What is Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) "is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions (marketing, finance, design, engineering, and production, customer service, etc.) to focus on meeting customer needs and organizational objectives." (Hashmi, 2007, para. 4) This organizational methodology allows both management and the employees to work together in a culture where the aim is to satisfy the customer, improve services, and preclude financial losses. This paper will further explore the definition of TQM and will provide a description of its impact of globalization on organizations and compare traditional management styles with quality-focused management styles.

What is Total Quality Management?Total Quality is a methodology which was initiated in Japan in the 1950s and was brought to the US by W. Edward Deming, then gained popularity throughout the 1980s (Stark, 1998). This methodology is both quality and customer-driven, but even with its popularity, many companies found it difficult to implement TQM when the upper management did not invest monies in training their top leadership and involve everyone in the new product development and with the new customer drives, as this would have allowed the company to have continued growth.

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Nameless and Numberless

Some of the key points of TQM are having upper management integral in the process, customer-driven quality, commitment from the company, continuity and movement toward development and improvement; the employees should be active participants in the process, and the company should act fast on all responses, plus the culture should be conducive for TQM to be implemented (Stark, 1998). When successfully implementing TQM, a company should have these eight essential elements, which are:"1. Ethics2. Integrity3. Trust4. Training5. Teamwork6. Leadership7. Recognition8. Communication" (Padhi, 2007, para. 2)With these elements, an organization should be able to work cohesively toward the goal of customer satisfaction and organizational improvement which should always be at...