The Link between Organizational Learning Capability and Quality Culture for Total Quality Management: A Case Study in Vocational Education

Abstract

Both the total quality management (TQM) and learning organization (LO) appear to be promising approaches for organizational transformation towards a more effective, efficient, and responsive organization in the past. The evolutionary development and theory supports for these two fields are distinct but they appear to have more in common than they have in distinctiveness. However, there is little synergy developed between these two fields both in academic research and industrial applications. It is possibly due to the facxt that both the academia and industry are taking a limiting polarized view of TQM and LO and hence not getting the benefits of linking the two. This paper tries to establish a link between the organizational learning capability and the quality culture for TQM implementation based on a case study on the largest vocational education institution, the Vocational Training Council, of Hong Kong. The study reveals that there is a strong positive correlation between organizational learning capability and quality culture. The exploratory explanations for the links between the organizational learning capability constructs and the quality culture constructs are also discussed in this paper. The findings of the study support other literatures that TQM should be embedded in LO and serves as an enabler for organizational learning (OL) in transforming and creating organizations which continuously expand their abilities to change and shape their future.

Citation

Lam, V.M.Y., Poon, G.K.K. and Chin, K.S. (2006), "The Link between Organizational Learning Capability and Quality Culture for Total Quality Management: A Case Study in Vocational Education", Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 195-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/15982688200600012