This study examined the effects of total quality management (TQM) programs on organizational performance in facilities design and construction firms. Additionally, this study identified strategies for the pursuit of quality improvement, and procedures used to assess the effects of a TQM program on various organizational processes.
In the early 1990s, regional economic integration continued to accelerate, the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) continued to flounder, and Asia continued to set the pace in economic growth.1 A continuation of these trends could result in the development of a more economically compartmentalized world by 2000. Such an outcome, however, was not certain.
There are five levels of regional integration, the first of which is the formation of a free trade area, and the second of which is the evolution of the free trade area into a customs union. Beyond the customs union, the third level of integration is the common market. The common market, generally speaking, describes the pre 1992 level of integration in the European Community (EC). The fourth level of integration is economic union. This is the level of integration which was initiated in the EC on 1 January 1992. The fifth level of integration is political union. Political union describes the integration of __________
1"The World's Biggest Boom," World Monitor, December 1991, 26 30, 33.the states in the United States in the early 1990s. Political union was, in the early 1990s, also the ultimate goal of the EC.2
Each successive level of regional integration involves a greater degree of unified and common action. A far ranging free trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the United States in the mid to late 1980s, and the Canada United States Free Trade Agreement became effective on 1 January 1989.3 Early in 1990, the governments of both Mexico and the United States began to speak openly and favorably toward the idea of...