M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 1 Christian De Cock The article considers the discourse surrounding culture change programmes in two British manufacturing organisations. The analysis of organisational discourse is pursued as a means of revealing the indeterminacy of organisational experiences and the pro- blems inherent to the introduction of generic change approaches such as TQM (Total Quality Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering). An examination of the discourse used in the case companies will show an intricate set of structural, cultu- ral, economic, and personal pressures passing through the TQM/BPR concepts. Organisational actors from all hierarchical levels are shown to be “disciplined” by the change discourse to various degrees. Three discursive movements are examined: the imposition/ introduction of a hegemonic discourse, the resistance to this discourse, and the appropriation of the discourse by line managers to reconstitute their actions and those of senior management. The outcome of these movements is a contested set of stories, full of contradiction and ambiguity. If the change discourse is to be embodied in local practices it cannot remain purely monologic, but has to engage in a dialogic rela- tionship with existing and emerging concepts and meanings. INTRODUCTION: ORGANISATIONAL DISCOURSE AND CULTURE CHANGE «To claim that the researcher somehow explores the real world direct- ly, without mediation of language, and then represents, mirrors, or translates that world into a precise word picture is today unthinkable.» (Van Maanen, 1996, p.378). The language we employ to describe what we take to be the facticity of organisational life has become a focus of interest in recent years. Organisational researchers have become increasingly sensitive to the fact that organisational life, like any other human activity, cannot be separated from the discursive fields of which it is an integral part (Barrett, Thomas, and Hocevar, 1995; Hatch, 1996; Van Maanen, 1995). The idea that language has a role in the constitution of reality has gained prevalence in a wide segment of social studies primarily as a result of work in social construction and natural language philosophy (Phillips and Hardy, 1997). This idea emphasises that discourses create ways of understanding the world, they do not mirror reality Department of Business and Management, School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PU, UK Telephone (School): +44 139 226 3218 Fax (Department): +44 139 226 3242 Organisational Change and Discourse: Hegemony, Resistance and Reconstitution M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 2 (Rorty, 1980). The organisational discourse perspective does not deny that social events do have causes and social institutions effects, but organisational actors necessarily operate in the cognitive domain, namely a domain within which they interact with their own descriptions (Geertz, 1980), and they cognise situations with the terms they have available. Discourse can be seen as a historically contingent body of regularised practices of language that are condoned by a particular community. It is made up of rules and procedures that construct and legitimate the way we see things and talk about them. These practices make pos- sible certain statements and communicational practices while disallo- wing others (Casey, 1995). Discourse not only restricts, limits and arranges what can and cannot be said about the phenomena within its domain; it also empowers (and disempowers) certain agents to speak on this or that question or fact. In many respects discourse empowers certain agents to create representations, and thereby to authoritative- ly pronounce on the shape and form of the world (Prior, 1997). In using a particular discourse actors not only secure the right to speak but they maintain or challenge power relations. Consequently, discourses reproduce and transform power relations and are, therefore, political processes (Phillips and Hardy, 1997). Over the past decade, the most popular discourses1 aimed at trying to change organisational practices have been those of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). These discourses are typified by terms such as empowerment, culture change, cross-disciplinary teams, work process flow, internal custo- mers and continuous improvement. From an organisational discourse perspective the TQM and BPR rhetorics can be seen as ways of constructing realities or schemes for sensemaking (Kieser, 1997). Through a particular change discourse (examples of this can be found in company videos, newsletters and management presentations), senior managers attempt to define the normative expectations of their employees’ role. In constructing the organisation as one thing as oppo- sed to another, certain lines of action are invited and others discoura- ged. The popularity of the TQM and BPR rhetoric in the practitioner orien- tated literature has been matched by a rising scepticism in the more academically orientated literature (e.g. Alvesson and Willmott, 1996; Boje and Winsor, 1993), leading to accusations of faddism (e.g. Aldag, 1997; Ramsay, 1996) or, even worse, of undermining worker dignity and efficacy (Steingard and Fitzgibbons, 1993). In this paper I am not so much concerned with the meaning of TQM or BPR in an abstract sense; rather I intend to capture experiences, as expressed in organi- sational stories, resulting from the imposition of the TQM/BPR dis- course in two case companies. In a final discussion section I will pro- vide a grounded critique of the BPR and TQM rhetorics based on these stories. 1. They were certainly lucrative from the consultants’ point of view. A senior part- ner at Andersen Consulting is reported to have proclaimed: «God Bless Mike Hammer» after having estimated yearly worldwide company revenues of $700 mil- lion as a direct result of BPR consultancy work (Thackray, 1993). GROUNDING AND REPRESENTATION OF THE RESEARCH This study can be situated within a growing body of storytelling research (for an elaborate overview of this literature see, for example, Boyce, 1996). I understand by “story” a report about an event, a situa- tion, a little world, as seen through the eyes of the storytellers who report about their relations with an object or objects in that world (Hummel, 1991). Stories do not merely recount events. They are the products of severe editing. As such they are inventions rather than dis- coveries (Weick, 1995). Storytellers are not concerned with “facts-as- information” but with “facts-as-experience”, turning every-day expe- rience into meaningful stories. In doing so, the storytellers neither accept nor reject “reality”. Instead they seek to mould it in a distinct way (Gabriel, 1995). Stories and storytelling are not just diversion. Stories connect facts, store complex summaries in retrievable form, and help people comprehend complex environments (Weick and Browning, 1986). The storytelling literature places great importance on narrative ways of knowing. The distinction with more traditional ways of organising reali- ty was aptly captured by Barry and Elmes (1997b): «There are two basic ways we, as social beings, construct and organize reality. The logicoscientific mode seeks truth through empirical verification; its goal is the reduction of uncertainty and its language is regulated by requi- rements of consistency and noncontradiction. The narrative mode, in contrast, emphasizes the creation of good stories that are contextual- ly and temporally bound. This perspective leads not to certainties but to kaleidoscopic understandings.» (Barry and Elmes, 1997b, p. 847)2. Fisher’s work (e.g. 1984; 1985) is referenced consistently in the story- telling literature (e.g. Boje, 1991; Boyce, 1996; Weick and Browning, 1986). He is credited with coining the term “narrative paradigm” which encompasses various narrative ways of organising reality. Within the narrative paradigm people are portrayed as meditative as well as cal- culative thinkers who judge the reasoning in stories by how well the story hangs together and how fully it rings true with experience. The meaning and value of a story are always a matter of how it stands with or against other stories. There is no story that is not embedded in other stories. One considers not the truth per se of the stories, but the conse- quences of accepting them as truth after a determination of their truth qualities as assessed by the tests of narrative probability and narrati- ve fidelity3 (Fisher, 1985). If organisations are “webs of meaning” (Geertz, 1973) then no one can stand outside those webs. The researcher, or any other “expert” for that matter, is a storyteller just like everyone else4. No matter how strictly a case is argued, it will always be a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world which is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (Weick and Browning, 1986). Czarniawska (1997, p. 26) pointed out that while «narratives on orga- nisations» (the traditional ways of writing about organisations) are M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 3 2. Butler (1997) makes very much the same point when he contrasts the essential difference between stories and experiments as a basis for empirical social inquiry. 3. Narrative probability refers to formal features of a story conceived as a discrete sequence of thought and/or action in life or literature; it concerns the question of whe- ther a story hangs together. Narrative fide- lity concerns the “truth qualities” of the story, the degree to which it accords with the logic of good reasons: the soundness of its reasoning and the value of its values (Fisher, 1985). 4. Instead of discovering enduring facts of organisational life and reporting them through neutral description, the researcher actively creates truth by assigning meaning to the phenomena he or she observes and experiences. It thus becomes difficult to conceive of any possibility of an “accura- te” or even an “impartial” representation of “organisational reality”. In the very act of constructing data out of experience, the researcher singles out some things as wor- thy of note and relegates others to the background, thus eliminating any possibili- ty of providing “pure” description, some- times referred to light-heartedly as “imma- culate perception” (Wolcott, 1994). usually stylised in the «only true story» format, «narratives in organi- sations» are manifold. The storytelling research tries to preserve this plurality. The kaleidoscopic aspect of storytelling research can be wit- nessed in many examples of this literature. In what follows I provide a very brief selection. Martin (1990) deconstructs and reconstructs an organisational story of a mere six lines from a feminist point of view. She explores how appa- rently well-intentioned organisational practices can reify, rather than alleviate, gender inequalities. Barry and Elmes (1997a) take a narrati- ve view of strategy. They investigate how tellings of strategy funda- mentally influence strategic choice and action and highlight the discur- sive, social nature of the strategy project, linking it to cultural and his- torical contexts. Boje (1991) offers a first-hand observation of storytel- ling as it is performed naturally in an organisation. His work draws attention to the uses of storytelling by internal and external stakehol- ders and to the dynamics which vary story performance. These stake- holders posit alternative stories with alternative motives and implica- tions to the very same underlying historical incident. In his study of the discourses surrounding the Disney corporation Boje (1995) traces the ways in which the official and the nonofficial accounts play with the same story elements but come away with very different readings and then analyses the relationship of the nonofficial accounts to the domi- nant legend of an official, happy, and profitable organisation. All stories about Disney are found to cover up a great deal of ambiguity. Boje concludes that: «Organizations cannot be registered as one story, but instead are a multiplicity, a plurality of stories and story interpretations in struggle with one another… More important, organizational life is more indeterminate, more differentiated, more chaotic, than it is simple, systematic, monological, and hierarchical.» (p. 1001). The analysis of the reengineering movement by Boje, Rosile, Dennehy and Summers (1997) is perhaps of greatest direct relevance to this paper. Boje and co-workers deconstruct the concept of reengineering as found in Hammer and Champy’s (1993) text and tapes from Hammer’s “performances” at management seminars and pull out the storytelling aspects in the BPR discourse. Hammer and Champy promise a set of general principles that will reinvent companies in the postindustrial age but what appears to be a revolution or revision is actually more of the same, «a storyteller’s fictive revisioning of the American dream» (Boje et al., 1997, p. 639). For example, Boje et al. (p.647) show how 19 reen- gineering themes can be reread as bureaucratic themes. The common theme running through these examples is that of «power- ful storytellers propagandising their version of reality as the reality that other storytellers are to live in5.» The authors show, often through a deconstruction of various stories, how discourse is used to impose power over others, and how these “hegemonic discourses” can be opened up to various readings. In this sense all the authors build on Lyotard’s (1984) concept of the “grand narrative” as totalising account. In considering the impact of the TQM/BPR discourse in the two case organisations I will elaborate on this theme. In the case organisations M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 4 5. A quote derived from a suggestion of one of the referees. senior people were asking others to live out a particular script, partial- ly drafted by management gurus. This set in motion a whole chain of discursive movements. The empirical section that follows consists of two parts. The first part contains a description of the contextual embedding of two change pro- grammes. The second part considers the official change discourse, the reaction of organisational members (both in terms of resistance and of “reconstitution” of practices) and the conflicting meanings which finally emerge from the encounter between the two. It will take the form of a mix of interpretation and mini-stories by organisational actors. I will try to represent the local hodgepodge of sensemaking by quoting some of the voices of the actors involved. Inevitably, I will have to impose a cer- tain formal coherence on a virtual chaos of events and interpretations. There is no need to maintain the illusion that “those people” talk for themselves; indeed they do not (cf. Czarniawska, 1997). But at least I try to pay them a compliment by making the reader clearly aware of the fact that there are different languages being spoken. Representation is ultimately always self-presentation. Even when we allow others to speak, when we talk about or for them, we are taking over their voice (Denzin, 1994). Not an ideal situation, but as Martin argued: «It is dif- ficult to imagine how to give up the author-ity game, without reducing the researcher to the role of a secretary or a publisher.» (Martin, 1992, p.201). EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS «The adventures first,» said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: «expla- nations take such a dreadful time.» (Carroll 1865/1982, p.95). The empirical findings represented here are based on a research inter- vention over the period 1992-1994 in two divisions of two large British manufacturing organisations: Pilkington Insulation Ltd. and British Nuclear Fuels - Fuel Division. These divisions will be referred to in this paper as PIL and BNFL. The intervention was concerned with the study of the introduction of the latest concrete manifestations of plan- ned organisational change: TQM (Total Quality Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering). These approaches were des- cribed at the time as the two latest expressions of an increasing sophistication in management techniques and principles. BPR was introduced in BNFL under the label “rightsizing”, in PIL the CATS (Competitive Advantage Through Service) programme was based on the BPR principles and philosophy. The TQM and BPR inspired chan- ge programmes were introduced chronologically in the case compa- nies (roughly separated by a 3-year time gap) and were represented as distinct change approaches in the official change discourse. However, I will conflate the TQM and BPR constructs when I talk about “TQM/BPR discourse” in my interpretation, as I see these constructs as part of a hegemonic discourse that tries to sell a particular story of M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 5 organisational reality6. In any case, the conceptual distinction propo- sed in the official change discourse was not shared throughout the organisation. Most of the data used to build a picture of the introduc- tion of planned change programmes were derived either from semi- structured interviews or company documents: 35 managers were inter- viewed in PIL and 41 in BNFL. The interviews covered people in mana- gerial roles at various hierarchical levels and various departments in the divisions. CONTEXTUAL EMBEDDING OF THE CHANGE PROGRAMMES Economic reality, resulting in the perceived need to «increase organi- sational effectiveness and efficiency in order to ensure survival in an increasingly competitive market7», formed a powerful driver for insti- gating change in both case companies. The link between external and internal pressures for change was provided by the discourse of senior managers. Senior managers conceptualised the latest change pro- grammes as the expression of an increasing sophistication in mana- ging change («building on what we’ve already achieved»). The chan- ge programmes were presented/explained as a way to ensure the ulti- mate survival of the organisation, reduce internal inefficiencies, and involve people more in the working of the organisation. Consultants played a significant role in both case companies in establishing the ini- tial conceptualisation of the change programmes by senior manage- ment. This conceptualisation involved moving the organisation from its present state to a future, more desirable state and was underpinned by the journey metaphor8. Frustrations created by the existing organisa- tional set-up with its old rules and rigid departmental structures (i.e. dissatisfaction with the status quo, «we cannot keep running our orga- nisation this way») were fully exploited in this discourse. Economic pressures for change in BNFL Fuel Division identified by senior managers included: the disappearing market for Fuel Division’s main product (Magnox), the privatisation of the electricity industry (and the accompanying move from cost-plus to fixed price contracts), and increasing international competition. When TQM was introduced (1990) these economic difficulties could be foreseen but were not yet tangible in day-to-day activities. The main perceived driver behind rightsizing was the demand of Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear to bring prices for nuclear fuel down by 20%. This translated into a 20% or more reduction in the workforce. Although rightsizing was partly ini- tiated by the desire to grasp organisational problems at their root, something which TQM seemed to be unable to achieve, the main dri- ving force behind the initiative was beyond any doubt external. Apart from these economic pressures, BNFL was not immune to the politics surrounding the nuclear industry in the UK. A less explicit, but very forceful driver in Fuel Division, was the need to “look good” and thus be considered as a candidate for privatisation when Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear would cut their ties with the government. M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 6 7. A phrase pulled from the PIL newletter (Summer, 1990) 8. «TQM is like starting on a road that goes on forever. TQM will never end for any of us. We will always be asking: “What are the next steps we should be taking?”» (The BNFL quality handbook, 1990, p.39). «We are on a long journey of continuous improvement…» (PIL newsletter, Autumn 1991). 6. I am aware that in doing so I am impli- citly taking a stance against the official change discourse. Managers in Fuel Division saw themselves as the most progressive in the whole of the UK group. The desire to keep up this image of being in touch with the latest developments in management thinking consti- tuted a further driving force to start the TQM and rightsizing change programmes. Frustrations about demarcations (both vertical and horizontal) exerted a strong pressure for change and were fully exploited during the intro- duction of the TQM programme. The demarcation was apparent at managerial level in strong departmentalism and clear hierarchical dis- tinctions. There also existed strong demarcations at shop floor level (e.g. the different “trades”). TQM and rightsizing were explicitly concei- ved as a way to replace the old rules («keep your head down and do as you are told», empire building) by new ones (challenge things, get involved, «we are all in this together»). PIL had been operating in a far more competitive environment than BNFL and had faced harsh trading conditions since 1989. Even within the Pilkington group, PIL was perceived as being «at the sharp end of things». Prices of its main products had fallen by 60% (adjusted for inflation) between 1988 and 1993 as PIL struggled to maintain its mar- ket share. Jobs had been cut mercilessly in order to survive. Economic pressures had been a major driver in the introduction of the change programmes. Internal drivers for change in PIL were a reaction to very similar pro- blems which had been identified in the 1969 Productivity Programme in the Pilkington group: working relationships which were stifling any initiative (demarcation), wasteful practices and lack of involvement of employees. The internal drive for CATS seemed to have been twofold: a frustration with TQM that it did not «deliver the goods» and the desi- re of the new CEO to make an impression on the organisation. The CATS programme initially also benefited from the contrast with the inaction of TQM (e.g. by building on existing dissatisfaction with TQM). PIL directors took pride in being at the forefront of management thin- king and were quick to take up any new developments in the manage- ment field. PIL was generally considered to be a “social laboratory” for the rest of the Pilkington group. The need to keep up this image of being a front-runner (a main driving force behind the introduction of the change programmes) was partly due to the fact that PIL was not a core business for the Pilkington group and therefore could be abandoned at any time. Later events proved that this fear was not unfounded9. INTERPRETING THE CHANGE DISCOURSE The mini stories provided here should give the reader a «flavour of the politics of language played out in a discursive field10». The aim is not to use them to “prove” my interpretation is the only possible one. Nevertheless, I believe it is important that the reader gets some insight in what kind of language was used by the various organisational actors. I decided on a textual strategy of keeping the interpretation and quotes pertaining to particular assertions separate (rather than illus- M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 7 9. In June 1994 PIL was sold to the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corporation. 10. A suggestion by one of the reviewers on how to restructure the first draft of the paper. The vague descriptions of manage- rial positions after the quotes are a compro- mise between the need to give some indica- tion of the speaker’s hierarchical position while protecting his/her anonimity. trating every assertion with some quote or other) in order not to play the puppeteer too much. Although the order I impose here over the chaotic is largely artificial, the quotes are not and should bring the sec- tion to life. My order takes the form of three movements: the imposi- tion/introduction of a hegemonic discourse, the resistance to this dis- course, and the appropriation of the discourse by organisational actors to reconstitute their actions and those of senior management. At the very least, this representation should provide a kaleidoscopic unders- tanding of the phenomenon of “resistance to change”. Conventionally this resistance is interpreted as psychological backwardness (usually attributed to people at the lower levels of the hierarchy) and senior managers are often encouraged to be relentless in responding to resis- tance11. Once we step outside the hegemonic discourse, “resistance” becomes the right to question the ideas that are presented as unavoi- dable. The result may be a rejection or an appropriation, a translation of the hegemonic discourse for one’s own purposes (Czarniawska, 1997). In a final interpretative move I summarise the dominant and marginalised meanings temporarily co-existing, thus undermining the idea of any permanent order. IMPOSITION OF A HEGEMONIC DISCOURSE «It seems to me that your power is a hidden power, because people only think of you as communicating reality, but in communicating rea- lity, you construct reality.» (Hines, 1988, p.257). The TQM and BPR discourse can be seen in part as a reflection of the necessity for large corporations to find new and innovative ways of competing constructively, of managing fragmented workforces and facilitating their survival in threatening circumstances (Kerfoot and Knights, 1995). It allows the organisation to tell itself as a coherent, centred, and strategically organised set of arrangements (Law, 1994). The discourse of TQM and BPR is powerful partly because it is made to appear complete and neutral, thus hiding the tensions and incom- pletion. It emerges and assumes the mantle of common sense, as a new normality that subsumes that which came before (Knights and Murray, 1994). In espousing the TQM/BPR discourse organisational members can gain status and specific identities, but they also re-enact a dominant set of power relations (Deetz, 1998). What is good for the company is supposed to be perceived by employees as being good for them (Keenoy, 1997). TQM/BPR is presented as “the only way to be” if the organisation is to survive and jobs to be preserved. «I am sure we are like any other organisation in that you think that you know what TQM is but it is only when you get further and further into it that you realise how big it is and the way it interacts with the business. TQM was seen as an umbrella initiative 4 years ago. The level that we are at now is that we see it as an integral part of the business process, an operating philosophy. We are at a stage where continuous impro- M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 8 11. Boje et al. (1997, p. 655) dig out a nice quote from Hammer in this respect: «Let them buck, let them speak up, then break the colt down.» vement is genuinely recognised as a necessity. It is now also built into our strategic and business plans. TQM has come of age. We unders- tand what it means now. We understand what we need to do to be world class. What we need to do is prioritise and focus tightly on the critical areas which are going to advance us on the world class lad- der.» (senior manager, BNFL). «The philosophy and techniques of TQM have helped to overcome the inertia of this massive project [building of a new plant]. We tended to become more focused on giving people a better service, talk to other parts of the division. We had personal contracts with R&D where they promised to deliver us the goods by certain dates. And people took pride in working to achieve that.» (senior manager, BNFL). «It’s the only way to be. If you’re not in the club you’re dead.» (senior manager PIL). «There is the outward image you would like to give if someone asks you at a senior level whether you agree with TQM; you are likely to say yes. Because if you say no..., it's a bit like the emperor's new clothes, it's incorrect from a career point of view.» (middle manager, BNFL). I had some first hand experience of the operation of hegemonic ten- dencies during my research intervention. When presenting my mate- rial to senior managers in BNFL the research findings were treated very defensively. Concern was expressed that my findings were over- ly negative. The apprehension which was expressed by most intervie- wees was brushed aside as «hat will be very easy to overcome» (sic). Contradictions and deviating opinions were eloquently explained away. Even the managers I had interviewed and found very willing to discuss all sorts of problems displayed a totally different behaviour pattern in this final meeting. Eventually it was decided to extract four or five key issues from my research report and to «BNFL-ise» (sic) them. In effect this meant: fit it in with the official company discourse. Although I had informally agreed to make a series of presentations to lower level managers, this offer was now diplomatically turned down (something which had been predicted by one of the line managers)12. RESISTANCE TO THE TQM/BPR DISCOURSE Narratives are necessarily incomplete. Their attempts to tell and embo- dy arrangements tend to encounter resistances (Law, 1994). Organisational members are not simply passive agents, easily sedu- ced by the TQM/BPR discourse (Parker, 1997). They quickly call atten- tion to inconsistencies between the assumptions that the change dis- course espouses and the historical patterns of authority relations that they have experienced (Wilkinson, Godfrey, and Marchington, 1997). For example, in the case companies actions taken under the TQM label reflected the same structure of power that the TQM discourse was ostensibly meant to challenge and change. The TQM discourse M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 9 12. Boyce (1995, p.126) relates a similar incident while examining collective sense- making and storytelling at a non-profit organisation. When the themes and stories emerging in the study did not confirm the president’s desired direction, the study became invisible. and its concerns with trust, commitment and “having the right attitude”, seemed in direct contradiction with its actual introduction and its effects on the organisational members. In BNFL the change directive arrived as a fait accompli, with little reflection of local concerns, dissent, or alternative views. As the chan- ge process unfolded, many of the old cultural rules tended to corrupt the new rules. For example, “playing the TQM game” became a new way of empire building; managers who wanted promotion had to be “seen” to support TQM. Expectations of operational managers were that vertical demarcations would become less pronounced (and they did to some extent) but many were disappointed by the perceived com- mitment shown by colleagues, senior managers and the director. To many TQM had become part of the political games that were played in the organisation and was no longer seen as way to make BNFL a bet- ter organisation. Apathy set in. Although in the official change discour- se rightsizing was presented as a way of delivering the drastic changes TQM failed to produce, in practice the programme was per- ceived by operational managers as being driven by external consti- tuencies (i.e. the need to cut costs by at least 20% by any means). This led to extreme apprehension which undermined the programme. This apprehension was further amplified by people's anxiety about their employment prospects in the “rightsized” BNFL. «TQM was wonderfully done [ironic]. “We are going to become a bet- ter organisation, therefore you will love TQM, whether you like it or not”. There was a video from the chief executive “I am determined that we are going to become a better organisation; we are going to partici- pate [slams fist on table]”. Not: “I have the desire” or “we would like you to…” The words were awful. Whoever sanctioned that video should have been shot... It sent us a terrible message. No vision about it, com- pletely top down, no input, no ownership…» (middle manager, BNFL). «People have been asked to join teams and are reluctant to do so because they don't feel they are getting anywhere. It takes up a tre- mendous amount of time to move a small step. There is the perception there is a lot of fuss about nothing. They formalised it, got people's photographs everywhere; that somehow justifies the time, money, and effort it has taken to do this. I was a sturdy follower of TQM for a long time. I initiated a lot of quality improvement teams and even I now think “Why are we bothering?” We seem to be driven into doing something. That is where the problem lies. It is almost as if we are driven to make changes for the sake of making changes rather than living with the fact that people are going to make changes in their own area in their own time.» (middle manager, BNFL). «People leaving and not being replaced, is that rightsizing?» (ironic voice - junior manager, BNFL). In PIL a significant number of employees had come to believe there M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 10 was a necessary link between the TQM programme and job reductions and thus many rejected all proposed changes under the TQM banner. They referred to two major redundancy rounds coinciding with the implementation of TQM. Furthermore, since the same work had to be done by far less people, managers became subject to a lot of additio- nal pressure. Consequently they resented having to spend time on issues that they perceived as not directly related to “doing the job” (e.g. TQM meetings). TQM then became «the damn thing that had to be done». Furthermore, any changes which required a considerable amount of resources (either money or manpower) were not made because all resources needed to be focused on the day-to-day survi- val. This constraint was most apparent in the allocation of resources. Only a particular type of change —small, efficiency improvements which did not require any up-front investment— was possible on a recurrent and reliable basis. Inevitably, the TQM discourse tended to get trivialised. Many managers made sense of TQM by using the experiences of the old change programmes (these were framed negatively, i.e. trumpet celebrations and no changes in actual working practices). Under the CATS label changes were introduced and implemented at great pace. However, over time doubts began to surface about the value of the CATS programme. An elite had been created (PIL managers who were working closely with the consultants) and all managers were put under a great amount of pressure. Some clearly expressed the feeling they were «being pushed around». This made many managers very appre- hensive about the whole exercise. Doubts had begun to surface concerning the value and sincerity of the CATS programme at the end of my research intervention. «TQM, continuous improvement, we have got to give a better service, and yet our resources are cut again and again. Fundamentally, that is the contradiction we have got. People certainly think they are tight on time and therefore have not the time and resources to do what the organisation says we are doing: TQM, spending time to get it right.» (senior manager PIL). «I believe the managers need to stand up for themselves a bit more to the directors. The middle management are getting squeezed in bet- ween the staff and directors. I see a lot of our conditions are changing, at the stroke of a pen, without consultations: this is it guys.» (middle manager, PIL). «We had these TQM story sheets. A couple of those were wrong. I say that quite confidently. The conclusions drawn from these TQM initia- tives were incorrect from a scientific point of view. That is the sort of daft things we were doing. Trying to impress people with success sto- ries. One was about labelling in the warehouse. It was said that becau- se of TQM the number of errors had gone down. The evidence clearly showed that with the introduction of the new scheme the number of M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 11 errors had gone up. You don’t need many of those before you say: this is all wrong.» (middle manager, PIL). APPROPRIATION OF THE TQM/ BPR DISCOURSE Dominant discourses are totalising only for those who view them as such; they are replete with fissures within which people engage in their individual practices of sensemaking. Organisational actors will try to appropriate the discourse, translate it for their own needs, “authorise” it as it were (cf. Czarniawska, 1997). Thus the change discourse becomes a double-edged sword whereby operational managers can “reconstitute” their practices and those of senior management as much as senior management could do the same to operational managers. If senior managers talk about working within a TQM philosophy, then there is an opening for their subordinates to represent themselves and their superiors within the same logic (Parker, 1997; Wilkinson et al., 1997). It then no longer is a question of being for or against TQM/BPR. The issue becomes: How do the different parties involved reshape their interests in the context of TQM/BPR (Munro, 1995)? For example, buying into the change discourse can be a possible way of signalling to those with the power to promote that managers are not averse to change, but that while they are prepared to look critically at the system in which they work, they will not unduly rock the organisational boat (Huczynski, 1993). Of course, there is no guarantee that this strategy will necessarily work to an individual’s advantage. «TQM got me a promotion… You'll notice that wherever you go, whe- rever there is a TQM co-ordinator, there has evolved a little empire, someone got a promotion out of it.» (middle manager, BNFL). «People belittle TQM but the way they work is within the TQM philo- sophy anyway. They say: “Why call it TQM? We’ve always done that”. I’ve never come across anyone saying “We’re not doing it because it is TQM”. Teamworking, taking responsibility for their own quality is seen by people as the normal way to work.» (middle manager, BNFL). «For example, there was a TQM lunch scheduled by one of our direc- tors so that he could speak to a wide variety of people. Now the date has been moved back. Unfortunately people predicted that this would happen. They feel a bit let down and wonder “Is that what TQM is about?”. It is the same with cutting down costs. We are saying to people “you can't just use as many pencils as you want” and then you see someone in a more senior position having a grand lunch somew- here or travel first class... It is not essential but people feel there are different rules that apply for different people and that undermines TQM. TQM then becomes a very easy label to blame things or people. Instead of the individual, TQM gets the slant.» (middle manager, PIL). M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 12 «I know people find me a pain at times but I have always tried to do as near a perfect job as I could. TQM therefore was absolutely superb. I thought “great, at last somebody else is going to do the same sort of things”. There were all sorts of problems in R&D at the time and I tried to get things put right. As a result of that I got branded as 'incomplete' and had a salary cut. You conclude what you like from that. Obviously it is only me who says so but I genuinely tried to do something about things under the banner of TQM and that is what happened.» (middle manager, PIL). «CATS was an opportunity for us to show to the board how important we are in the organisation providing computer services.» (junior mana- ger, PIL). «People did not take other people seriously when they were trying to do something about it [organisational problems]. One could quote a hundred examples which prove that the board did not really unders- tand what it was about and what the consequences of it were.» (midd- le manager, PIL). OUTCOMES: A CONFUSING AND CONTESTED SET OF MEANINGS The discourse promulgated by the senior management became increasingly irrelevant as a significant number of operational managers saw it as «high flying language» which had very few connections with the day-to-day work. The meaning attached to outcomes and events as managers made sense of actions, or lack of these, by colleagues and the top team became increasingly inconsistent with the company message. As the official change discourse tried to control actors’ sen- semaking, it effectively marginalised alternative meanings attached to outcomes, issues, and events and got progressively more out of touch with lived organisational experiences. Eventually this discourse would be stretched to breaking point. The way the companies coped was eventually to drop a particular change discourse (the TQM discourse) in favour of a new discourse which promised to alleviate all the exis- ting problems (rightsizing or CATS discourse). However, towards the end of the research intervention this “new” discourse had generated just as many alternative meanings among organisational members. Tables 1 and 2 contain some examples of the “official” view on cer- tain issues and cultural rules and the requisite alternative meanings attached to these same issues and cultural rules. M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 13 M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 14 13. The reader may have noticed that I already incorporated some reviewers’ comments in this text (see footnotes 5 and 10). Of course, most of the reviewers’ comments are of no direct interest to the reader (such as those concerning the lack of focus, theoretical basis, and interpreta- tion in the first version of this paper). I limit myself to those comments I believe a reader might offer him/herself. The metho- dological reflections on “voice” offered earlier in the paper still apply. TQM is the continuous improvement in the performance of BNFL, in meeting safely and cost effectively, agreed require- ments of internal and external customers, by releasing the potential of all employees. An organisation that is extremely responsive, lean, flexible, process oriented, customer oriented, works closely with sup- pliers, no stocks, no lead times, empowered, highly motivated. That is the goal. This was not just change for change’s sake, but change which would give enough improvement and benefit to be worth doing. What we did was go back to fundamental questions and ask what business have we got and if we were starting from scrat- ch again how would we organise and run them? I viewed rightsizing positively because it actually made us set some positive targets for reducing our cost which we did not have in TQM. That is what this division needs. Had it not been for that, we would still have been fiddling at the edges. Come up with initiatives, challenge, try and seek better ways of doing things. If you're not happy with the answer you get from your supervisor, go one line up. The hierarchy is not sacro- sanct. There is certainly the attitude that TQM is the practical alterna- tive to work. A lot of the meetings could just be held for TQM's sake. People who are never invited to them feel they are car- rying the new culture, that they are doing the work, send out the fuel to the gates to make money. When you talk to the guys on the shop floor, they just see it as mechanisms for spending money. They don’t see it as benefi- cial to them. Rightsizing is nothing more than a demanning exercise. The intention may have been originally there to streamline the workforce and put people in the right work but that is not how it is perceived now. Certain directors are settling old scores on the rightsizing. They are targeting certain individuals and put undue pressure on them. Rightsizing was implemented overnight. The troops didn’t get to know about it until the 11th hour. Are they hiding something or does it just tend to happen that way? I’m not sure. People are faced with a fait accompli and so experience it negatively. The advice to get on and survive comfortably? Dead easy: keep your head down, do your own work, stick to it, make sure that you get plenty of paper out, follow the rules. Stay on the right side of the right people, get your head down and get working. Table 1. Meanings of the TQM/Rightsizing discourse and cultural rules in BNFL Official Meanings Alternative Meanings DISCUSSION «The meaning of contribution emerges not from the presentation of brute facts, but rather from the development of honest claims to convey knowledge intended for academic audiences.» (Locke and Golden-Biddle, 1997, p.1026). The aim of this last section is to pull together some key themes and to convey what sense I make of the magnificent muddle I have presen- ted so far. I will refer explicitly to several of the reviewers’ comments in this discussion. Organisational tales can be told in many ways and dif- ferent readers can potentially unlock different narratives from the same text. As the reviewers have contributed significantly in shaping the par- ticular story I am telling about my field experiences, I decided to give them some kind of “voice” in the paper. They are the best substitute for a reader the author has to work with, thus allowing me to engage in at least something which approaches a real discussion13. The cynical reader may see this, with some justification, as part of a rhetorical strate- gy to support the validity of my story (cf. Locke and Golden-Biddle, 1997). This section is structured around two different suggestions/objections of reviewers. A first objection forces me to confront the “use-value” of my interpretation: why did I not provide an analysis that is of immedia- te help to managers? Two subtly different interpretations from the reviewers will then lead into a grounded appraisal of the TQM/BPR rhetorics. In this final part I will also indicate how I conceive of the “contribution” of my text. A “USELESS” INTERPRETATION? «You need to forget trying to find solutions to problems of TQM in the writings of text analysts, and look at the organizational learning litera- ture for why some interventions succeed and fail.» (reviewer 2, revi- sion1).» M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 15 Once the TQM had started you found people far more willing to sit around the table and solve a problem mutually. There are very definite changes as far as that is concerned. The TQM is on-going and although it is a very gradual change in culture it is there, although it has had its highs and lows. It is more alive now than it has been for the last year. TQM will give the company an advantage over its competitors so we can stay in business. To make us an efficient company, save money. Also enhance our reputation with the customers and involve people more in the workings of the company. The CATS project particularly, it has challenged the way people work. CATS delivered what TQM promised to achieve. It's a fairly open style. Reasonably informal, with quite a lot of space given without necessarily reinforcing that that space is given. There is very little in this organisation that if you want to do it, people actually stop you from doing it. Don't be afraid of challenging what you do. There are very few pockets in the organisation that would resent challenge. It just never came into being really. Everybody went on courses, got the literature, notices everywhere... but I don't think it made an impact on people. There was no connection with the daily work. Practical consequences? None whatsoever. It degenerated from very fine philosophical principles to a cartoon on the noti- ce board they churned out once a week. Many of the work force see it as the route to further job reduc- tions - and we have lost 35% of our work force over the past two years. The ideals of it are wonderful but in reality they are very hard to achieve. “People are your most important asset” is an awk- ward thing to say when in the same breath we got rid of people. There were all these good ideas supposedly coming out of the CATS project. We had suggested those many years ago but no one had given them any backing. An outside group of people comes in led by a couple of people from within our organisa- tion and suddenly work is getting done… I think it is a question of who is taking the credit? Even if you know about certain things that are key issues to the company and should be spoken about at a senior level I would be very careful about how to do that. You don't just speak out. If you want to get on you must be afraid of upsetting the apple cart. To get on? Do as you are told and don't rock the boat. I'm sorry but I'm absolutely dead serious on that. Table 2. Meanings of the TQM/CATS discourse and cultural rules in PIL Official Meanings Alternative Meanings Because my unit of analysis is not the change project itself, but the dis- course surrounding it, many organisational issues may fade in the background. The particular problem with the ambiguous picture I have sketched is that it does not really provide what the market wants (cf. Deetz, 1995). Because people (managers especially) want simple solutions and explanations there is a pressure to provide them. Hence the tendency to produce texts which limit concepts to those with which one particular social group is ideologically comfortable or to those which highlight only the variables which are easily manipulable by managerial interests (Watson, 1994). In particular managers want to know the exact reasons why change interventions succeed or fail. But the false clarity that results when bowing to “market pressures” is often part and parcel of the dominant discourse, the discourse of those who think everything goes without saying (Bourdieu, 1990). A practical problem in looking for clearly delineated causes of success or failure is that it is hard to know why, when, and if a change attempt has failed, precisely because of the many competing discourses. The inability to successfully transform an organisation may be attributable to a multitude of factors and there are no hard and fast standards for assessing the results of a change programme. One can always point to some positive developments and ascribe them to an intervention, even when the organisation as a whole is worse off for it (Miller, Greenwood, and Hinnings, 1997). The key participants in any change process have an elementary interest in portraying the costly process as a worthwhile and successful endeavour (Kieser, 1997). These diffi- culties are further exacerbated by the propaganda image of TQM and BPR in the popular press which implies that, as success is nearly uni- versal, difficulties must be related to the exceptional obstructiveness or inadequacy of some of the parties involved locally (Ramsay, 1996). Incidentally, both PIL and BNFL were identified by the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) as “best practice” companies in the area of TQM. Apparently they were managing quite well within the context of British industry. At the very least, external constituencies were impressed. However, the companies faced the same tensions which are widely reported in the organisational literature and which remain unresolved for the vast majority of companies who engage in a culture change programme. For example, how is the demand for conti- nuously higher performance to be reconciled with the ideal of team- work (Gergen and Whitney, 1996), teamwork and increased flexibility with “voluntary” redundancies (De Cock, 1998), empowerment with the increased routinisation of tasks (Boje and Winsor, 1993), cost-cutting with quality enhancement (Legge, 1995)? This very much raises the question whether culture change programmes are the most appropria- te means of securing organisational change (Keenoy, 1997; Legge, 1995)? It is an issue I will address in the final part. M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 16 CONTRIBUTIONS TO A GROUNDED CRITIQUE OF THE TQM/BPR RHETORICS «Maybe it is not an image of propaganda, but propaganda is the chan- ge strategy in effect, to enhance careers, in these feudal kingdoms.» (reviewer 1, revision 1). «While the rhetoric is anti-bureaucracy, the design puts in place an even more bureaucratic (top down), mechanistic (one best procedure and process designed in), and certainly less democratic design…» (reviewer 1, revision 2). «How are TQM and BPR these kind of [totalising] discourses?… On the face of it they seem anything but totalizing in that they engender open-hearted resistance and criticism that is held in check not by the discourses but by the power structure and the implicit threat of unem- ployment or demotion. So, I was not convinced that discourse is tota- lizing anything or dominating or hegemonizing.» (reviewer 2, revi- sion 2). Despite the lip service paid to issues such as “empowerment” and “teamwork”, the change initiatives tended to be imposed as totalising solutions in the case organisations. The mini-stories put into doubt whether the celebration of “empowerment” and “teamwork” under the TQM or BPR umbrella can be fully reconciled with the lived experien- ce of employees if they simultaneously encounter a reduction in their job security and an intensification in the pace and pressures of their work (cf. Willmott, 1995). However, I am rather hesitant to point to some Machiavellian plot or a «capitalist schema of alienation, dehu- manization, and totalitarianism» (Steingard and Fitzgibbons, 1993, p.32) behind the TQM/BPR discourse. Power/politics issues are part of the fabric of organisational life in our late 20th century capitalist socie- ty and not a set of actions and behaviours which can be simply brac- keted or reified (for example, by pointing a finger at the evils of TQM). The TQM/BPR discourses, as used by senior managers, to a great extent reproduce rather than transform power relations which conti- nuously confront organisational actors (De Cock, 1998). Of course, the TQM/BPR discourse has political consequences in that some organisational actors potentially stand to loose and others to gain from it. But it is not all that clear who are the powerful «who seem to be able to define the story of others for others» (to use a quote from one of the reviewers again). All organisational actors are “disciplined” by the change discourse to some extent. Certainly, by virtue of their position senior managers have more opportunities to propagandise their version of reality, «to define the story of others for others». But even senior managers are limited in what they can and cannot do. As argued earlier, there is no story that is not embedded in other stories, and the TQM/BPR story lines are embedded in more macro-stories of the changes in industry and economic life. Organisations have to be M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 17 seen to be adopting the latest change discourse to demonstrate their legitimacy and rationality to significant others in the environment, even if their senior managers are not convinced of the value of this discour- se. If senior managers do not appear to use the latest change dis- course, then external stakeholders’ expectations that the organisation is run rationally will tend to be disappointed, and stakeholders may withdraw their support from the organisation, thereby increasing the likelihood that the organisation and its managers will fail (Abrahamson, 1996). In this way all organisational actors are “disciplined” by the glo- bal change discourse. Policy makers need to develop a coherent and plausible local discour- se in response to these global discourses. They need to envisage an alternative way of institutional functioning, and this can be done only if they can articulate an alternative mission and establish an alternative discourse in terms of which reforms may be contemplated. In this sense «Ideological hegemony, far from being pernicious…, is a necessary prerequisite for challenging the status quo» (Tsoukas and Papoulias, 1996, p.861). The problem with discourses such as TQM/BPR is that they are generic discourses and therefore difficult to link to actual prac- tices in a straightforward way. In order for the TQM/BPR discourse to embody local practices, a sensitivity to the parochial forms of reality that terms such as multi-functional teams, continuous improvement, empo- werment, and the like sustain has to be developed (cf. Gergen and Thatchenkery, 1996). Many managers and change agents realise that they should not follow Deming’s, Crosby’s or Hammer’s rules religious- ly but is very difficult to break free of the TQM/BPR discourse precisely because it has been presented as natural, all-pervasive, “the only way to be”. Perhaps some kind of hegemonic discourse is an inevitable first step to introduce change, but it is debatable whether a generic hege- monic discourse is the best starting point. Organisational actors’ understandings reside, first and foremost, in the practices in which they participate. Therefore, there will always exist an important asymmetry between the rules-as-represented (for example, in the TQM discourse) and the rules-as-guide-in-practice, the latter being far richer (Tsoukas, 1996). Thus the three movements of hege- mony-resistance-constitution will surface in all organisations to a grea- ter or lesser extent, leading to the ambiguous sensemaking I tried to capture in the mini-stories. The comment from reviewer 2 that the TQM/BPR discourses do not seem to totalise anything in practice (i.e. in PIL and BNFL) is correct. However, this does not mean that the BPR/TQM discourse is not totalising/hegemonic in its basic intent. The discourse very much tries to forcefully “sell” (supported by videos, seminars, and glossy brochures) a particular version of organisational reality14. It is just that, for better or for worse (depending on one’s perspective), this totalising discourse has to compete with many other stories. What emerges ultimately is a unique combination of random events, sectional interests and existing routines. As Martin and Frost eloquently put it: «[T]here is no ‘happy acculturated forever after’ ending the change attempts. In all likelihood, there is no ‘forever after’ M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 18 14. As I clarified in an earlier point, this is not necessarily unique of the TQM/BPR discourse. This discourse is just the latest forum in which organisational power games are being played out. M@n@gement, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998, 1-22 19 in the script. At best, there may be some combination of agreement, dispute, and confusion that can be stitched together by human agen- cy, as managers and others move the action along, accomplish some objective, and then regroup around subsequent problems, issues, and opportunities.» (Martin and Frost, 1996, p.614). Managers who are serious about “change” will have to engage creati- vely with the various meanings created by the imposition of the hege- monic/monologic discourse and reflect on the dynamic unfolding of concrete interactions within a particular socio-temporal context, which should result in the acceptance of some kind of polyphony. Thus the hegemonic discourse would have to disappear or mutate over time if it is to have some lasting impact on organisational practices. The purely managerial interpretation and storytelling of the organisation and the world around it (the grand narrative) will have to be supplemented with local stories. These stories will not be decided upon by senior mana- gers and consultants. Thus the organisational storytelling should beco- me richer over time and go beyond the well-rehearsed script of saying something «about record profits due to a dramatically shortened cycle time and include great things employees have to say about the changes.» (Boje et al., 1997, p.655). The immediate implication is that any change process is more dynamic and recursive than the traditio- nal linear or stage models with their underlying journey metaphor imply. These models which permeate the practitioners’ literature do not explain anything other than the order they try to prescribe in the first place. So if readers get away with the feeling that stage models are totally self-referential, see them for what they are (part of the popular consultants’ script), that would be at least one simple take-away pro- duct of this article. Within a narrative approach the differences between story lines are at least as informative and useful as the formulation of an overarching account (Barry and Elmes, 1997b). Through the juxtapositioning of dif- ferent accounts, the TQM and BPR constructs can become more contextualised and, thereby, more imbued with meaning. Thus I hope to have contributed to a grounded critique of the TQM and BPR dis- courses as well as to the burgeoning literature on storytelling. Ultimately my reflections can be only a contribution to a continuing debate about ways of organising, rather than a contribution to our knowledge of organisations. But most importantly… I hope you enjoyed reading my particular story and got something useful out of it, however you define “useful”. 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