IS TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT REALLY UNIQUE

The main proposition of this paper is that the Principles commonly acc epted as defining total quality management (TQM) are not unique to TQM but are part of many other organizational change initiatives or gener ally accepted 'good' management practice. The paper traces the develop ment of TQM and the concept of management 'fads' and describes the dev elopment and definition of a number of approaches: world class manufac turing, guru theory, continuous improvement (CI), business process re- engineering (BPR) and human resource management. These approaches are then compared with each other and with the principles and practices a TQM. It is concluded that 'customer focus' is a key element of all app roaches, as is 'commitment' and 'involvement' of an employees, althoug h this is interpreted in various ways. TQM is not as unique as some of its proponent's claim, with its emphasis on processes shared with BPR , and CI one of its basic principles, although its development from th e mathematical foundation of quality control does make it unusual. At best, TQM. may be viewed as an alternative focus on a common set of ma nagement principles, derived from a statistical base, and at worst sim ply another management fad. Further work if needed to test the ideas o f this paper in practice.