A Critique of TQM: Problems of Implementation in the Public (1993)

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. 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. BACKGROUND Failed efforts at trying to change the way the federal government does its business is nothing new. The landscape in Washington is littered with the residuals of earlier reforms: PPBS, ZBB, MBO, Quality Circles, and many others. Almost any government employee can recall some attempt by management to bring about change that either failed to achieve its purposes or just eroded over time. Each of the reform efforts was accompanied by grand rhetoric and promises that it would dramatically change the way the government does its business. While each of the artifacts of a discarded religion had its own unique problems, there were several attributes that were common. First, few of the reforms were able to deal with the multiple actors found in the American political system of shared powers. If the Executive Branch proposed, Congress frequently was disposed to oppose. Second, the agenda for change often was a subterfuge for increased executive control where high-level managers (often political appointees) were able to grab hold of what they viewed as an anarchistic bureaucracy. Opposition, not surprisingly, came from that bureaucracy in many different forms. Third, the agenda might have had the converse set of values; that is, the empowerment of lower level employees. these cases, the higher level managers were concerned about losing control and exacerbating problematic situations. Finally, attempts to rationalize the system often meant looking at the interdependencies between various program and organizational elements. Not only did the reforms confront the structural obstacles that are found in our fragmented government system (with authority and responsibility over issues allocated to multiple players), but they also met resistance based on agency fear of loss of autonomy and power. According to its proponents, TQM is different than previous reform efforts. It is, as Marson and Garrity so clearly note in this symposium, an effort to provoke significant change within most organizations.(2) This is not a modest goal; indeed, the culture change that is implied by TQM cuts at the very essence of how public bureaucracies have been managed for 30, 50, or--in some cases--100 years or more. …