TQM as an Arbitrary Sign for Play: Discourse and Transformation

In: Organization studies: an international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the study of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies, Volume 20, Issue 4, p. 659-681

Abstract

This paper opens up quality management discourse. A historical review traces quality control discourse before TQM appeared. It is argued that rather than `Japanization', the challenge, paradoxically, is the westernization of `foreign'/ Japanese management technologies. To explore a conceptual possibility, the naming of TQM is scrutinized. When TQM is revealed as an arbitrary linguistic sign (de Saussure 1959), the limit of representation based on signified-signifier dichotomy becomes apparent. An arbitrary sign makes playing with substitutes possible (Derrida 1978). Specifically, de Saussure' s sign-signified-signifier trichotomy allows three substitutions. In so doing, a supplementary understanding of TQM is offered. The potential for reconsidering the emergence and transformation of other arbitrary signs (e.g. BPR and HRM) in the management/organization discourse makes this seemingly perverse deconstruction of TQM worthwhile.