Using the Competing Values Framework to identify the ideal culture profile for TQM: a UK perspective

There is growing concern about why some organisations fail in their attempts to implement TQM and so few gain the benefits of such implementation. The literature often points to the constraining effects of an organisation's culture as a major barrier. Few studies, however, link organisational culture and TQM implementation. In short, understanding the relationship between an organisation's culture and TQM philosophy can provide a greater insight into the TQM implementation process. A well known framework for an organisational model, the Competing Values Framework (CVF), was used to identify the ideal cultural profile for TQM implementation. A questionnaire using the CVF, was sent to "Quality Experts" in the UK to help identify the ideal cultural characteristics that they believed would support the TQM philosophy and facilitate its implementation. The findings indicated that the ideal cultural characteristics in the context of TQM can be classified as a group and developmental culture. Its characteristics tend to be flexible and customer oriented which emphasises participation, innovation, concern for human resource development and an attempt to decentralise decision making. This paper shows that the CVF can be a useful tool in helping organisations study the change needed to reach a desired quality culture.