Autobiographical internal dialogue on TQM

Purpose To present the internal dialogue of a TQM practitioner using the conceptual lens of reflective practice. Design/methodology/approach This study used a pragmatic philosophical approach to collect qualitative critical reflection data and quantitative career construction data from stratified and purposively sampled respondents, using structured questionnaires. The qualitative data were analyzed through reconstruction, while the quantitative data were analyzed through co-construction using the percentage agreement value and Wilcoxon–Mann Whitney test. Findings Five questions were found to be valuable for steering the internal dialogue for critical reflection, thus recommended as a must-have in a TQM practitioner's toolkit. This study found the career adapt–abilities scale to be a valuable tool for assessing the career construction of a TQM practitioner. This was supported by a 64% agreement and non-significant difference between the two groups of raters used, p < 0.05 ( U = 3356.5, W = 7451.5, Z = 1.9826), two-tailed. Research limitations/implications The pragmatic philosophical stance used in this study lends it to a certain level of subjectivity. However, the inputs from the three other participants neutralize the subjectivity. Most notably, this study is not about consensus-seeking but rather verifiable/testable self-reflection. Practical implications The theory-informed results presented in this study are useful for the continuing professional development of TQM practitioners. Originality/value This study provides insights for applying an individual-level self-assessment tool for TQM implementation.