| The purpose of this study was to determine success and failure factors for 184 institutions that participated in a Quality Progress journal "Quality in Education" survey both in 1991 and 1996. Of the original 46 institutions implementing TQM principles in 1991, only 17 were implementing TQM principles in 1996. Twenty-nine institutions, or 63 percent, were not on the 1996 list. However, the overall number of institutions implementing TQM principles increased to 155 in 1996.;Data from 184 institutions were collected using a self-administered mail questionnaire. Open-ended questions were used in the questionnaire, along with several demographic questions. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Even though the institutions were not randomly selected, they did represent a wide variety of colleges and universities across the entire country. Only four-year public, private, and land grant institutions were included in this study.;Three (3) mailings were sent in the study: a pilot study, the first mailing, and a follow-up mailing. Overall, sixty-four (64) out of 184 institutions returned the questionnaires for a response rate of thirty-four percent (34%).;Major findings of the study included: seventy-four (74) percent of the institutions that responded were still implementing TQM principles; sixty-eight (68) percent of the institutions that responded defined quality in their TQM initiatives; fifty-seven (57) percent of the institutions evaluated their quality initiatives; ninety-three (93) percent answered that there were barriers to implementation of TQM principles; thirty-seven (37) percent listed lack of management support, and poor or no leadership as major barriers to TQM implementation; and sixty-five (65) percent of the responding institutions have been implementing TQM less than six (6) years.;The conclusions of the study were: (a) In general, institutions of higher education were similar to other businesses and organizations in their reasons for success and failure in the implementation of TQM principles; (b) Institutions that considered their TQM efforts successful were characterized by top management support, vision, teamwork, and strong leadership; (c) Institutions that did not consider their TQM efforts to be successful were characterized by lack of commitment and support by leaders, faculty, and staff; and lack of communication throughout the institution, and (d) TQM is time consuming, results are incremental, and implementation is a never-ending, continuous process. |
