Quality circles: journey of an Asian public enterprise

Abstract

Quality circles (QCs) remain viable and continue to operate effectively. This paper traces the QC journey of the Singapore Housing Development Board, providing a historical perspective to the development of a QC for a large Asian state‐owned organisation. The inductive case study method is applied. Key implementation barriers and critical success factors are identified. The barriers include reluctance to change on the part of employees, initial lack of identification with the QC movement, and organisational size. The critical success factors include active CEO support, continuous publicity for the movement to create awareness and acceptance, conducive organisational culture, and appropriate reward and incentive schemes. A short illustrative QC project is also included for completeness. Overall, this paper issues a call for management to re‐examine the use of QCs as a potential strategy and to integrate QCs with other team type initiatives for continuous improvement.