TQM and BPR: Beyond the Beyond Myth

Journal of Management Studies 34:5 September 1997 0022-2380 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH CHRISTIAN DE COCK Royal Holloway, University of London IAN HIPKIN Manchester Business School ABSTRACT It is generally assumed in the popular management literature that the TQM (total quality management) and BPR (business process re-engineering) movements are the two latest expressions of an increasing sophistication in management techniques and principles. Following this logic it only is a matter of time before they will be superseded by yet another management innovation. This paper aims to explode this `beyond' myth by exposing the underlying logic of TQM and BPR implementation patterns in two case companies. Empirical ®ndings will be related back to critical approaches to the study of TQM and BPR. Concrete suggestions as to how to move beyond the quick ®x managerial mode will be proposed. Our approach is intended to provide a counterweight to the unre¯ective discourse surrounding TQM and BPR by breaking open the naturalness of this discourse. It supplies a few landmarks for managers and researchers to take a step back, hesitate, and re¯ect on the phenomenon of planned organizational change. INTRODUCTION Total quality management (TQM) and business process re-engineering (BPR) appear to be ambiguous constructs. On the one hand they are claimed to be management innovations that will restore competitiveness and turn traditional, bureaucratic organizations into world-class competitors (Hayes and Pisano, 1994; Hodgetts et al., 1994). These claims tend to be backed up by impressive ®eld stories (such as: company X cut overheads by 60%) which seem to provide them with a degree of authenticity. On the other hand, TQM and BPR are often considered to refer merely to managerial common sense (e.g. Fisher, 1994). Furthermore, these management innovations appear to be quite short-lived. One does not have to look far a®eld to ®nd advice on how to `go beyond TQM' (Drummond, 1995). While to some BPR seems to have emerged as the natural successor to TQM (Browning, 1993; Cross et al., 1994), other authors already Address for reprints: Christian De Cock, School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK. # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 660 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN assert we have to go even beyond BPR to increase organizational e€ectiveness (McHugh et al., 1994). In exploring the TQM and BPR constructs and developing our arguments against the `beyond' myth we will move on two tracks: theoretical and empirical. We will brie¯y discuss the two constructs that form the subject of this paper. This discussion will look at roots, basic tenets and an assessment of their impact. We will then move on to discuss the implementation of change programmes based on TQM and BPR principles in two UK manufacturing organizations. In the next part of the paper we will integrate both previous analyses and expose the underlying implementation logic of BPR and TQM using an elaboration of Mintzberg's (1978) strategy template. After critically re-examining the TQM and BPR literature we will o€er an alternative to the `beyond' logic that pervades the popular management literature today. Our conceptualization will enable both researchers and managers to obtain a better grip on the processes that are set in motion during the introduction of planned organizational change. ON TQM Although it has been recently suggested that total quality management (TQM) is `out' (Fisher, 1994) or that it was essentially a 1980s' phenomenon (Hodgetts et al., 1994), the interest in TQM has scarcely subsided. This is evidenced, for example, by the recent publication of special TQM editions by Academy of Management Review (vol. 19, no. 3), Journal of Change Management (vol. 7, no. 2) and Employee Relations (vol. 17, no. 3), which were complemented by a steady stream of academic papers in other journals (e.g. Drummond, 1995; Hackman and Wageman, 1995; Tuckman, 1994). Furthermore, notwithstanding the considerable debate over the longevity of the quality movement, the reality of quality programmes exists (or existed) in most large organizations operating in the 1990s (Almaraz, 1994). As Hackman and Wageman (1995, p. 319) suggested: `At least for now, there is indeed a ``there'' there for TQM.' While initially growing out of the concerns of quality assurance, where ®tness for use and meeting customer requirements were narrowly associated with component manufacture, TQM has now become more explicitly a managerial attempt at cultural transformation (Tuckman, 1994). In the managerial literature TQM is often treated as synonymous with culture change and excellence and is generally acknowledged to be a major determinant of organizational change (Grant et al., 1994). A recent de®nition proposed by Almaraz (1994, p. 9) adequately incorporates most of the ideas of the TQM gurus while taking into account what TQM has actually meant or means to a myriad of organizations that introduced a TQM programme of some kind: `TQM ... refers to a management process directed at establishing organized continuous improvement activities, involving everyone in an organization in a totally integrated e€ort toward improving performance at every level.' Although TQM did not really become established until the latter half of the 1980s, its roots go back to developments around mass production in the USA in the 1930s, which gave rise to both human relations and quality assurance movements (Schroeder and Robinson, 1991). There is now such diversity of # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 661 things done under the name of TQM that it has become unclear whether TQM still has an identi®able conceptual core (Hackman and Wageman, 1995). Nevertheless, current approaches to TQM implementation seem to incorporate the following principles to a greater or lesser extent (Sitkin et al., 1994): (1) the generation of objective data (`facts') for the systematic improvement of work processes and products as a prerequisite for taking actions (2) focus on key problem areas (frequently where it is likely that a dramatic increase will result) (3) employee involvement and empowerment. Spencer (1994) conceptualized TQM as a comprehensive management practice that captures signals from established models of organization and ampli®es them by providing a methodology for use. TQM can thus be viewed as a management practice specifying methods re¯ecting both mechanistic and organismic thought. Researchers who use these models generally take for granted that quality management is benign and universally bene®cial (Wilkinson and Willmott, 1995) and assume that participants subordinate personal interests to those of the organization. The outcomes of TQM programmes most frequently reported are improvements in error rates, decreased time needed to complete a process and dollar/ pound savings from process eciencies (Hackman and Wageman, 1995). However, success rates on each of these three factors have remained disappointing and the question of the e€ectiveness of quality initiatives remains unresolved (Wilkinson and Willmott, 1995). Although most large organizations have initiated quality programmes, many of these have died a quiet death, never ful®lling their initial promise (Steininger, 1994). Fisher (1994) referred to the Kearney survey from 1991, which found that 80% of the companies surveyed could not point to a signi®cant improvement in performance, and a study from 1992 by Arthur D. Little in which only a third of surveyed companies considered TQM had had a signi®cant impact upon their activities. Implementation `failures' are usually attributed to managerial attitudes and the organizational culture (Dale et al., 1990). So TQM does not seem to work? Not to worry, a new management innovation, taking us `beyond' TQM had already been waiting in the wings. ON BPR Business process re-engineering (BPR) replaced TQM as the `hottest' topic in the business press from early 1993 onwards. Few managerial innovations have acquired quite so much hype in such a short period as BPR. In a 1993 survey of 224 North American senior business executives BPR emerged as the most important management issue, and 72% of those surveyed had a programme under way in their organization (Conti and Warner, 1994). A 1994 British survey showed 59% of organizations planning or undertaking BPR activity (Grint and Willcocks, 1995). BPR evolved from an attempt to determine why huge investments in information technology (IT) in the 1980s yielded such low returns (Benjamin and Levinson, 1993). In essence it refers to the use of modern information technology # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 662 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN (IT) to radically redesign business processes. The term ®rst appeared in the IT ®eld and was then used in the broader context of organizational change processes (Dixon et al., 1994). The idea is to develop systems built around teams that are con®gured to mirror the processes that the business actually works around rather than the functions it may use to execute those processes (Grint, 1994). The emphasis on process redesign makes it possible to determine speci®c resource needs and reduce the workforce to a rationally determined level. In Hammer's (1990) original paper a 75% reduction in overhead costs was proposed as realistic. BPR is often promoted as the radical answer to an organization's desire `not to change too much' that has plagued TQM programmes (Browning, 1993). Typically, projects initiated under the TQM umbrella were seen to be constrained by current policies and narrow in focus (Cross et al., 1994). Dixon et al. (1994), in studying 23 projects labelled as re-engineering by the respective organizations in which they were implemented, reported that the one factor that was common to all projects was the radical change in direction. The `radical' was embodied in the change in improvement direction or trajectory. Project objectives tended to be ambiguous and evaluation diculties were aggravated by the lack of established measures to assess e€ectiveness. The question `how new is BPR?' has been asked repeatedly. Grint (1994) examined the ten main aspects of BPR in Hammer and Champy's (1993) book Reengineering the Corporation, one of the most commercially successful writings on the BPR phenomenon, and concluded that: `[F]ew, if any, are actually innovations, least of all radical innovations that would support the hype' (p. 191). Schonberger (1994) argued that TQM encompasses BPR, both being an essential item of the world-class excellence agenda (their primary attraction lies in the potential to improve customer satisfaction and reduce cost simultaneously). Few substantial di€erences can be discerned between the principles of the quality gurus and the BPR tenets, apart from perhaps the above-mentioned radicalization (Hill and Wilkinson, 1995). Juran, for example, raised many issues that were picked up in the BPR literature (Conti and Warner, 1994). Interestingly, even alleged failure rates of TQM and BPR implementation ± estimated at about 70% ± are remarkably similar (Grint, 1994). As in the case of TQM, failure is usually attributed to managerial attitudes. Empirical studies have shown that the usual methods of BPR implementation are simplistic and mechanistic: accountants determine the percentage reduction required and the BPR mantra is evoked to achieve reductions of this magnitude in all departments (Conti and Warner, 1994). What happens, in essence, is that more output is squeezed out of fewer employees. It is even unclear from the literature what concrete form BPR implementation takes in organizations (Grint and Willcocks, 1995). In Dixon et al.'s (1994) study of 23 BPR programmes the only distinguishing feature was their radicalness. Discussions in the literature concentrate on outcomes (e.g. 75% cut in overhead costs) or get stuck at the level of pure description (e.g. this is what Ford did). Seldom is an attempt made at critical conceptualization. The following quote from Taylor and Williams (1994, p. 64) illustrates the amorphous nature of BPR when one surveys organizational practices: `Business process re-engineering ... from our own limited case study evidence there is clearly not a single method associated with it, and nor is # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 663 it clear how successful these di€erent methodologies might be in sustaining longterm organizational change.' INTRODUCING PLANNED CHANGE IN TWO CASE COMPANIES Background of Research The material used to build an empirical picture of TQM and BPR implementation was derived from a two-year research intervention in two British manufacturing organizations (these will be referred to as Fumac and Insol). Both companies were identi®ed in 1992 by the British Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) as `best practice' companies and were encouraged to help in the dissemination of practical TQM knowledge in a government sponsored initiative. This was the start of our research involvement with both organizations. Most of our data were taken from interviews carried out at the managerial level. Care was taken to ensure that the interviews covered people in various managerial roles and at various hierarchical levels. In total approximately 40 interviews were conducted in each of the case companies. The goal of the interviews was to understand the perspectives of participating managers, how they saw events through their own eyes (see Isabella, 1990). The interview material was supplemented by documentary evidence (such as, for example, newsletters, training manuals and internal reports) going back to the start date of TQM implementation in both companies (1989 and 1990 respectively). These archival materials provided valuable information in their own right (examples of ocial change discourse), as well as o€ering cross-validation for the perspectives of the various managers interviewed. A Brief Chronological Overview The subject of TQM was broached in the Insol company newsletter in the summer of 1989. A TQM manager was appointed and consultants trained an initial core of 16 facilitators that year. TQM was to bring cost reductions, improved productivity, improved morale, improved management, and committed customers. Eventually this would provide more jobs and increase the pro®tability of the business. Without exactly de®ning what TQM meant, it was proposed to use TQM to change the organizational culture. Problem areas that were identi®ed included: barriers between di€erent functions, poorly de®ned responsibilities, under-utilized talents, and weak internal customer/supplier links. The journey metaphor ± `we are on a never-ending journey of continuous improvement' ± was used lavishly in the ocial change discourse. In the autumn of 1990 the 16 original facilitators were joined by 67 secondstage facilitators. By that stage 250 people had been trained and the feedback on the training sessions had been very positive. Following the training, multifunctional task teams and departmentally based action teams were set up to get to the root cause of problems and make permanent ®xes. By the end of 1992, 4,000 person days had been spent on TQM training. Signi®cantly, this was the last time TQM was explicitly mentioned in the company newsletter. In the spring of 1993 a BPR initiative was launched. It was the brainchild of the new CEO. He initially called in the consultants to set up the framework for # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 664 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN the project. Customers and employees were surveyed through a series of questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. That information was supposed to result in changes to computer systems, procedures, controls, and the way people worked. The whole project required a great deal of training. This training was organized by the TQM manager. In all, 100 people took part in di€erent forms of training to improve their knowledge, skills, and understanding of how the business worked. Fumac set o€ on the TQM `journey' in 1990. The TQM programme was designed to bring about a positive change in the organizational culture: transforming it from a very bureaucratic organization into a competitive ± `lean and mean' ± customer-orientated organization. A company-wide TQM manager was appointed and all the major departments were allocated local area TQM coordinators. Ongoing initiatives were integrated under the TQM umbrella. Twoday TQM awareness courses were set up where people were introduced to the principles and techniques of TQM. By the end of 1993 half of the workforce had been on such a course. One of the ®rst concrete outcomes of the initial training was the establishment of problem solving teams. Over the period 1990± 94, £4 million was invested in TQM. In the spring of 1993, the company introduced a `rightsizing' programme. Rightsizing was ocially introduced to match the people and the work ± get the right people in the right jobs ± and was heavily in¯uenced by the management literature on BPR. It involved asking radical questions about Fumac's activities. The main driver was the pressure to reduce cost; Fumac's two main clients were threatening to take their business elsewhere if Fumac did not radically reduce its cost-base. Over the period 1994±96, the targeted cost reduction was 20%. After analysing all the business processes on-site, managers would try to match the number of people with the work ¯ow. At the same time, generous terms of voluntary redundancy were proposed. The TQM manager and the local TQM co-ordinators became partly responsible for implementing the rightsizing exercise. In what follows we will illuminate mechanisms through which TQM and BPR practices realized (or failed to realize) their e€ects. We have purposively steered away from `before-and-after' evaluation type studies as these tend to be more of political use in promoting TQM and BPR (or debunking them) than they are in building knowledge about concrete processes and practices (see Hackman and Wageman, 1995). Hence we will concentrate mainly on underlying implementation patterns, rather than on the manifestation of surface events. Managing the Change Programmes The actions of top management in both case companies were confusing from the perspective of lower level managers. Senior managers had problems understanding the e€ect of their language and actions. This led to paradoxical situations. For example, a video introducing TQM in Fumac featured the CEO declaring `You will become empowered!' In Fumac there was a perceived gap between the promised involvement and concrete actions regarding the realization of TQM. A lot of `window-dressing' was going on. In the case of BPR there was evidence that people thought they were being deceived. Even the director of the technical directorate in Fumac was # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 665 not clear in his own mind as to what BPR actually meant: a reduction in jobs or an analysis of organizational processes. In Insol the dissociation between TQM seminars and necessary management actions was even more acute. The visible involvement of the top managers seemed almost non-existent. They saw their role as creating the opportunities for others by, for example, investing money in training. TQM was something for the sta€ and the workers. There was some evidence that managers at senior levels were simultaneously advocating TQM and withholding support for substantial changes. `Sorry, no money' was a ubiquitous excuse for not implementing any changes. Deviancy in the interpretation of what the change programmes could mean to operational managers was not appreciated. The comments from one `outlier' who tried to make changes under the TQM umbrella and was punished (marked as `incomplete' and su€ered a salary cut) clearly indicated that experimentation was not appreciated: `My own view is that the board themselves are not committed to TQM. They think they are but the problem is that they haven't really understood what it is about and then when someone else tries to do something about it they think he is being awkward and they don't realize that some people are really getting to the root causes and they don't like the results. It has been bad for me, very bad'. (R & D manager) Overall there was an absence of re¯ective thinking among top managers in the two case companies. As one interviewee commented: `Senior managers often lose sight of the ball. They kick the ball into play and then when it is not moving as fast as they would like they are very prone to go on and ®nd another ball which they think might do the job better before the ®rst game is really under way.' The logic underlying the decisions of change agents and senior managers tended to be based on an integrative perspective of organizational culture (see Meyerson and Martin, 1987). The change programmes were conceptualized as a way of moving the organization from one state to another. Consequently these programmes were viewed in terms of a monolithic process, as an organizationwide phenomenon. Top managers tended to ignore the fact that top-down organization-wide planned change e€orts had to cope with loosely coupled information channels and departments' di€erential responses to the ocial change discourse that resulted from di€ering perspectives of employees. Consensus was hard to ®nd. When it occurred, it often did so on one level (e.g. the need for the organization to change) but not on another (e.g. how to implement that change, or why that change is desirable). Actions were often generated without full comprehension or consensus concerning their meaning or intended e€ects. Assessing the Impact of the TQM and BPR Programmes In the case of the BPR programmes particularly, experienced events and the theoretical BPR construct seemed to be connected only at the level of the ocial change discourse that was put out in company newsletters and espoused by senior managers and some change agents. Clearly, actions were taken to deal with immediate contingencies (resulting from increasing competitive pressures), # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 666 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN which were then coupled back to the BPR concept, thus giving the companies the opportunity to project the image of being in tune with the latest management techniques. In addition, the BPR programmes were conceived partly as a response to the inadequacies of the previous change programme (i.e. TQM). The predominant meaning attached to the BPR programme by the majority of the managers interviewed in our study was that of demanning. Little evidence was present that could point to a genuine attempt at process analysis and re-engineering. Although, on a super®cial level (i.e. company discourse), the TQM programmes in both case companies were closer to the `ideal' TQM concept, it emerged that on a practical level (i.e. what it has meant to a sample of managers) the ideal concept started to unravel again. TQM meant di€erent things to di€erent managers, and its e€ects were appreciated di€erently. The `ideal' type TQM rules were often rejected as irrelevant or `uninteresting' because they just con®rmed people's beliefs about management (see Davis, 1971). Overall there existed serious ambiguities as to which values were actually driving the TQM programmes. While managers were frustrated with current ineciencies, rigidities and ambiguities in their respective organizations, and thus open to the concept of change, ambiguities and ineciencies also had their seductive side. Under uncertain conditions, negative consequences of actions, as well as their causes, are dicult to detect and evaluate (expectations and evaluation criteria are not clear, means and ends are perceived as connected loosely), thus providing managers with a sense of psychological security.[1] Although an explicit attempt was made to increase personal trust (e.g. in the way senior managers conducted sta€ meetings), the programmes also contained elements that moved trust away from human agents to abstract systems (e.g. the reliance on procedures and management formulae). The change programmes were designed to take out organizational ambiguities and demarcations between subcultures (including the psychological security these o€ered) and provide a sense of security based on a solid foundation of clarity (e.g. implicit rules would have to be captured in procedures). As such, the rules introduced by the change programmes both `giveth and taketh away'. Unfortunately, the old securities had to be given up ®rst before a new sense of security could be established. This separation in time made people very wary to commit themselves to undertake the necessary action for a successful implementation. In neither organization could any fundamental changes radically altering the culture or structures be attributed to the change programmes. There was evidence of competing rules but it was not at all clear whether it was really `new versus old' rules rather than `espoused versus actual' rules (see Argyris, 1980) or `what should be versus what is'. The strongly di€ering perspectives of organizational actors seem to indicate that the latter was the case in both Insol and Fumac. New cultural rules were de®nitely not as well established as some senior managers wanted us to believe. Anecdotes abounded about co-operation between di€erent departments, but nothing suggested that the change programmes had actually caused these (in the sense of there being an internal relation). It was much more the case that the change discourse enabled certain managers to make the changes they had always wanted to make. TQM and BPR # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 667 programmes provided the rules and resources (such as, for example, investment in training, the ocial encouragement to change structures) which strongly supported a certain style of management. In Insol, where far more drastic changes had taken place than in Fumac, the sheer economy drive necessary for survival was perceived as far more signi®cant than any planned change programmes introduced over the last ®ve years (employee numbers had come down from 996 in 1991 to 730 in 1994). In Fumac, the desire to `look good' to signi®cant stakeholders in the wider organizational environment was perceived as more important by line managers than improving internal processes. Notwithstanding the above evaluation, we found evidence indicating that the programmes did have some impact. In certain cases this impact materialized as a result of mechanisms and systems that had been set up, while in others it occurred despite the ocial mechanisms and systems. As one departmental manager commented: `It only survived because people are a lot better than we give them credit for.' TQM had to be seen to work in both case companies since so much money had been invested in the programme. This made it very dicult to have a critical debate about the value of TQM at senior levels. Especially in Fumac, TQM had become the holy grail of the ecient, streamlined organization. However, to many operational people TQM became the expression of games managers played, the practical alternative to work and a way to further one's career. None of the change programmes introduced in Insol and Fumac could be labelled as a success or failure, although some did have a greater impact than others. There had been some successes and things got nudged in the right direction, but none of the programmes came close to ful®lling the initial hopes (or the potential ascribed to them by TQM or BPR gurus). Events, processes and experiences in the case companies rarely were transparent or completely ®xed; they proved to be open-ended in the interpretations that could be attached to them. Hence, it was seldom clear what counted as a given consequence of a particular change programme. In what follows we will examine in more detail the institutionalization process (i.e. How are the TQM and BPR constructs turned into an organizational reality?) in an attempt to expose its underlying logic, without necessarily trying to reach logical closure in the explanation of the realized patterns of events. MAKING TQM AND BPR A REALITY: IMPLEMENTATION PATTERNS In this section we borrowed from Mintzberg's (1978) strategy template (intended, realized, emergent, unrealized strategies) and Tsoukas' (1989) addition of an intermediary stage (institutionalized strategy) to represent the underlying logic of the TQM and BPR implementation in Insol and Fumac. This logic proved to be similar, although surface events varied quite signi®cantly in many instances. The process is set in motion by senior management who decide to implement a TQM or BPR programme. However, it is far from clear what the underlying rationale for this decision is. The following cocktail seemed to be prevalent in # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 668 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN both Insol and Fumac: cost reduction (through a reduction in sta€ numbers), dealing with existing demarcations (make people more ¯exible), involving people more in the workings of the organization, adopting the latest management techniques, ®nding the `holy grail' that will become the saviour of the site, greater customer focus, and the desire to improve eciency and competitiveness. E€ectively, the change programmes aimed to increase the causal powers of management as Tsoukas (1994) de®ned them ± greater co-operation, increased control, increased eciency and e€ectiveness ± while demonstrating managerial rationality to all signi®cant others in the immediate and wider environment. In neither case company was it clear to an outside observer what the underlying intended strategy of key players was. This was evidenced by the multitude of perspectives on the ultimate aim of the change initiatives. Organizational actors in both case companies certainly had di€erent emphases but on the discursive level these di€erences were smoothed over. The `discursive' intended strategy (e.g. in management briefs and company newsletters at the time of the launch of the TQM and BPR programmes) was homogeneous. It is probably a fair assessment that an idea proposed by consultants and management gurus was selected by senior managers as an opportunity to achieve a multitude of, sometimes con¯icting, objectives. In a second phase the intended strategy has to be institutionalized (i.e. enacted by organizational actors and integrated in or used to transform existing structures) in order to have any e€ect. Insol and Fumac were very typical[2] in that the institutionalization process (i.e. the mechanisms and systems set up) consisted in running one to three-day training seminars, setting up problem solving teams, and providing strongly supportive change discourse in newsletters. In addition, managers had to be seen to participate in TQM as rewards and promotion depended on supporting the TQM mechanisms (i.e. participating in the training and project teams, using the TQM or BPR vocabulary). It was assumed that events would gain an automatic momentum from there onwards, thus realizing the broadly conceived strategic intentions. Interestingly enough, company-speci®c concerns that partly triggered the original intended strategy disappeared to a great extent in favour of best practice packages promulgated by consultants. Some aspects of TQM were clearly incorporated more easily than others. For example, written procedures, problem solving teams, meetings, etc. (i.e. the systems and mechanisms designed to institutionalize the change strategy) could be set up without too many problems. After completing the TQM training, managers were able to provide an intellectualized report of TQM but their level of practical understanding, as most of them indicated, was quite limited. Managers were not sure what the elements really could mean in their working environment. The mechanisms and systems were then believed to be what TQM was all about. Managers looked at the mechanisms ± training, meetings, and so on ± and asked themselves: `What's the point of all this? It's costing us so much money.' These beliefs seemed to be justi®ed as TQM became more and more self-referential, especially in ocial company discourse: we need to introduce TQM because we need to become a more ecient, modern company; we become a more ecient, modern company by introducing TQM. Initial conceptualizations of the change programmes and subsequent actions of senior # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 669 managers contributed to this confusion. Since managers' sense making was severely constrained, many just paid lip service to the TQM initiative and went about their jobs in the same way. In several instances TQM rules and procedures were used to serve certain departmental interests, a behavioural pattern that the TQM philosophy was supposed to abolish. Notwithstanding the ambiguous outcomes of the TQM programmes, a clear link between intended and realized change strategy was established in the ocial change discourse (communication by senior managers, newsletters, reports). Remaining problems would be solved by a new change programme: BPR. This type of discourse which was clearly divorced from lived organizational realities created a lot of apprehension among operational managers. In the case of BPR the intended strategy seemed aligned with two major strands of thought: rationalization of the organization (®tting the right people in the right jobs) and a drastic cost-cutting exercise. At a discursive level these aims seemed perfectly compatible. By redesigning processes within the organization (using departmental process analysis) the number of people could be brought down to a rationally determined level. The mechanisms that were used to institutionalize BPR consisted of departmental process analysis (DPA) and an attractive voluntary redundancy package (up to three years' salary). The underlying logic went as follows: DPA teams will determine the correct number of people needed to be able to run the rationalized processes; the people who are `surplus to requirements' will be o€ered an attractive voluntary redundancy package so they will leave the organization with positive feelings. This logic turned out to be naõÈve. Little time was spent on thinking through the implications of the exercise. Managers had to be seen to be performing. It was largely a matter of throwing people in at the deep end. Political issues had been completely ignored. Very quickly the process redesign fell away as an unrealized strategy. Although the reengineering element had become stripped away in practice in both companies, the company newsletters tried to promote the BPR philosophy ever more vehemently. The majority of managers we interviewed saw BPR as a pure demanning exercise. This created an extreme defensiveness that ran counter to some of the aims of the TQM programme that preceded it (especially increasing co-operation and involvement of all employees). As one of the Fumac TQM coordinators commented: `The objectivity we saw in process re-engineering as an objective methodology is being overtaken by machinations, political manoeuvring if you like. Again whether that is happening because of personal ambitions or whether they see it as the way forward and that we should go with that rather than with the objective output of the process analysis . . . Since BPR came in we went backwards in terms of attitudes at senior levels.' In conclusion, although signi®cant progress had been made towards the goal of reducing cost (mainly by manpower reduction) in our case companies, the main outcome (i.e. realized strategy) was a feeling of insecurity and demotivation among the majority of managers and a steep increase in organizational politicking ± an ideal breeding ground for a new management innovation to be introduced to take Fumac and Insol `beyond' BPR. # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 670 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN AN ALTERNATIVE READING OF TQM AND BPR Of course, any way of studying a phenomenon is destined to be incomplete (see Morgan, 1986). Admittedly, the introductory sections on the TQM and BPR phenomena were limited in that they engaged only with the more popular perspectives. In this section we therefore propose alternative conceptualizations of TQM and BPR, which are complementary to our empirical work and which depart radically from the unre¯ective `beyond' approach to organizational change. Grint (1994) posed the interesting question of why an amalgam of relatively unremarkable ideas should prove to be such winners, not in the least for the consultants.[3] Since all the elements of BPR and TQM have been around for varying amounts of time the issue is not so much whether the elements are novel but whether the packaging, and selling of the package, are what make re-engineering and quality initiatives di€erent. Grint therefore suggested moving the analysis of the phenomenon from internalist (looking at the intrinsic features) to externalist accounts. Ideas and practices have to be read as plausible by those at whom they are targeted. Ideas that capture the zeitgeist are most likely to prevail (Hackman and Wageman, 1995). Thus, TQM and BPR have arguably been so in¯uential because of (rather than despite) the fact that they depict an amorphous philosophy (see Astley, 1985). The appeal of the terms is that they can be used to legitimize all sorts of measures and changes in the name of a self-evident good (Wilkinson and Willmott, 1995) ± a fact that was clearly borne out in our empirical work. An underexplored theme in the quality and re-engineering literature is the signi®cance of the employment relationship. A closer exploration of the claim to empower employees and create more autonomous forms of work causes a contradiction to surface. As Willmott (1995, p. 95) argued: `There is an apparent inconsistency in BPR between its advocacy of delayering, in which managers are transformed from ``bosses'' into ``coaches'', and the advocacy of methods for implementing re-engineering that are hierarchical and even dictatorial.' TQM and BPR rely for their success precisely on an active subject with interpretive powers that is denied or discounted during the institutionalization process. Managers involved in our research were neither treated as equals nor even consulted when their companies decided to adopt programmes of quality management and re-engineering: they were often merely trained in its practices once the programme had been adopted by senior management. Thus managers were expected to be active in relation to the content and simultaneously passive with respect to the design and adoption of change programmes (a pattern also identi®ed by Kerfoot and Knights, 1995). From this perspective it should not be surprising that several managers admitted during or after the interviews that they had acquired a far more cynical view of their respective organizations. Many self-confessed `company men' felt let down or even betrayed in their feelings of loyalty. The rules and techniques of BPR and TQM can also be conceived of as procedures for transforming recurrent micro-political problems into technical problems that more detailed knowledge and better management techniques promise to solve (Marsden, 1993; Willmott, 1995). Built into the programmes are # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 671 mechanisms of correct functioning that appear as norms of appropriate behaviour for individuals and collectives (Cooper and Burrell, 1988). Even though TQM and BPR programmes may provide greater freedom of action than mechanistic management practices, they actually may reduce freedom of choice by submitting employees to awareness training designed to create a common frame of reference and to skills training aimed at establishing preferred ways of solving problems and working within teams (Spencer, 1994). Thus, while these change programmes re¯ect a concern to collapse or ¯atten hierarchies, they can also become a motive force in their reconstitution and retrenchment (Kerfoot and Knights, 1995). The above suggests that the popularity of TQM and BPR can be derived, in part, from the natural uncertainty and ambiguity embedded in reality, which many people may experience as overwhelming, complex and chaotic.[4] As such, BPR and TQM can be conceptualized as the latest styles or forms that could be consumed as ultimate answers to continual quests for manageability (Je€cutt, 1994a). Rather than admit that ambiguity may not be resolvable, senior managers create symbolic solutions such as the introduction of TQM or BPR programmes. As Wilkinson and Willmott pointed out: TQM has become the most celebrated and widely adopted form of quality management, in part perhaps because it holds out the promise of a uni®ed set of principles which can guide managers through the numerous choices open to them or might even make choosing unnecessary. (Wilkinson and Willmott, 1995, p. 8) However, our empirical work clearly indicates that these symbolic `solutions' tended to increase rather than decrease organizational ambiguity in our case companies. The discourse of TQM and BPR may have the further e€ect of sustaining managerial belief in the validity of their own competencies. It provides them with a range of what are held to be expertises, and so not only generates the illusion of controlling uncertainty, but also restores legitimacy for managerial privilege and authority (Kerfoot and Knights, 1995; Knights and Morgan, 1991). While organizational tensions derive largely from a limited conception of social and organizational relations they are exacerbated by the managerialist mode through which TQM and BPR are implemented. Of course, we cannot o€er any instant remedies to failings that derive from fundamental divisions and contradictions in the organization of work within capitalist economies (see Wilkinson and Willmott, 1995). However, in the conclusion we will show that it is possible to ®nd some ways forward from the restless quick ®x psychology that tends to fuel the `beyond' movement. CONCLUSION Both the theoretical and empirical overview of the TQM and BPR constructs indicated that they are relatively amorphous constructs. If we accept that managerial tasks and problems are highly context dependent, then the introduction of a change programme will not generate standard outcomes and the meaning of any programme will vary according to the context and dominant # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 672 CHRISTIAN DE COCK AND IAN HIPKIN sets of beliefs about appropriate behaviours. It follows that, no matter how extensive the research design, the value of TQM and BPR constructs cannot be proven in the traditional empiricist sense (e.g. Does TQM work?; Is BPR more e€ective than TQM?). The programmes clearly set limits to a range of managerial actions but do not determine the speci®c content of these actions. Although, in principle, certain systems set up under the TQM or BPR umbrella can institutionalize broadly conceived strategies based on the TQM or BPR literature, in practice abstract rules often dominate practices and abstract knowledge dominates practical knowledge. We therefore suggest that TQM and BPR should be conceptualized as occasioning change (or failing to cause change), not because of their intrinsic characteristics as many consultants and management writers would hold, but because they become social objects whose meanings get de®ned by the context of their use. Thus, TQM and BPR present an occasion for change but do not determine which of a large variety of alternatives actually will emerge from the process of structuring (see Barley, 1986; Markus and Robey, 1988). However, this is not how top managers conceive of TQM or BPR. Techniques and models are expected to provide immediate answers to organizational issues and events. When explicit models and rules of one programme are no longer adequate, senior managers tend to look for another programme that can supposedly provide these elusive answers. We indicated in the empirical section that senior managers and change agents in Insol and Fumac assumed there existed an internal relation between setting up mechanisms and systems to implement TQM and BPR and all the good things that were supposed to follow from that. Our discussion showed that this link can at best be considered contingent. The absence of such an internal relation signi®es that the change process cannot be programmed in advance. Although some `how to' skills and rules are necessary to operate within new structures, organizational members have a far greater need to develop self-re¯ective or meaning creating skills (see Rickards and De Cock, 1994). In this sense it does not matter too much what TQM or BPR are `really' about. Consultants and senior managers keep giving credit to or blaming the wrong thing ± namely the change programme ± and having made this error then often spend more time to look for a change programme that might be more e€ective. Then they are astonished when the new change programme improves nothing. After a substantial period into a change programme, new ways of thinking are required based on re¯ection of practical experiences. If this does not happen, the creation of new meaning, which is an emergent process, will be crowded out by an overreliance on simple cause±e€ect models and the speci®c rules that accompany them. In the worst case scenario, TQM and BPR procedures then take the form of `copy us/do as we tell you, and you will succeed' advice. We are not arguing that approaches such as TQM or BPR have no useful role to play in creating organizational change. These approaches can act as a binding mechanism. They can hold events together long enough and tight enough in people's heads so that they do something in the belief that their action will be in¯uential. In this sense change programmes based on the TQM or BPR constructs resemble maps (see Weick, 1995). They animate and orientate people. Once people begin to act (enactment), they generate tangible outcomes in some # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997 TQM AND BPR: BEYOND THE BEYOND MYTH 673 context, and this helps them discover what is occurring and ongoing, what needs to be explained and what should be done. Unfortunately senior managers keep forgetting it is what they (and managers at lower levels) do, that explains the success of a change programme, not the intrinsic rules and resources of the change programmes. What is crucial is the way managers learn to balance the often contradictory implications of the change programmes (Whittington, 1992). Inevitably, the meanings thus developed by various managers will not match precisely those of top managers. Consequently, new actions based on more sophisticated conceptualizations have to be undertaken in response to the question `Why did these unintended meanings occur?' This will prove a far more productive way of generating actions than coming up with a `bigger and better' programme of focusing all energy in overcoming resistance and coercing or punishing deviants who are not convinced of the value of the latest `fad'. It should also prevent managers from continuously searching for new management innovations, thus helping them to move beyond the beyond myth. NOTES [1] This is close to Giddens' (1990) concept of ontological security. Giddens argued that a change in the surrounding social and material environments of actions will a€ect actors' con®dence in the continuity of their self-identity. This can only be compensated by drawing assurance from the reliability or integrity of others. [2] Hackman and Wageman (1995) found that the setting up of problem solving teams and the organization of awareness training were the two most common actions taken under a TQM initiative. [3] A senior partner at Andersen Consulting is reported to have exclaimed `God bless Mike Hammer' after having estimated yearly worldwide company revenues of $700 million as a direct result of BPR consultancy work (Thackray, 1993). [4] Recent writers on postmodernism have explored the ambiguous nature of organizational reality and its interpretation. They suggest that the focus of the modernist on the process of interpretation and its problematics, a process that entails a restless searching for new strategies that are more original or authentic in their revelation and expression of underlying structure, is a form of intellectual imperialism that ignores the fundamental uncontrollability of meaning (Cooper and Burrell, 1988; Je€cutt, 1994b; Parker, 1992). Knowledge and discourse have to be `constructed' out of a continuously chameleonic and ultimately phantasmic world. They reject the idea of language as a system of signs that represents ideas which are supposed to exist in the `objective' world, independent of human intervention (Cooper, 1989). The idea that the subject is a more or less rational, self-contained unit has to be abandoned. The latter is at best something to be hoped for and certainly cannot be presupposed. `No, the crucial stake, and the actual one, is the game of uncertainty. Nowhere can we escape it. But we are not ready to accept it, and worse still, we expect some sort of homeopathic ¯ight of fancy by reducing this uncertainty with yet more information and communication, thereby aggravating the relationship with uncertainty. Again, this is fascinating, the race-chase of techniques and their perverted e€ects, has started, the race-chase of man and his virtual clones on the reversible track of the Moebius strip.' 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