TY  - JOUR
TI  - TQM as an Arbitrary Sign for Play: Discourse and Transformation
AU  - XU, Qi
PY  - 1999
PB  - SAGE Publications
LA  - eng
AB  - 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.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840699204007
DO  - 10.1177/0170840699204007
T2  - Organization studies: an international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the study of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies
VL  - 20
IS  - 4
SN  - 1741-3044
SN  - 0170-8406
SP  - 659-681
UR  - https://www.pollux-fid.de/r/cr-10.1177/0170840699204007
H1  - Pollux (Fachinformationsdienst Politikwissenschaft)
ER  -