang.” This eastern approach forced Dr. Deming to tell once that in three years he’s “got to see a lot happen” (March 1994, 137). TQM, rather philosophy of business, than complex of tools, couldn’t be described by formulas.

The best way it was ever defined is famous “Deming’s 14 points” which sound like samurai’s code Bushido (March 1994,138-139):
• Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service
• Adopt a new philosophy
• Cease dependence on mass inspection
• End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone
• Constantly and forever improve the system of production and service
• Institute modern methods of training the job
• Institute modern methods of supervising
• Drive out fear
• Break down barriers between departments
• Eliminate numerical goals for the work force
• Eliminate work standards and numerical quotas
• Remove barriers that hinder the hourly workers
• Institute a vigorous program of education and training
• Create a structure in top management that will push every day on the above 13 points

It is not surprising that many companies that tried to implement total quality programs failed. As any other approach, TQM owed its ideas to national culture (in this case – Japanese one). Japan, according to Hofstede, falls in following ends of his dimensions: high level of uncertainty avoidance, rather masculine than feminine, rather collectivistic than individualistic and high level of power distance. All these make TQM difficult to implement in countries like Poland or Ukraine.

Although as far as philosophy of TQM is the philosophy of continuous improvement, the company should go through the following process of diagnosis and change (Tata & Prasad 1998,709):
• Conduct a culture and structure diagnosis;
• Determine match between organizational culture/structure and TQM strategy
• Design content of change
• Decide how to implement the change.

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