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In recent years, total quality management (TQM) has become something of a social movement in the United States. This commentary returns to the writings of the movement's founders--W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa--to assess the coherence, distinctiveness, and likely perseverance of this provocative management philosophy. We identify a number of gaps in what is known about TQM processes and outcomes and explore the congruence between TQM practices and behavioral science knowledge about motivation, learning, and change in social systems. The commentary concludes with a prognosis about the future of TQM--including some speculations about what will be needed if TQM is to take root and prosper in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the differential effects of task design and reward system design on group functioning; the effectiveness of "hybrid" groups, in which groups' tasks and/or rewards have both individual and group elements; and how individuals' preferences for autonomy moderate their responses to interdependence at work An intervention in the reward system at a large US, corporation created group, individual, and hybrid rewards for 150 existing teams of technicians that had group, hybrid, or individual tasks a Groups performed best when their tasks and outcomes were either pure group or pure individual Hybrid groups performed quite poorly, had low-quality interaction processes, and low member satisfaction. Task and outcome interdependence affected different aspects of group functioning: Tasks influenced variables related to cooperation, while outcomes influenced variables related to effort. Individuals' autonomy preferences did not moderate the effects of task and reward interdependence but, instead, were themselves influenced by the amount of interdependence in the work. These findings have implications for the design of work and reward systems for work groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]