An Analysis of Total Quality Management Practices in Public Agencies Using the Deming Management Method

Total Quality Management (TQM) can be regarded as one of the most important changes in management thought. Management philosophy of public agencies has been changing in last decades and TQM has become an important part of this change as well. As TQM is originally designed for private sector, implementation of TQM for public sector is not as easy as it is in private sector. For this reason, private agencies have been seeking appropriate TQM approaches for themselves. Deming Management Method which supposes a model including certain relationships between TQM variables is one of these approaches. According to this model relationships between TQM variables consequently affects customer satisfaction which is a TQM variable as well. This research mainly aims to seek the relationships between quality management practices and customer satisfaction in public sector from the point of view of Deming Management Method. A survey is conducted to employees of four public agencies. All agencies have quality management practices to some extent but only one of them has ISO certification. According to the results, most of the relationships supposed by the model is supported. The differentiation of TQM variables among agencies and among demographic characteristics of employee’s is also analyzed. Attitudes of employees towards TQM are analyzed as well. The findings are consistent with the literature