The Ethical Implications of Quality

Abstract

Total Quality Management (TQM) has been described as an ideology, a corporate culture change phenomenon, a set of "hard" techniques, a set of "soft" skills, and as a pragmatic approach to business survival. Each of these descriptions has implicit ethical ramifications. Although TQM clearly has ethical implications, the direct connection between TQM and ethics has largely been unexplored. In this paper, I examine TQM from four ethical perspectives and show the ethical implications of each perspective. Regardless of the ethical system considered, poor quality is unethical and quality is an ethical imperative. Corporate leaders would do well to consider the ethics of TQM in their efforts to engender managerial and employee commitment and supportive behaviors.