Total quality management and the need for organizational self-assessment: Some empirical evidence

This paper addresses the shortage of empirical data on the implementation of total quality management (TQM), particularly in small and medium-sized organizations. Evidence from a postal survey of 113 organizations practising TQM suggests that many are lacking the necessary perspectives to sustain this activity in the longer term. Internally focused, operations level TQM, with poor understanding and lack of measurement, combined with ineffective consultancy interventions, underlines the need for rigorous, systematic, organizational self-assessment to be practiced much more widely.