This paper shows how `archaeology of knowledge' (Foucault) works at a site, called quality. By tracing the formation of knowledge on quality, a discursive space is opened. A spider web and snowballs help to illustrate where and how connections and concepts take shape, mutate and transform from modern quality control to quality management. Unconvinced by a seemingly objective or external source to discourse for unity in TQC and Deming's methodology, the paper argues for a discursive unity instead. A demonstration on how `quality' and `standards' may have become discursive objects highlights complex effects of a `quality' discourse. When the shaping capacity of discourse is taken seriously, its effect on knowledge (transformation may have to be reconsidered. To this end, the paper seeks to give voice to what established procedures for `positive knowledge' have been unable to deliver.
Academy of Management Review (1994) Special Issue on TQM, 19(3).
2.
Armstrong, P. (1994) `The Influence of Michel Foucault on Accounting Research', Critical Perspectives on Accounting5(1): 25-55.
3.
Ball, S. , ed. (1990) Foucault and Education: Discourse and Knowledge. London: Routledge (reprinted 1992).
4.
Bank, J. (1992) The Essence of Total Quality Management. London: Prentice Hall.
5.
Bates, D. , ed. (1995) Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Bendell, T. (1988) The Quality Gurus: What can they do for your Company?London: Department of Trade and Industry.
7.
Boje, D.M. and Winsor, R.D. (1993) `The Resurrection of Taylorism: Total Quality Management's Hidden Agenda', Journal of Organizational Change Management6(4): 57-71.
8.
Bradley, K. and Hill, S. (1983) `After Japan: The Quality Circle Transplant and Productive Efficiency', British Journal of Industrial Relations21(3): 291-311.
9.
Burrell, G. (1988) `Modernism, Post-modernism and Organizational Analysis 2: The Contribution of Michel Foucault', Organization Studies9(2): 221-236.
10.
California Management Review (1994) Special Issue on TQM, 35(3).
11.
Chan, W.T. (1963) A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
Cook, J. (1994) `Discourse, Ideology and Literature', in R.E. Asher (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
13.
Cooper, R. (1986) `Organization/Disorganization', Social Science Information25(2): 299-335.
14.
Cooper, R. (1987) `Information, Communication and Organization: A Poststructuralist Revision', Journal of Mind and Behaviour8(3): 395-416.
15.
Cooper, R. (1993) `Technologies of Representation', in P. Ahonen (ed.) Tracing the Semiotic Boundaries of Politics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
16.
Deming, W.E. (1950) Some Theory of Sampling. New York: John Wiley & Sons (reprinted Dover 1984).
17.
Deming, W.E. (1951) Elementary Principles of the Statistical Control of Quality. Tokyo: Nippon Kagaku Gijutsu Remmei (2nd printing 1952).
18.
Deming, W.E. (1986) Out of the Crisis: Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
Derrida, J. (1976) Of Grammatology. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press (1st French edition, 1967).
20.
Derrida, J. (1978) Writing and Difference (lectures delivered between 1959-67). London: Routledge (reprinted 1993).
21.
de Saussure, F. (1959) Course in General Linguistics. London: Peter Owen (1st French edition 1916).
22.
Dickson, M. (1993) `The Quality Gospel According to Deming', Financial Times30 December.
23.
Dickson, T. (1995) `Pioneers and Prophets: W. Edwards Deming', Financial Times, 2 January: 7.
24.
Feigenbaum, A. (1951) Quality Control: Principles, Practice and Administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.
25.
Feigenbaum, A. (1956) `Total Quality Control', Harvard Business Review34(6): 93-101.
26.
Foucault, M. (1967) Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge (reprinted 1995, 1st French edition 1961).
27.
Foucault, M. (1971) `Orders of Discourse', Social Science Information10(2): 7-13.
28.
Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock (reprinted 1978, 1st French edition 1969).
29.
Foucault, M. (1973) The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London: Tavistock (reprinted 1991, 1st French edition 1963).
30.
Fu, C.W.H. (1976) `Creative Hermeneutics: Taoist Metaphysics and Heidegger', Journal of Chinese Philosophy3(2): 115-143.
31.
Fu, C.W.H. (1978) `The Trans-Onto-Theo-Logical Foundations of Language: Heidegger and Taoism', Journal of Chinese Philosophy5(3): 301-334.
32.
Fung, Y.L. (1931) Chuang Tzu: A Selected Translation with an Exposition of the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang. Shanghai: The Commercial Press.
33.
Garvin, D.A. (1988) Managing Quality: The Strategic and Competitive Edge. New York: The Free Press.
34.
Garvin, D.A. (1991) `How the Baldrige Award Really Works', Harvard Business Review (November-December): 80-93.
35.
Grey, C. (1994) `Debating Foucault: A Critical Reply to Neimark', Critical Perspectives on Accounting5(1): 5-24.
36.
Hackman, J.R. and Wageman, R. (1995) `Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and Practical Issues', Administrative Science Quarterly40(2): 309-342.
37.
Harvard Business Review (1992) `Debate: Does the Baldrige Award really Work?' (January-February): 126-147.
38.
Heidegger, M. (1959) An Introduction to Metaphysics. London: Yale University Press (from German edition 1953).
39.
Heidegger, M. (1971) On the Way to Language. London: Harper & Row (1st German edition 1959).
40.
Hetherington, K. and Munro, R., eds (1997) Ideas of Difference: Social Spaces and the Labour of Division. Oxford: Blackwell.
41.
Hoskin, K. (1994) `Boxing Clever: For, Against and Beyond Foucault in the Battle for Accounting Theory', Critical Perspectives on Accounting5(1): 57-85.
42.
Hoskin, K. and Macve, R. (1986) `Accounting and the Examination: A Genealogy of Disciplinary Power', Accounting, Organization and Society11(2): 105-136.
43.
Howard, R. (1992) `The CEO as Organizational Architect: An Interview with Rank Xerox's Paul Allaire', Harvard Business Review (September-October): 107-119.
44.
Imai, M. (1986) Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. New York: McGraw-Hill.
45.
Ishikawa, K. (1954/1964) Hinshitsu Kanri Nyumon (Introduction to Quality Management). Tokyo: Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) Press.
46.
Ishikawa, K. (1985) What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
47.
Ishikawa, K. (1990) Introduction to Quality Control, 3rd edition. Tokyo: JUSE Press.
48.
Jacques, R. (1992) `Re-presenting the Knowledge Worker: A Poststructuralist Analysis of the New Employed Professional'. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts.
49.
Jacques, R. (1999) `Developing a Tactical Approach to Engaging with "Strategic"HRM', Organization6(2): 199-222.
50.
Joseph, J.E. (1994) `Saussurean Tradition in Twentieth-century Linguistics', in R.E. Asher (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
51.
Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1984) Special Issue on Heidegger and Chinese Philosophy11(4).
52.
Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1990) Special Issue on Derrida and Chinese Philosophy17(1).
53.
Juran, J. , ed. (1951) Quality-Control Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
54.
Juran, J.M. and Gryna, FM., Jr, eds (1988) Juran's Quality Control Handbook, 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
55.
Kaptchuk, T. (1983) Chinese Medicine: The Web that has no Weaver. London: Rider.
56.
Killian, C.S. (1992) The World of W Edwards Deming, 2nd edition. Knoxville, TN: SPC Press.
57.
Knights, D. (1992) `Changing Spaces: The Disruptive Impact of a New Epistemological Location for the Study of Management', Academy of Management Review17(3): 514-536.
58.
Kondo, Y. (1988) `Quality in Japan', in J.M. Juran and F.M. Gryna, Jr (eds) Juran's Quality Control Handbook, 4th edition, section 35F. New York: McGraw-Hill.
59.
Lao Tzu (1963) `Tao Te Ching', in W.T. Chan A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, pp. 136-176. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
60.
Latzko, W.J. and Saunders, D.M. (1995) Four Days with Dr Deming: A Strategy for Modern Methods of Management. New York: Addison-Wesley.
61.
Lechte, J. (1994) Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to Post-modernity. London: Routledge (reprinted 1995).
62.
Mann, N.R. (1985) The Keys to Excellence: The Story of Deming Philosophy. Los Angeles: Prestwick Books.
63.
May, R. (1996) Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influence on his Work. London: Routledge (1st German edition 1989).
64.
Monden, Y. (1981) `What Makes the Toyota Production System Really Tick?', Industrial Engineering (January): 36-46.
65.
Monden, Y. (1993) Toyota Production System: An Integrated Approach to Just-in-time, 2nd edition. Norcross, GA: Industrial Engineering and Management Press.
66.
Munro, R. (1991) `Managing by Ambiguity: An Archaeology of the Social in the Absence of Control Technologies'. Paper presented at the 3rd Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, July, Manchester.
67.
Munro, R. (1993) `Just when you Thought it Safe to Enter the Water: Accounting, Language Games and Multiple Control Technologies', Accounting, Management and Information Technologies3(4): 249-271.
68.
Munro, R. (1995) `Governing the New Province of Quality: Autonomy, Accounting and the Dissemination of Accountability', in A. Wilkinson and H. Willmott (eds) Making Quality Critical: New Perspectives on Organizational Change, pp. 127-155. London: Routledge.
69.
Munro, R. and Mouritsen, J., eds (1996) Accountability: Power, Ethos and the Technologies of Managing. London: International Thomson Business Press.
70.
Oakland, J. (1989) Total Quality Management. Oxford: Heinemann.
71.
Oliver, N. and Wilkinson, B. (1988) The Japanization of British Industry. Oxford: Blackwell.
72.
Porkert, M. (1974) The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: System of Correspondence. London: The MIT Press.
73.
Rank Xerox Ltd (1992) The Rank Xerox European Quality Award Submission Document.
74.
Sheridan, A. (1980) Michel Foucault: The Will to Truth. London: Tavistock.
75.
Shewhart, W.A. (1931) Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product. London: Macmillan.
76.
Shewhart, W.A. and Deming, W.E. (1939) Statistical Methods from the Viewpoint of Quality Control. Washington, DC: Department of Agriculture.
77.
Shingo, S. (1981) Study of Toyota Production System from Industrial Engineering Viewpoint. Tokyo: Japan Management Association.
78.
Shingo, S. (1986) Zero Quality Control: Source Inspection and the Poka-yoke System. Cambridge, MA: Productivity Press (1st Japanese edition 1985).
79.
Shiun, JR. (1979) `Selected Bibliography of Philosophical Taoism', Journal of Chinese Philosophy7(4): 341-356.
80.
Steingard, D.S. and Fitzgibbons, D.E. (1993) `A Postmodern Deconstruction of Total Quality Management (TQM)', Journal of Organizational Change Management6(5): 27-42.
81.
(The) Times (1993) `Obituaries-W. Edwards Deming', 24 December: 17.
82.
Townley, B. (1993) `Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its Relevance for Human Resource Management', Academy of Management Review18(3): 518-545.
83.
Tuckman, A. (1994) `The Yellow Brick Road: Total Quality Management and the Restructuring of Organizational Culture', Organization Studies15(5): 728-751.
84.
United States Department of Commerce and National Institute of Standards and Technology (1989) Application Guidelines 1989: Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
85.
Whyte, J. and Witcher, B. (1992) `The Adoption of Total Quality Management in Northern England', Occasional Paper Series.Durham: Durham University Business School.
86.
Wilkinson, A. and Willmott, H., eds (1995) Making Quality Critical: New Perspectives on Organizational Change. London: Routledge.
87.
Witcher, B. (1993) `The Adoption of Total Quality Management in Scotland', Occasional Paper Series.Durham: Durham University Business School.
88.
Xu, Q. (1996) `TQM Discourse: An Archaeological Site of Knowledge Production'. Paper presented at the British Academy of Management Annual Conference, September, Birmingham.
89.
Xu, Q. (1997) `The Making of Total Quality Management (TQM): A Supplementary Examination', PhD thesis, University of Durham.
90.
Xu, Q. (1999) `TQM as an Arbitrary Sign for Play: Discourse and Transformation', Organization Studies20(4): 659-681.
91.
Yeh, M. (1982) `The Deconstructive Way: A Comparative Study of Derrida and Chuang Tzu', Journal of Chinese Philosophy10(2): 95-126.
