TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) IN ISLAM AND THE WEST: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Management plays an important role in the efficient performance of an organization. Many resource-poor countries in the world enjoy a high degree of development because of their efficient and quality management in their resource allocation, production, marketing and distribution, among other things. On the other hand many resource-rich countries suffer from under-development and poverty due to the inefficiency of management among other things. So efficient management is necessary for the development of any organization as well as any country. Efficiency in modern management is measured in terms of productivity that is considered as an engineering relationship between input and output. Here the emphasis is on quantity rather than quality. But in Islam quality is more important than quantity. It does not imply that quantity does not considered or counted. Here quantity counts if it passes the criterion of quality. On the other hand Total Quality Management (TQM) emphasizes also on quality, which is a recent phenomenon in the west. But in Islam the concept of TQM is emphasized and practices from the very beginning of its inception. This article is an attempt to critically analyze the concept of TQM from the western and Islamic perspective comparatively.