Total Quality Management in the Academy: A Rebellious Reading

Abstract

In this article, Estela Bensimon assesses the appropriateness of adapting Total Quality Management (TQM) to higher education. She uses feminist adaptations of post-structuralist analysis to develop a critical interpretation of the basic postulates of quality with TQM: Quality is defined by customer satisfaction; Quality is the reduction of variation; Quality must be measurable. In particular, she focuses on the language of TQM that expresses how quality is defined, improved, and controlled; how the customer is determined; and how variation is eliminated. She concludes with a discussion of the negative implications of TQM as a philosophy and theory for the academy.