在20世纪90年代初，管理理念被称为“全面质量管理”获得普及。它的起源追溯到美国质量专家的想法。
全面质量管理（TQM）的定义是“管理整个组织，它擅长的是重要的客户的产品和服务的所有方面。”的定义，这一理念以质量作为竞争优势的组织的驱动主要成分。营销决策直接受到这样一个系统的影响，因为质量是产品/服务设计的一个组成部分，是潜在购买者的一个重要决策标准。
In the early 1990s, a philosophy of management called "total quality management" gained popularity. Its origins are traced to the ideas of U.S. quality experts
W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Duran and highlighted by such programs as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Total quality management (TQM) is defined as "managing the entire organization so that it excels in all dimensions of products and services that are important to the customer." As the definition states, this philosophy concentrates on quality as a primary component of the organization's drive for competitive advantage. Marketing decision-making is directly effected by such a system because quality is a component of product/service design and can be an important decision-making criterion employed by potential buyers.
The TQM model goes beyond product and service quality, however, and suggests that a highly structured system of management that emphasizes mechanisms like control and punitive action which stifles people and ultimately hinders an organization's attempt to produce quality products and services. Rather, the organization that views all its employees as critical, creative resources will be much better able to pursue quality in every activity and through every decision. Some of the key tenets of TQM are:
Every employee has creative skill and talent that can be beneficial to the organization, and employees should be empowered with decision-making responsibility and authority.
An organization must engage in parallel and simultaneous decision making rather that hierarchical decision-making. Functions like marketing and production must work together and simultaneously to create solutions rather than waiting for another and engaging in reactive decision-making.
An organization must replace a control mentality and structure with one that nurtures creativity and cross-functional participation in decision-making.
Speed and quality are the essential dimensions of competitive advantage and should constitute the overriding objectives of the organization.
The underlying premises of TQM are attractive. However, TQM can be a very costly and time-consuming process. Speed and quality are essential to the concept of TQM as they are to product development and the efforts by firms like Honda to cut development time and use speed as a strategic tool. The argument that rigid and hierarchical organizational structures suppress creativity and limit an organization's potential is a believable proposition. But, organisations are discovering that the concept of TQM has some practical hazards that make complete implementation difficult. Specifically, the following can compromise TQM as a management approach:
Not all employees are capable of or desire to be empowered. Many employees, even at middle-management levels are content to make contributions to the organization by following rather than leading.
It can be difficult to motivate employees to embrace corporate objectives over their own personal or career objectives. Effective implementation of TQM requires that corporate goals be placed ahead of personal goals.
Effective implementation of TQM procedures presumes effective and swift communication within an organization in order for functional areas to operate simultaneously rather than hierarchically. Many organizations are unable to establish effective and rapid communications networks essential to the success of a TQM system.
Implementation of a total quality system requires its own sort of bureaucracy, which itself can bog down the organization from the standpoints of both cost and speed of decision making.
While TQM is an appealing philosophy, it remains to be seen whether it can be effectively implemented across complex organizations. Some firms, like Motorola, have had tremendous success with a TQM approach
