Skip to main content

Search from vocabulary

Content language

Concept information

Preferred term

total quality management  

Definition

  • Total quality management (TQM) is a management philosophy and practice that aims to meet and exceed customers' expectations through continuous improvement of processes, the involvement of employees, and a quality-driven leadership vision. From its relatively humble beginnings at the start of the 1980s, TQM became, in the early 1990s, the most established managerial innovation: It was so widely proselytized, with such fervor, that it managed to cross national cultures, state ideologies, forms of ownership, and industrial sectors. [Source: International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies; Total Quality Management]

Entry terms

  • TQM

Belongs to group

URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/total_quality_management

Download this concept: