A Critique of TQM: Problems of Implementation in the Public Sector

Item

Title

A Critique of TQM: Problems of Implementation in the Public Sector

Abstract/Description

In 1988, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was designated as a prototype quality improvement agency by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and praised for its work (Miller, 1988:1). Three years later, a survey by Fortune magazine found EEOC one of the 10 least respected agencies in the federal government.

In 1988, the Government Printing Office was praised by the magazine Government Executive which commented, "In what must be considered one of the most impressive turnarounds in government services, GPO's reputation is at its highest in level in a decade" (Paller, 1988:40). Just two years later, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) found "unresponsive relationships with client agencies, weak managerial accountability, and a lack of strategic planning" (Houk, 1991:2).

These two vignettes set the scene for a critical discussion of TQM. The examples are vexing and raise questions about perceptions of success as well as about the temporal nature of management change. They suggest that the glow that has accompanied the experience of the other contributors to this symposium may not provide the whole picture in an assessment of TQM.

This article is written from the perspective of two skeptics who, while sharing many of the goals of the TQM advocates, believe that the approach confronts a very different situation in the public sector (particularly the U.S. federal government) that it met in its application in the private sector. The concern of these skeptics is not whether TQM fits into the theories of public administration(1), but whether it fits into the "realities" of the world of public administration practice. The authors have emphasized several points in this piece: 1) the multiple "faces" of TQM; 2) the attributes of the public sector that constrain its utilization; and 3) the possibilities for its use in government.

Author/creator

Radin, Beryl A.

Coffee, Joseph N.

Date

1993

In publication

Public Administration Quarterly

Volume

17

Issue

1

Pages

42-54

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Reflection/Retrospective

en Other

Open access/full-text available

en No

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

0734-9149

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (JSTOR)

Citation

Radin, B. A., & Coffee, J. N. (1993). A Critique of TQM: Problems of Implementation in the Public Sector. Public Administration Quarterly, 17(1), 42–54.

Cited in

Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improvement

Item sets

OB Citations - Cross-Sector Research on Learning and Improvement

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