For each interactive activity, you may email your responses to your instructor or to yourself. Or, you may answer the questions and then print your responses when they are displayed on the screen. If you choose to print your response, then leave the spaces below blank.

Your Name:
Your Email:
Your Instructor's Name:
Your Instructor's Email:

• Descriptions of quality circles by Chris Jarvis of Brunel University in the article "Kaizen and Quality Circles" at www.bola.biz/quality/circles.html. Or go to www.bola.biz then to Operations Management, The Management of Quality, then scroll down and click on "The Adoption of Quality Circles" to view this article.
• Quality circles used by Honda Canada in "Shifting into High Gear" by Robert Colman at http://www.managementmag.com/index.cfm/ci_id/1893/la_id/1.htm. Or go to www.managementmag.com and search "Honda group circles," then select the article.
• Quality circles in government, from the Government Executive Magazine. Or go to www.govexec.com, search the term "quality circles," then choose the article, "From Quality Circles to TQM" of 7/01/97.

1. What are quality circles?

2. What are the advantages of quality circles?

3. What are the disadvantages of quality circles?

This paper, "United States Teams vs. Japanese Quality Circles: What can be Learned from Social Science" by Pamela Wallace of the Human Diversity Institute, compares quality circles and "teams." It's at http://www.workteams.unt.edu/old/literature/proceedings/awards/walace94.htm. Or go to www.workteams.unt.edu, then Information Resources, to search "quality circles" and choose her article of 8/11/2005. Read the paper and answer these questions:

4. Do teams and quality circles serve the same purposes?

5. What are the possible futures for US teams and Japanese circles?