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Total Quality Management (TQM)

Introduction: Quality Culture And Learning

Introduction:

Total Quality Management is the culture of an organization committed to customer satisfaction through continuous improvement. It is our understanding that sometimes organizations reflect the personality and character of the founder member’s norms and beliefs. There is always a question of how fast an organization should attempt to modify its culture.

 

Representing culture:

 

  • In general, culture represents the way in which members of a business group control their behaviour in order to communicate with each other and with other groups in that society.
  • It reveals their pattern of behaviour, customs and practices and the beliefs that are shared. Most of the countries in the world therefore have their own cultures based on several such factors.

 

Organizational culture:

 

  • Like countries, business organizations also have their own cultures. It is the totality of the norms, beliefs and values that controls the behaviour of individuals and groups within any given organization.
  • However, many organizations are not even aware of their own culture or its distinct characteristics.
  • They become aware of it when they have to communicate with managers from other organizations with different cultures.
  • Sometimes individuals realize their own culture when mergers and acquisitions take place and a great deal of cultural adjustment is thrust on them.

 

Importance of the organizational culture:

The concept of corporate culture has been used in recent years to develop and understand the concept of culture in connection with the study of organizations. In this section the concept of quality culture is introduced and developed for the better understanding of the way quality manifests itself in companies.

 

There are many definitions of culture. However, the concept of culture which is now considered for the theory of organizations has its origin within anthropology and is given by Tyler (1871–1958) as follows:

 

Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.