Quality improvement: perspectives on organizational learning from hospital-based quality control circles in Taiwan

The health care industry in Taiwan has faced many challenges in recent years. To tackle those challenges, many hospitals in Taiwan began using management techniques used in other industries. As a result, quality management has become important within Taiwan's health care industry. This study provides a perspective on how this health care industry, by developing both quality control circle (QCC) practices and organizational learning techniques, responded to those challenges. In this study, the authors conducted a comprehensive review of studies published between 1995 and 2007 in Taiwan. The review focused on the quality management, QCC, organizational learning and health care organization aspects reported in previous studies. The authors applied the 4Is (intuiting, interpreting, integrating and institutionalizing) conceptual framework of Crossan et al. (1999) (Crossan, M.M., H.W. Lane, and R.E. White. 1999. An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review 24, no. 3: 522-37). in their discussion of the linkage between quality improvement activities and organizational learning. The results revealed the existence of a link between organizational learning and QCC activities. In addition, the reviewed QCC activities facilitated organizational learning and contributed to health care quality improvements in the studied hospitals. Finally, QCC practices in hospitals facilitated dissemination of organizational learning concepts in those hospitals.