The nursing homes helping seniors for their needs, like providing meals and medical treatments, is a welfare facility for seniors, and in larger perspective it is one area of the social welfare. For long time the social welfare has been recognized as one of the public responsibilities that should be handled by the government, supposedly based on a secure welfare system.
However, with the new freedom movement since 1980s, centered on the western developed countries, the role of the government on the social welfare has been reduced and its big part of the welfare responsibility has been transferred to the private sector, which runs for profits.
In the Republic of Korea, although it\'s a part of the welfare system for seniors, the nursing homes started by following the market principle. From 2008 when the Senior Nursing Guarantee System starts, the welfare businesses for the seniors will have to face the market competition like the ordinary business organizations competing in the markets to make profits. Therefore, now we can no longer guarantee to survive by the traditional welfare system.
Therefore in this study, based on the belief that the Total Quality Management, TQM, system, which emphasizes quality, can also be applied in the nursing homes for seniors, which is one of the social welfare facilities in South Korea, and by studying its potentials, I like to offer a basic data that can be used in running the senior nursing homes more efficiently and to improve the welfare of the seniors in South Korea.