The last decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in the level of awareness and the incidents of implementation of total quality management (TQM). However, not all the applications have been successful. Amongst the many reasons given for the failures, the literature often points to the constraining effects of an organization's culture as a major barrier. In fact, many published studies that deal with the implementation of TQM almost exclusively acknowledge the importance of cultural factors on the success or failure of the venture. The focus of this study was to investigate the degree of compatibility of the culture that exists in the industries of one of the Arab countries, Qatar, and that required for implementing TQM. This paper, in particular, discusses how the competing values framework (CVF) can be used in this respect (The authors had already used the framework to help identify the necessary TQM cultural profile.) The medium used to gather the information was a questionnaire, which was completed by 141 organizations. The results indicated that many organizations in the country were not characterized by just one cultural type, but a mix of two, which did not match the cultural profile characteristics that support TQM. Implementing organizational culture change is not an easy task, but this assessment of the current position, using the CVF, has highlighted where changes are needed to support a total quality approach.
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