Employee Attitudes toward Total Quality Management in an Epa Regional Office

Abstract

Employee attitudes toward implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) are studied in a regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author condected more than a dozen interviews and adnistered questiousaires to 448 employees in the summer of 1991. Contrary to previous literature, clerical and managerial employees were most favorable toward the TQM program, whereas professionals were most negative. Apparently, professionals have experienced more work and few immediate rewands from the TQM implementation process, perhps because the agency stuied had not yet used TQM to simplify work processes for professionals. More behavioral research on TQM is calledfor.