Total Quality Management and hospital workforce national cultural diversity in Saudi Arabia: help or hindrance?

Within healthcare in Saudi Arabia, there has been a concerted public policy effort to advance quality management in order to improve efficiency in the face of growing demand and cost reduction pressures. There have been suggestions that over reliance on a non-Saudi workforce in Saudi hospitals bring extra costs and challenges that may impede the development of continuous improvement features associated with Total Quality Management (TQM), however there is a lack of research exploring this contention. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of an exploratory study investigating the current level of TQM maturity within Saudi hospitals and whether workforce national cultural diversity (WNCD) is considered to be influencing its development. A multiple case study research design is deployed to gather the views of managers and employees from three Saudi public sector hospitals. Each case study is compiled using management interviews and employee questionnaires. The findings suggest that, although there are slight variations across the three cases in relation to WNCD, most TQM critical success factors are well established in each hospital. In relation to the influence of workplace national cultural diversity, the conclusion is that the benefits of WNCD are likely to compensate for any limitations in terms of TQM development.