The Quality circles

Knowledge management seems to be a new label for older approaches on management. The revival of former concepts. Languages changes, but ideas are the same.

I have recently met an interesting description of the so called “quality circles” in organisations. This is an idea emerged in the early 1970s which was mainly addressed to reinforce the employee involvement and participation in organisational decision making. A quality circle is not so far from the concept of communities of practice, a more recent concept, appointed in the 90s, and understood as an useful and main tool of knowledge management and social capital development.

We can contrast definitions.

1.A “Quality circle is a group of people who meet on a regular basis to identify problems to do with quality and other day-to-day working arrangements. It provides a way for people to become more involved with matters relating to their job” (OUBS, 2004).

2.Communities of practices (CoP) are “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and a passion for a joint enterprise”. (Wenger and Snyder, 2000)


Even though the first one is focused on employees involvement, empowerment and theories of motivation, and the second one is addressed to organisational development through situated learning (with people sharing tacit knowledge and expertise), both of them have common features. In quality circles (Idem, 2004):

-Membership is voluntary
-Meetings are regular
-Groups are usually small, with no more than 15 members (CoPs are not constrained in this sense, but it is not recommended they become big cells of people).
-Membership is drawn from people who do the same or similar tasks.
-Leadership and structure can be decided by the group.
-Groups identify problems and define their causes
-The group develops and produces detailed solutions.

These traits are similar in communities of practice, but also, both CoPs and Quality circles could share the same inherent threats:

+ Are individuals really prepared and willing to share ideas, suggestions of improvement and ready to analyse the causes of problems? Why should them do this?
+ Are they previously aligned to the values and goals of the organisation? (Or are they mainly aligned to their personal goals?).
+ A competitive organisational culture is appropriated to develop these techniques?
+ How are these groups monitored and controlled?

Management concepts and techniques seem to be ever the same, but complexities within every different organisation and difficulties in managing social human behaviour are the truly (every day) new challenges to think about. However, I think it is always related to the same words: a climate of respect, equity, shared responsibilities, permanent feedbacks and meaningfulness of work.