Exploring the Correspondence between Total Quality Management and Peter Senge's Disciplines of a Learning Organization: A Taiwan Perspective

The most important part of Total Quality Management (TQM) is pursuing continuous improvement in all aspects of organization, whereas a Learning Organization (LO) denotes learning principles that eventually lead to organization learning and growth. Because these principles seek similar goals, to investigate the association of these philosophies is of great value to management. The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the correspondence between TQM and LO. A group of evaluators consisting of academic scholars, business consultants as well as industry practitioners, judged the relative strength of the relationship between TQM constructs and Senge's five disciplines of learning organization. By applying correspondence analysis and cluster analysis, the result exhibits that close correspondence emerges between TQM and LO. Moreover, TQM constructs and LO disciplines are located on a two-dimensional coordination of a management map, in which dimensions of the measurability and the diffusibility are inferred and managerial implications from these dimensions are articulated. Finally, this study subsequently identifies three distinctive association groups composed of TQM constructs and LO disciplines. These groups are further defined as individual dominant, higher authority and product/material oriented.