A proposed framework for implementing TQM in Chinese organizations

With ever‐increasing competition in today’s business environment, organizations are seeking every opportunity to improve their business results. Attaining continuous performance improvement and business excellence is the common goal that ties with the concepts of total quality management (TQM). This paper presents a review of the literature concerning the difficulties regarding TQM implementation. It is followed by a description of the UMIST‐TQM implementation framework. Further primary research has attempted to identify unique difficulties, which may exist in Chinese organizations with respect to TQM implementation and adoption of the UMIST framework. A case study approach of six Chinese companies was used to validate the framework to establish the current state of TQM implementation and achievements over a 12‐month period. The main findings conclude that while TQM can help organizations to achieve improvements, this is often delayed due to the lack of attention to cultural implications and systems. The paper proposes that the UMIST framework can enable Chinese organizations to select an appropriate starting point for their TQM efforts, and develop an improvement process at a pace suitable to their business environment.