Institutional Contradiction and Management Control Innovation: A

Field Study of Total Quality Management Practices in a Privatised

Telecommunication Company

Umesh Sharma* Department of Accounting Waikato Management School University of Waikato PB 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand e-mail:ups@waikato.ac.nz Phone (+64) 7 8384247 Fax (+64)8384332 Stewart Lawrence e-mail: stewartl@waikato.ac.nz Phone (+64)7-8562889

*Corresponding author

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Institutional Contradiction and Management Control Innovation: A Field Study

of Total Quality Management Practices in a Privatised Telecommunication

Company

Abstract

This purpose of the paper is to theorise the changes surrounding the introduction of a

management control innovation, Total Quality Management (TQM) techniques,

within Telecom Fiji Limited. Using institutional theory and drawing on empirical

evidence from multiple sources including interviews, discussions and documents, the

paper explicates the institutionalization of these TQM practices. The focus of the

paper is the micro-processes and practice changes around TQM implementation,

rather than the influence of the macro-level structures that are often linked with

institutional theory. The change agents used Quality Action Teams and the National

Quality Council to introduce new TQM routines. The present study extends the scope

of institutional analysis by explaining how institutional contradictions impact to create

and make space for institutional entrepreneurs who in turn modify existing routines,

or introduce new routines in fluid organizational environments which also exhibit

evidence of resistance. .

Key words: Institutional theory, Total Quality Management, Institutional

Contradictions, Telecom Fiji Limited, Routines.

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Institutional Contradiction and Management Control Innovation: A Field Study

of Total Quality Management Practices in a Privatised Telecommunications

Company

1. Introduction:

The advent and implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices have

attracted the attention of institutional theory researchers since its introduction in the

mid 20th century (Westphal, Gulati and Shortell, 1997; Zbaracki, 1998; Hoque and

Alam, 1999; Sharma and Hoque, 2002; Modell, Jacobs and Wiesel, 2007; Modell,

2009). These writers have argued that as well as the higher technical efficiency that

TQM practices may provide, organizations implement TQM practice to become

isomorphic with other organizations in their environment. The introduction of TQM

routines within the organization has been identified as being part of a broader process

to enact and add legitmacy to management control systems (MCS) changes within

organizations (Chenhall, 2003; Sim and Killough, 1998)1.

The focus of this paper is on analyzing the changes surrounding the implementation of

TQM practices which is part of a broader control practices within TFL. There are

certain management control practices conducive to the realization of TQM. The

development of an organizational culture conducive to cross functional cooperation

and process-oriented management necessitates lateral rather than hierarchical oriented

control practices (Chenhall, 2008). Popular conceptualization of TQM practices

emphasise the need for mechanisms supporting lateral control such as empowerment

of managers with cross-functional process responsibilities, team-based rewards and

use of non-financial goals and performance measures (Hackman and Wageman, 1995;

Johnson, 1994; Modell, 2009).

In this paper, institutional theory is used to explicate the process of introducing TQM

practices within Telecom Fiji Limited (TFL). The literature on TQM practices tends

to be outcome oriented and there are only a few studies employing a processual

1 Chenhall (2003) notes that TQM practices are associated with MCS requiring timely externally focused information and close interaction between strategy and non-financial performance measurement

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approach. Institutional theory has been little used to study such practices as it has

tended to be seen as a theory of stability rather than change (Lounsbury, 2008;

Johansson and Siverbo, 2009). Seo and Creed (2002) question the emphasis on

stability in conventional institutional theory which they identify as the problem of

“embedded agency.” Embedded agents are those whose actions are constrained by

the prevailing institutional ways of behaving. This may mean management may need

services of external consultants to bring about institutional change (Schumpeter, 1991;

Beckert, 1999).

The paper addresses questions such as: how are agents able to introduce MCS system

(such as TQM routines) within TFL? How were TQM practices institutionalized at

TFL? The paper adds to the literature by examining agency aspects of institutional

change. It extends work of theorists who have attempted to develop a processual view

of change (Hirsch and Lounsbury, 1997; Beckert, 1999; Burns and Scapens, 2000;

Seo and Creed, 2002; Dorado, 2005; Lukka, 2007; Modell, Jacobs and Wiesel, 2007;

Cruz, Major and Scapens, 2009).

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: in the second section, we provide

a brief overview of management control perspectives on TQM. Following this we

cover the institutional theoretical perspective adopted for the study, the research

method, the case company and present the results. The paper then finishes with a

discussion and conclusion section.

2. Perspectives on TQM

The intention of this section is to synthesise the literature on key aspects of TQM

practices. TQM practices have been implemented by firms interested in promoting

their survival prospects by encompassing quality and continuous improvement into

their strategic priorities (Shank and Govindarajan, 1994; Tuckman, 1994; Chenhall,

1997; Lord and Lawrence, 2001; Hoque, 2003). TQM practice is said to follow a set

of management concepts and tools that seek to involve managers and employees in

achieving continuous performance improvement (Hogg, 1993; Shank and

Govindarajan, 1994; Johnson, 1994; Powell, 1995; Boaden, 1997; Chenhall, 1997;

Zbaracki, 1998; Hoque, 2003). TQM practices emerged as an increasingly

fashionable management innovation in response to the lacking competitiveness of US

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manufacturing industries in the 1980s and the perceived superiority of Japanese firms

in delivering high-quality products and services in accordance with customer demands

and achieving operating efficiency (Giroux, 2006; Modell, 2009). The rhetoric

surrounding TQM promulgamation tends to be loaded with references to the need for

management practices fostering customer orientation and satisfaction (Mouritsen,

1997; Modell, 2009). Hackman and Wageman (1995) identified the necessity of

meeting customer needs as the primary motivation for TQM practices.

Shank and Govindarajan (1994) and others argued sometime ago that quality practices

had become so important that management accounting could no longer ignore TQM.

Traditional accounting supports cost and production analysis, but not quality analysis

(Shank and Govindarajan, 1994; Johnson, 1994; Hoque, 2003). Chenhall (1997)

notes that TQM enhances the profitability of companies when managers are evaluated

by using performance evaluation systems employing measures of manufacturing

process. The thrust of the TQM philosophy is that quality and its management have

to be built in from the beginning and that the accomplishment of quality standards and

improvement is the responsibility of everyone (Morgan and Murgatroyd, 1994; Lord

and Lawrence, 2001; Hoque, 2003). A common view in the management literature is

that a satisfied customer is the best indicator of the quality of any business (see Lal,

1990; Johnson, 1994; Tuckman, 1994; Boaden, 1997). Although much of the

literature suggests that TQM practices facilitate customer satisfaction, that may not be

the case for a privatized monopoly.

A few authors have made critical commentaries of TQM practices (Ezzamel, 1994;

Ezzamel and Willmott, 1998; Zbaracki, 1998; Lord and Lawrence, 2001). Ezzamel

(1994) argues that when implementing TQM practices, there is a tendency for

management to overemphasise the use of detailed written rules and procedures, which

separate individuals from their work.

Morgan and Murgatroyd (1994) note that there is a fear that the widespread adoption

of TQM practices may reduce the number of jobs available or the opportunities for

promotion. Ezzamel (1994) points out that the practices of TQM engender

performance targets based on reward structures that sanctify success and shame

failure. Often these measurements are monitored and controlled using top-down

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techniques. A few authors also claim that management use TQM practices to exploit

employees to extract surplus value for capital (Morris and Wilkinson, 1995; Lord and

Lawrence, 2001).

TQM practices may be adopted by organizations in order to appear legitimate to their

broader constituencies and stakeholders in order to secure the resources they need for

continual survival (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; 1991; Hoque and Alam, 1999;

Sharma and Hoque, 2002). Tolbert and Zucker (1983) argue that once practices are

well established, it may be more for social legitimacy and may become a matter of

“myth and ceremony.” There is a possibility that the practices may not bring

efficiency gains for organizations. This is in line with the contradiction that Seo and

Creed (2002) suggest arise as a result of inefficiencies resulting from the quest for

legitimacy. In brief, the literature on TQM is mixed with both positivist and

interpretive perspectives The theory adopted for the case is discussed in the next

section.

In order to study organizational heterogeneity and practice variation (Dacin et al.,

2002; Greenwood et al., 2002; Seo and Creed, 2002; Cruz, Major and Scapens, 2009),

we need to go beyond isomorphism and symbolic conformity and emphasize actors

and practices as well as the relationship between institutional forces and micro

processes (Burns, 2000; Soin et al., 2002; Johansson and Baldvinsdottir, 2003; Burns

and Baldvinsdottir, 2005; Siti-Nabiha and Scapens, 2005; Scapens, 2006; Busco et al.,

2006; Yazdifar et al., 2008; Lounsbury, 2008; Cruz et al., 2009).

3. Institutional Theory and Institutional Contradiction

Institutional theory has been adapted for this case study as traditionally it is seen as a

theory of stability and needs to be extended in order to incorporate changes like the

introduction of TQM practices. Institutional theorists have long grappled with the

issue of how institutionalized structure and agency exercised by actors with vested

interests influence each other (Barley and Tolbert, 1997, DiMaggio, 1988; Hirsch and

Lounsbury, 1997). Until recently, however, institutional theory has been largely silent

about the specific mechanisms of choice and under what circumstances institutional

entrepreneurs may influence institutional change (Beckert, 1999; Dorado, 2005;

Hensmans, 2003; Modell, Jacobs and Wiesel, 2007, Cruz, Major and Scapens, 2009;

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Johansson and Siverlo, 2009). Seo and Creed (2002) put forward the idea of

institutional contradiction/inconsistency as an impetus for institutional change.

Ongoing social interactions within any organisation produce contradictions, generate

conflicts and tensions that may shape consciousness and action to change the

established order. Seo and Creed (2002) explain some sources of contradictions as a

basis for understanding the process of change. First, it is claimed that the pursuit of

organizational legitimacy may contradict and undermine functional efficiency (Seo

and Creed, 2002). Organisational actors may gain legitimacy and necessary resources

by becoming isomorphic with other organizations in their environment (DiMaggio

and Powell, 1983, 1991), but conformity with environmental arrangements may

conflict with technical activities and efficiency demands. Traditionally institutional

theorists have accommodated this contradiction between efficiency and legitimacy

with the concept of “decoupling” of formal structure activities from technical

activities (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). But the contradiction remains.

Secondly, institutional isomorphism that increases legitimacy may be an adaptive

move by organizational actors for survival (Seo and Creed, 2002). A problem arises

when organizational actors who are so used to the existing institutional arrangement

resist adapting to the new situations which results in internal contradictions. Powell

(1991) points out that any effort to change established routines is often resisted as the

changes threaten individuals’ sense of security. That is, organizational actors may not

like to adapt to changes in organizational practices. This unresponsiveness creates a

situation whereby contradictions between organizations and their external

environment develop and accumulate over time, assuming the resistance is successful.

Thirdly, attempts at conformity resulting from responding to demands of a variety of

external environmental forces may create incompatibilities and inconsistencies within

an existing organisation (Seo and Creed, 2002). The existing organisation may be in

conflict with some demands of the external forces. Sudden changes in government

regulation and deregulations or technology are the institutional contradictions/

inconsistencies unfolding in different sectors of the larger institutional field (Seo and

Creed, 2002).

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The problem of “embedded agency” may be resolved to some extent by institutional

entrepreneurs who act as internal change agents in the organisation (Benson, 1977;

Beckert, 1999; Seo and Creed, 2002; Dorado, 2005). The term ‘institutional

entrepreneurs’ refers to “actors who have an interest in particular institutional

arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or to transform

existing ones” (Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, 2004, p.657). It was DiMaggio (1988)

who introduced the notion of institutional entrepreneurs as agents who have an

interest in specific organisational structures and who command resources that can be

applied to influence institutionalized rules, either by supporting existing institutions

(taken-for-granted rules and routines) or by using them for the creation of new

institutions. Institutional contradictions allow institutional entrepreneurs to disrupt

existing routines within an institutional arrangement. Institutional structure, informal

rules, taken-for-granted scripts come under pressure from agents who recognize that

they constrain more efficient outcomes.

Schumpeter (1991) describes the entrepreneur as the innovator who leaves behind

routines. While managers respond to changes by adaptation, entrepreneurs respond

creatively (Schumpeter, 1991). Entrepreneurs destroy existing institutional

arrangements and introduce innovations as new institutional arrangements. Although

innovations destroy traditional practices, they do so by simultaneously providing

models of alternative ways of fulfilling a task.

The concept of an ‘institutional entrepreneur’ reintroduces agency, interests and

power into organizations (Lounsbury and Crumley, 2007). Institutional

entrepreneurship has been a major step in the introduction and development of agency

into institutional theory (Dorado, 2005).

Figure 1 below visualizes the theoretical process of the model to explore TQM

practices routinisation at TFL. As seen from the figure, it is the institutional

contradictions that allow institutional entrepreneurs to set up new rules and routines

within the organisation through the process of enactment, reproduction and

routinisation of new practices.

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The modification that has been made to Beckert’s (1999) model is the additional

external forces/ institutional contradictions before entrepreneurs/ managers act. The

model has also added managers (internal change agents) alongside entrepreneurs

(external change agents)2 and has restated institution as encompassing rules and

routines in the accounting literature. Beckert’s (1999) model with slight modification

drawn from Seo and Creed (2002) and Dorado (2005) has been used to add potential

insight beyond the often used Burns and Scapens’ (2000) model in accounting

literature.

In many organizations, the management control system constitutes the stable rules and

routines which enable and constrain actions (see Scapens, 1994; Burns and Scapens,

2000). Rules are the “formally recognised ways in which things should be done”

while routines are defined as “the way things are actually done” (Burns & Scapens,

2000, p.6). TQM rules can be in the form of TQM manuals which organizational

participants may need to use, while TQM routines are the way of conducting Quality

teams to solve work related problems and to be customer conscious. Rules capture

the formal characteristics of an accounting system: for example, rules are standard

operating procedures, budget manuals and appraisal guidelines. The Burns and

Scapens’ (2000) model of institutional theory emphasises the stability embodied in

rule-based behaviour and routines in organizational systems. Nevertheless, to study

accounting change we need to study institutional contradictions that give rise to

changes in rules and routines via institutional entrepreneurs.

2 The paper refers to institutional entrepreneurs as internal change agents while “entrepreneurs” are referred as external change agents.

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Figure 1 A Dynamic Model of Institutional Contradictions, Institutional

Entrepreneurs and the Process of Institutionalisation

(Adapted from Beckert (1999, p. 788), with slight modifications).

Rules and routines are changed through actors’ actions via the process of encoding,

enacting, revision and objectification of patterned behaviour. There is a shift in

collective consciousness of actors from a passive mode to a reflective and active one

stemming from contradictions. Once these actors (internal change agents) become

active, they need to mobilize other actors and resources to bring about institutional

change. Institutional contradiction provides the motivations for promoting alternative

institutional arrangements (change in rules and routines) through the collective action

of actors on an ongoing basis.

As seen from the figure 1, this model of institutional theory offers explanation of

change based on institutional forces or exogenous shocks (Beckert, 1999). External

change agents such as the consultants may come from the organisational field. In the

absence of such external forces, the change may emerge internally from the

management team or a steering committee established by management within the

organisation. It is the managers who are usually associated with mimesis and

homogeneity in institutional theory. The managers are supposedly helpful in

Institutions (Rules and routines)

Entrepreneur/ Manager

Uncertainty

Manager

Creation of embeddedness

Destruction of institutions

Creation of strategic opportunities through external forces/ Institutional contradictions

Creation of embeddedness

Necessity to create stability through routinisation of new institutions

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stabilising the change through the process of enacting, encoding and reproduction of

new practices on an ongoing basis (Burns and Scapens, 2000).

The introduction of new rules and routines may give rise to some uncertainty The

model shows that deinstitutionalisation of existing institutional rules and routines by

entrepreneurs produce uncertainty amongst organisational participants. It is the

management team who reduce the uncertainty by creating expectations in the

behaviour of others by enacting and reproducing ongoing new rules and routines. The

process of institutional re-embedding through a process of enactment and

reproduction of new rules and routines may not be smooth, but, in the end friction

may be overcome (Beckert, 1999) and institutions well established on an on-going

basis.

In brief, the institutional framework, as outlined in figure 1, can be utilized as a

theoretical framework to assist explanation of how and the extent to which

environmental influences shape the behaviour of individuals within TFL and to

analyse how the individuals themselves modify and transform the routines and

organizations. The institutional theory framework provided in figure 1 outlines a

view of organizational change. The next section provides the background to the case

company.

4. Background to the Case Company

The study is based on Telecom Fiji Limited (TFL) which was chosen as its

management agreed to participate in the study and we had full access to different

information sources. TFL was one of the first public sector enterprises in Fiji to be

fully privatized and listed on the South Pacific Stock Exchange through its parent

company, Amalgamated Telecom Holdings Limited (ATH). In doing so the company

had made accounting and organisational changes which fitted in well within the scope

of our study.

The Fiji government began to dismantle state-owned enterprises in the late 1980s and

corporatised many public enterprises including Fiji Posts and Telecommunications

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Limited (FPTL).3 Under further restructuring FPTL was split into Telecom Fiji

Limited (TFL) and Post Fiji Limited in 1996. Currently, TFL is the sole provider of

local and national (trunk) telephone services. The company owns the only public

switched telephone network in Fiji. The TFL network comprises 55 telephone

exchanges throughout Fiji, connecting more than 101,000 customers (Telecom Fiji

website, www.telecomfiji.com.fj, 2004).

The Fiji government with the assistance of overseas based consultants consolidated all

telecommunications companies into one company- Amalgamated Telecom Holdings

Limited in 1998. For the organisation chart of Amalgamated Telecom Holdings

Limited (ATH), see Appendix 1. ATH owns all shares in TFL.

In 2002, the government floated its stock in ATH to the general public in an IPO of

$1.06 per share. The general public owns almost 7.2% of shares in the ATH, while

the government holds 34.6% of the shares. The Fiji National Provident Fund has a

shareholding of 58.2%.4 The ATH was formally listed on the South Pacific Stock

Exchange in Fiji on 18 April, 2002 (Telecom Fiji website, 2004). TFL describes its

vision statement as “Telecom Fiji, bringing the best of telecommunications to the

Pacific” (TFL website, 2004). The mission of the company is to:

“- provide telecommunication products and services that our customers value;

- strive for excellence in everything we do;

- develop a capable workforce by rewarding superior performance and

- grow shareholder value” (TFL website, 2004).

In April 2002, Internet Services Fiji Ltd (operating as Connect) was set up to take

over internet service provision at the retail level from TFL. TransTel Limited was

formed on April 2003 to market and sell prepaid calling and internet cards and

manage all public booths on behalf of TFL.

Vodafone Fiji Limited (Vodafone) was incorporated in 1993 in the form of a joint

venture between Vodafone Europe BV Holdings (49%) and TFL. The latter has

3 FPTL was renamed Telecom Fiji Limited in 1996 after the postal business was separated under a new entity as Post Fiji Limited.

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assigned part of its domestic licence which deals with mobile communication to its

subsidiary in which it has 51% shareholding. Vodafone has a customer base of

approximately 154,000 (ATH annual report, 2006). Xceed Pasifica was formed in

April 2003, taking over all customer premises equipment and related activities like

cabling from TFL. Fiji Directories Limited was set up as a joint venture between

FPTL (90%) and Edward O’Brien Ltd (10%) in 1993 moved to ATH in December

2002 (Telecom Fiji website, 2004). The next section outlines the research method

adopted for the study.

5. Research Method

The empirical evidence examines the changes surrounding implementation of TQM

practices which is part of a process used to enact and add legitimacy to broader MCS

within TFL. Whereas management accounting research has been somewhat silent on

how embedded agents, constrained by existing rules and routines, bring about change,

our study responds to recent calls for widening such analysis to examine how

institutional contradictions shape embedded agents to bring about changes (Seo and

Creed, 2002; Cruz, Major and Scapens, 2009; Johansson and Siverbo, 2009). Hence

our analysis traces institutional contradictions, and then explores how these

contradictions shape institutional entrepreneurs to introduce MCS changes within

TFL.

The case study was conducted over a 6 year period 2002 to 2007. Our research study

made use of multiple sources to collect evidence. Data were gathered from three

sources: publicly available information including TFL annual reports for the last

fifteen years, media and government reports, internal proprietary documentation

including board papers and semi-structured interviews.

We were also given TFL’s Quality Policy and Procedure Manuals about TQM

practices. The media reports were obtained from the National Archives of Fiji in

Suva. The reports as far back as 1990 were obtained which described the

organizational culture prior to TFL’s corporatization. The government reports such as

parliament papers pertaining to TFL when it was government owned together with

4 The Fiji National Provident Fund is a superannuation company in Fiji. Both the employer and the employee each contribute 8% of the gross wages to the Fiji National Provident Fund.

14

other documentation such as an “enquiry report on FPTL affairs” when there were

resistance to corporatization was obtained from the National Archives of Fiji.

Access to TFL employees and documentation was extremely good but some

documents, for example the corporate plan, were considered to be confidential and

were made available in edited form. These multiple data sources helped provide a

more comprehensive and valid portrayal of the phenomenon compared to a single

source of data (Jick, 1979; McKinnon, 1988; Modell, 2005; Perera et al., 2003). TFL

annual reports were used to provide an understanding of the history of the

organisation and facilitate the interviews. The use of a longitudinal case study

allowed us to study the change towards TQM practices from an institutional

perspective (Dacin et al., 2002; Burns and Scapens, 2000).

The interviews were carried out between 2002 and 2007; an extended longitudinal

case study. Forty two semi-structured interviews were conducted at TFL, each lasting

for one to two hours. 25 staff were interviewed at head office in Suva and its branches

in Nadi, Lautoka, Ba and Tavua. Some interviewees were visited more than once to

get better clarity of the information. The interviewees were selected from different

sections of TFL such as the Finance, Human Resources, Customer, Public Relations

and Strategic Management divisions. The interviews took place in formal

surroundings, i.e. within the office space of employees or in the company’s board

room. Most of the interviews were tape-recorded and were subsequently transcribed.

Furthermore, there were three informal contacts, mostly by e-mail or phone. The

informal contacts were particularly useful for checking or supplementing evidence

collected during the formal interviews.

While the data triangulation approach adopted was useful as it enabled us to capture a

holistic contextual understanding of the social phenomena under study (Hoque and

Hopper, 1997), it also created challenges in terms of analyzing and making sense of

empirical evidence collected from various sources. To overcome this problem, we

started our analysis by preparing tables listing issues frequently raised in interviews in

order to answer our research questions: how agents were able to introduce MCS (such

as TQM routines) within TFL? How were TQM practices institutionalised at TFL?.

Several themes (such as contradiction/ tensions, reform/corporatization, resistance to

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change, enactment of TQM, conforming of TQM practices) were drawn from these

responses. The data representing the themes were clustered together at this stage.

The documentary evidence collected was subsequently matched with themes

(Tsamenyi et al., 2006). In the last part of the analysis, we drew on our theoretical

framework to make sense of the data.

We will now proceed by describing the main findings of this data analysis and as we

progress, we will discuss them in the light of the literature reviewed previously so that

we can provide answers to our research question in the concluding section of the

paper.

6.Case Findings

This section presents the case findings in four subsections. The first sub-section

discusses the institutional contradictions that triggered TQM practice implementation.

The second sub-section discusses the role of institutional entrepreneurs in the TQM

practice implementation process. The section describes how institutional

entrepreneurs introduced new TQM routines. The third subsection examines the

enactment of TQM routines: how Quality Action Teams and the National Quality

Council were formed to enact TQM practices within TFL. The fourth subsection

examines the process of institutionalisation of TQM routines: that is how TQM

practices were institutionalised by TFL management and employees.

6.1 Institutional Contradiction

This section outlines the institutional contradictions that triggered TQM practices

implementation. With the advent of commercialization, there was a need to strip

away the civil service and engineering routines which characterized the public sector

regime. Workers were used to being paid for input hours worked rather than

measurable output produced. A new business-like approach was introduced.

Contradictory interpretive schemes were evident and this created fissures along which

opposing sides lined up.. A manager recalled the culture at TFL after corporatization

but prior to the introduction of TQM practices:

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The civil service culture was quite common at TFL and there was a lack of customer focus. Attempts to introduce business norms prior to TQM received strong resistance from management and workers.

The established civil service routines and more commercial routines operated side by

side for a number of years. After privatization, TFL management acted to legitimize a

business oriented culture but the organization remained a monopoly supplier of

telephone services to Fiji citizens. The management and employees were exhorted to

be business-like and yet the idea that customers were simply sources of revenue was

difficult to internalise. There was a contradiction between the civil service notions of

service and the capitalist notion of customers as sources of profit. People found it hard

to adapt and it could be said there was institutional contradiction/ inconsistency with

the introduction of new commercial objectives and the lack of adaptability of many

staff (Seo and Creed, 2002). TQM routines were often resisted by the employees.

Powell (1991) argues that efforts to change actors shared norms are often resisted as

“they threaten individuals’ sense of security and disrupt routines” (p.194).

In the early days of corporatization, the workers and some of the management resisted

attempts to introduce business norms. The Board’s attempt to remove managers who

resisted the formal change process brought strong resistance and industrial actions by

the union resulting ultimately in the sabotage of cables disrupting telecommunication

services. A manager commented:

Here in Fiji we always have a militant trade union, unlike the unions in Australia and New Zealand. Further, the union is closely aligned to opposition Labour Party of Chaudhry and can stall progress if they want to.

The workers feared there would be redundancies due to privatization as a new breed

of capitalist managers tried to exploit labour in order to achieve a greater surplus for

the company. The dialectically opposed forces could nevertheless agree on the

purpose of their productive activities, i.e., to satisfy customer needs. The institutional

entrepreneurs within Telecom saw TQM practices as an important innovation tool. It

could help to both de-institutionalise public sector routines and routinise the

importance of customer service as the focus of new commercial routines. Customer

service and satisfaction could be problematised and TQM practices offered as the

solution to current organizational tensions. Interviewees reflected the rationale for

TQM:

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There were a lot of customer complaints about our services which created some concern for our performance.

Those days there were hardly one telephone connection per day. Technicians connected customers after taking celebratory food and drinks from customers. Customers gave bribes as the connections came years after initial application.

The actual implementation of TQM was assisted by the Fijian culture which

appreciates social interaction once formal structures are institutionalized. Thaman

(1999) notes that Fiji society is stratified and the people are socialized to respect

others because of their social ranks. Fijians are devoted to their communal structures

and obedient to their chiefs (Achary, 1998a, 1998b). Fiji has a large power distance

society that accepts a hierarchical order. Fijians have extended family with strong

allegiance to the chiefs in the village. As a consequence, the Chief Executive and

managers of TFL are generally regarded as people with authority. Many employees

would not express disagreement with their superiors because they have been brought

up to believe that such behaviour is inappropriate. Thus, conformity to social norms

is essential and deviant behaviour is frowned on. Achary (1998a) notes that Fijian

culture is one of silence, that is, the people will not normally speak up against their

superiors or chiefs and readily accept their wishes. The Indo-Fijians, who are a

minority population in Fiji, hold similar beliefs. Achary (1998a) points out that

silence in Fiji is culturally patterned and embroiled in societal communicative

behaviour. While TQM practices require the involvement of TFL members, this has

been made possible through an informal environment of Quality Action Teams. A

Quality Manager commented:

As soon as the meetings are formal, people feel as if they are in a court room and are very silent. We don’t know what that silence means, whether they agree or disagree. However, people are good in informal settings. We have informal meetings for TQM to solve this problem.

The cultural beliefs play an instrumental role at the work place: there is a large power

distance between management and workers possibly emanating from the tightly knit

social framework and stratified Fijian societies headed by chiefs. A Quality Manager

explained that with the introduction of TQM practices at TFL, the power distance

between the CEO and workers was meant to be reduced. However, due to the cultural

pattern of employees, the large power distance was still pervasive. The power distance

did not have much impact on TQM practices as meetings were held informally on

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Quality Action Teams to be described later in the paper. The next section illustrates

the institutional entrepreneurs who were at play in the implementation of TQM

practices.

6.2 Institutional Entrepreneurs in the TQM Implementation Process

This section examines the role that institutional entrepreneurs (internal change agents)

along with external change agents played in the TQM practice implementation

process. A number of writers (Beckert, 1999; Seo and Creed, 2002; Dorado, 2005)

have identified the significance of such agents in providing impetus for change in the

presence of institutional contradictions or inconsistencies. Beckert (1999) argues that

change agent’s effects are to disturb the existing taken-for-granted routines by

introducing new ideas and the possibility of change.

TQM practices were introduced by the then Managing Director, Naqova, who initially

resisted the move towards commercialised routines. He was threatened with

redundancy unless he went abroad and learned from managerial practices introduced

to telecommunication companies in developed countries. On his return, he argued

that the TQM initiative had brought considerable benefits to some of the

commercialised public sector organisations he visited in Australia and New Zealand

and needed to be implemented at TFL.

An accountant stated: The Managing Director travelled extensively to Australia and New Zealand and saw some successful companies with TQM practices and decided to adopt it here.

He became an avid student of such practices. A Quality Manager commented:

Our then Managing Director used to read a lot of books on TQM and it was from there that he picked up the idea of TQM practices.

The Managing Director’s in-depth knowledge of other organisation and his wider

reading was used to lend support to the idea of TQM routines.

A manager maintained:

Customer consciousness was lacking in public service days. There were instances of poor service delivery then. After corporatisation, this culture needed to be overhauled. TQM practice was seen by management as a viable solution to this problem. Managing for results was introduced after corporatisation. TQM with related performance measures promoted this.

19

The Managing Director introduced TQM routines to strip away the much entrenched

civil service routines and to enhance commercial business routines in form of

“managing for results.” TQM manual and procedures were distributed by the

Managing Director to all employees in the organisation.

With some initial assistance from consultants from Hawaii Pacific University, a

management team within TFL implemented TQM practices. This management team

was composed of the Managing Director, General Managers and ten managers of the

company. The management team acted to embed TQM routines initiated by the

consultants and the Managing Director. The TQM teams followed eleven steps to

problem solving as: 1. identify the problem, 2. identify and analyse issue, 3. identify

the underlying cause, 4. data/assignment, 5. data collection, 6. data evaluation and

analysis, 7. possible solutions, 8. solution analysis, 9. cost/benefit analysis, 10. action

plans, and 11. measurement (TFL Quality Manual, 1998, p.12). A Quality Manual on

TQM was introduced by the management team which outlined the TQM practice

within TFL: this formed part of the “rule” within TFL.

When Naqova died in a fire accident in 1996, a new Managing Director, supportive of

TQM practices, was appointed. A manager commented:

The new managing director was result oriented and maintained strong earnings even in difficult times and was supportive of TQM practices. He introduced some TQM structure into TFL including Quality Action Teams and National Quality Council. A Quality Manager was also appointed in 1996.

A manager also described the managing director as a person who:

…took every novelty, although he may not have the vision of what to use it for.

In this case, the management TQM team that included Quality Action Teams and

National Quality Council acted as institutional entrepreneurs. An operations worker

commented:

I like being part of Quality Action Teams. It is very inspirational. It is pleasing to see that your views are heard at the National Quality Council level and sometimes they can become organizational policy.

20

Initially TQM practice was not accepted by all employees. A strategic manager

described barriers to the diffusion of TQM practices in this way:

Some workers were with the company for over 30 years. The majority were with the organization for 10 to 20 years. A smaller percentage was with the company for less than 10 years and some were very new. It was not a clear cut acceptance since some felt the need to change was not there. I think the awareness of TQM made a lot of difference. We needed to speak to staff about the TQM philosophy/ concept whenever the opportunity arose. This made the adaptation easier.

The new practice of TQM did not make sense to some employees as the company had

a monopoly in telecom services and made adequate profits. These employees

questioned the need for TQM routines. Other barriers to TQM diffusion were

described by interviewees:

There were some who resisted adopting TQM. It came from old employees. We could say old horses take longer to understand the new race course.

[When] any new thing that comes in, we need to go with it. I can’t say whether we are really happy with it. There are drawbacks; a lot of paper work has to be undertaken.

Chenhall (1997) points out that an important concern in the implementation of TQM

practice and its relevance to MCS is the extent to which TQM is developed together

with a management performance evaluation system. It is argued that TQM practices

may become institutionalized once managers and employees are evaluated on the

basis of non-financial measures such as customer satisfaction (Chenhall, 1997). The

next section examines the enactment of TQM routines at TFL.

6.3 The Enactment of TQM Routines

This section describes the enactment of TQM routines. The discussion focuses on the

formation of Quality Action Teams and a National Quality Council by the

management team. This section regards the introduction of TQM routines within the

organisation as part of the processes which were used to enact and add legitimacy to

the broader changes in MCS practices within TFL.

The CEO and the management team began the TQM enactment process by defining

the broad structure of a TQM program. The support of the CEO and management

team was reinforced by the establishment of the National Quality Council the task of

21

which was to oversee the implementation of the TQM process in the company. The

National Quality Council was the highest part of the hierarchy within the TQM

administration structure; the lowest level was the Quality Action Teams.

A TQM manager was appointed in 1996. He had been sent to Hawaii Pacific

University where he gained a Diploma in Quality Management. This person had been

with TFL for over thirty years having worked up from a junior position: he was a line

inspector and was with the Customer Services Division before he moved to the

position of National Manager: Quality. He also presented various papers at local

conferences on TQM and had won best paper prize at the Training and Productivity

Authority of Fiji’s Quality Award annual conference in 1996. A TQM administration

structure (see figure 2) emerged in 1996 at TFL.

Figure 2 TQM Structure

(Adapted from Telecom Fiji Limited Quality Manual, 1998, p.11)

Some of the Quality Action Teams (QAT) in operations at TFL under the Strategic

Business Unit Management were said to be “resolving complaints in provisioning and

restoring, reducing costs on small and medium customers, developing customer

focused attitude and reducing waitlist management.” The National Quality Council

National Quality Council

Strategic Business Unit Management

QAT QAT QAT QAT QAT

QAT

22

teams were established in the areas of debt management, billing and customer value

management.

A Strategic Manager explained that the Quality Action Teams were cross functional.

The leader of the team was not from the same section of TFL where the quality

problem arose. The leaders of Quality Action Teams were appointed by the National

Quality Council. The teams’ composition generally consisted of people who could

provide access to data necessary for testing potential solutions and were critical for

implementing the solutions. Hackman and Wageman (1995) point out that a cross

functional team’s main purpose is to identify and analyse the “vital few” problems of

the organization (p.313). The teams were created to diagnose the problems and to

develop and test potential solutions to them. A Quality Manager on being asked how

a Quality Action Team approached a problem responded:

Quality Action Teams go through quality improvement process of problem solving. They work on data collection and select a few main problems and leave out the trivial problems. Data collection is needed which is done by the team members.

The National Quality Council met on the third Monday of every month. At the

meeting team leaders report on key business processes like service provisioning,

restoration, risk management, recognition and rewards, billing and revenue assurance.

The Quality Action Teams report on specific quality projects that are presented

monthly at National Quality Council meetings. The meetings of the National Quality

Council became part of the routine activity. The work of the Quality Action Teams

was monitored by the National Quality Council . The TFL Quality Manual (1998)

points out that the role of National Quality Council was to:

• monitor the quality of Telecom products and services;

• form Quality Action Team to work on macro processes (cross

functional);

• monitor the work of action teams;

• liaise with organizations and institutions on quality development

programmes;

• organize company quality conventions and award presentations;

• evaluate the effectiveness of the company quality improvement

processes and

23

• publicise the quality improvement undertaken by the teams.

At the National Quality Council, the recommendations that emerge from the Quality

Action Teams could be approved or further action recommended. Once the changes

to work processes, technical changes, new investments or customer service changes

are approved, they were implemented. An interviewee commented that the Quality

Action Teams responsibility was to follow through the implementation process and

report back to National Quality Council within a certain time, say 3 months.

Two detailed examples are provided to illustrate the way in which new routines were

enacted. The first example of reproduction of TQM routines comes from the Western

division where problems were being faced in restoring telecommunication services

often disrupted by heavy rainfall. Most telecommunication cables are laid

underground and customers often face difficulties during rainy days as rain water

interferes with the telephone cable, affecting telephone communication. The

restoration may also be due to lack of preventative maintenance. A Quality team,

nominated by the Chief Executive Officer and other management was formed. It

brainstormed to find reasons for delay in restoring services for customers. At least

seventeen problems were listed in restoring services. Out of the many suggested

problems, the team selected a vital few, and investigations were carried out to identify

possible causes. Data were collected for a month, a goal was set and solutions

effected. The Quality Action Team settled on five vital problems: delays in testing,

statistics compilation, jumpering, passing of faults and delay in passing faults to the

Network centre. Of the five problems, the delay in testing a cable pair was the most

problematic. The cause was because the department had one subscriber line test

device.

Data collected indicated that out of a total 22 working days in the month, total tests

were 131 a day-2,882 a month. There were on average, 20 working hours of waiting

for customers before services could be restored. According to a manager, the

company was spending on average F$612 every month on over-time to test and

analyse faults. It was decided that the best solution was to have another subscriber

line test device to enhance the testing of cable pairs and numbers. According to an

interviewee, once this was approved by the National Quality Council, it was

24

implemented by the Quality Action Team. After implementation, waiting time was

reduced from 20 hours to 15; a 25 percent improvement. An interviewee suggested

that the subscriber test line costs approximately F$1,000. After the implementation,

over-time was reduced from on average F$612 a month to an average of F$232 a

month. The implementation resulted in increased efficiency and supported a technical

rationale explanation for the introduction of TQM. A Quality Manager commented:

the savings were huge and this was made from buying another subscriber test device. The savings were made on a year by year basis.

This could also be seen as evidence of reproduction and routinisation within TFL.

Hackman and Wageman (1995) highlight the cost savings that can be achieved by

doing the work right the first time, as has been evidenced above with the cost savings

from subscriber line.

Another example of Quality Action Teams’ improvements at TFL was billing

services. According to a manager, as late as 2002 the billing function was seen by

management as a major problem area. The problem was evidenced by increasing

customer complaints, adverse articles in the press, increasing volume of calls received

by customer service division on billing. The problem persisted even though TFL had

TQM practices and a corporate vision which stressed “service first and first in

service”, for several years. A customer satisfaction survey conducted by consultants,

Forum Corporation of Australia, confirmed poor performance in this area as well. A

Quality Action Team was formed to improve this service. It was resolved to provide

reminders to customers if the payment was late. This was approved by the National

Quality Council. A manager remarked:

customer survey revealed that TFL employees were not reminding customers of due date and were just cutting them off.

With the approval from National Quality Council, it was decided to remind customers

over the phone of bill due announcements. The result obtained through data

collection by the Quality Action Team reveals that customers were appreciative; cut

offs reduced and bill payment by customers was improved. A manager also informed

that around 2004, that is after two years of the bill due reminder, there was a great

reduction in customer complaints, negative articles in the newspaper were reduced

and the volume of calls for billing enquiries was reduced. According to a Strategic

25

Manager, further customer satisfaction survey conducted by TFL management also

showed improvement in services provided by them. The next section examines the

institutionalisation of TQM practices.

6.4 Evidence on the Institutionalisation of TQM Practices

During the reproduction process, the members went through TQM training and

participated in Quality Action Teams and had experienced clear outcomes from TQM.

These experiences assisted in institutionalising TQM practices. Organisational

members used their experiences to update their “reservoir of beliefs” (Weick, 1979,

p.187) about TQM. They integrated TQM with their ongoing everyday reality

(Zbaracki, 1998). This section aims to show how TQM practices were

institutionalised by management and employees.

The experiences TFL people have with TQM shape new understanding and beliefs

about TQM practices. A Quality Manager commented:

we got some excellent solutions from Quality Action Team. The areas we’re happy about are testing cable line team which reduced customers waiting time should the line become faulty. The team achieved a really substantial cost savings. And they were recognised at the Fiji Quality Award ceremony where they won prizes for best quality team in the country.

The above interview suggests technical reasons for the use of TQM practices: the

practices were beneficial to the employees and improved their perception of being

customer-oriented. The interviewee perceived that there was improvement in

efficiency through cost reduction and service provision as part of commercial business

routines. Savings were made “year on year” as a result of quality projects. The

savings could be mooted as evidence of some routinisation. For the most part, the

project improvement was small and delivered modest savings. Cumulatively,

however, this may build up to substantial savings. An accountant maintained:

TQM practices were so much used that it became part of our work here.

Another manager commented:

We keep a high profile as far as TQM goes. It is working well and we are making progress in the organisation. We have Quality Action Teams and a National Quality Council Team that operate effectively. Our present managing director is very supportive of TQM teams and keep encouraging us to do best in teams.

26

An accountant maintained:

Through TQM, each employee realised that they are important players in the organisation. TQM is a team work approach and helps to enhance employee satisfaction.

Routinisaton could also be viewed in terms of the conduct of meetings and the

approach to problem solving. A Quality Manager asserted:

TQM practices had an impact on how we approach issues...We never start a meeting without a brainstorm. This did not happen before TQM practices.

According to Mueller and Carter (2005), changed conduct at meetings hardly

constitutes a managerial revolution but it does constitute a routinised practice that no

longer requires explicit legitimation. Routinisation may continue for a long time, thus

becoming recursive. TQM practices became part of the “habit” set of management

and employees and were reproduced and expected within the organization.

At the institutionalisation stage, many organisational members had some TQM

experience. However, there were some exceptions as evidenced by an accountant

who expressed some scepticism on the TQM process:

although TQM was meant to make us customer conscious, everyone agreed to it in the introduction phase. On application time, approximately 70% of workers were customer conscious. One of the problems is customer billing which customers complain over the phone: there are some employees who don’t give a hack to it, while others will try to attend to the complaint.

TQM practices seem to have not become routine for some employees. Similarly, a

survey carried out by consultants, Forum Corporation of Australia (2001) on TFL

customers noted that there were gaps in the areas of service faults and repairs carried

by TFL employees. The report further argued that the responsiveness in customer

service was not up to the level of customer’s expectations and there were some

inefficient handling of customer requests. Customers were expecting personal and

effective customer service from all employees and not just customer care staff. The

report noted that there were some satisfied customers; but there were some customers

who were dissatisfied with the services.

For institutionalisation of TQM practices, there are also the tools that the team

members use and discuss. The TQM tools include brainstorming and 11 steps to the

27

TQM problem solving process, including statistical tools, used by the various Quality

Action Teams. Some examples of TQM problem solving and brainstorming, as

discussed previously, were in the areas of restoring telecommunication services due to

some faults in cable pairs and billing services. Once the problem has been resolved, it

is then passed to the National Quality Council which endorses the recommendations;

these are then implemented and evaluated on a monthly basis by the Quality Action

Team and reported to the National Quality Council. The improved work processes

emerging from TQM practices become routines and are subsequently institutionalised

by Quality Action Teams and the organisatonal members. Zbaracki (1998) asks

whether such tools mainly parrot the language of the TQM problem solving process,

or whether the tools manifest a new social reality (for example, 11 steps to TQM

problem solving). TQM practices may provide employees with improved

performance ability (Hackman and Wageman, 1995). The use of such tools by

employees demonstrates the operation and depth of TQM routinisation within

organisation. An operations staff member commented on TQM practice as follows:

I have seen so many changes over the past years and I have noticed a definite improvement in the working environment. When I first started with the company there was no real interaction between the staff and ‘bosses.’ Before if a Chief Engineer or Permanent Secretary came on inspection visit to the division we never got to meet them. Now the CEO even talks to the cleaner. Total Quality Management principles are followed.

According to the above interviewee, TQM practices improved the flow of

communication and were instrumental in employee empowerment. The interviewee

noted an improvement in work environment through an increased interaction between

the management and employees. Before TQM practices, there was little interaction

within different levels of employees and the cultural pattern of society was

reproduced: there were large power distances between the management and the

subordinates. A Human Resource Manager commented:

There is now more interaction between managers and the workers. The organisation chart has been flattened and this means a better communication between superiors and the workers at the ground level.

TQM practices were instrumental in reducing the power distances between

management and employees. Interviewees reported greater use of the more technical

tools of TQM practices. When asked for copies of TQM literature, the managers were

28

able to supply some literature. The interviewees confirmed that technical elements of

TQM practices have been infused within the organisation

As an impetus to institutionalise TQM practice, MCS such as key performance

indicators (KPIs) were developed around 1998 which embody customer satisfaction

indicators for organisational members. Such measures as customer satisfaction

fuelled the institutionalisation of TQM practices. Managers use MCS practices such

as performance indicators to track the performance of employees against targets.

As a movement towards a performance management system (PMS), the management

established in-house and external training programmes for all employees which

included commercial awareness courses. The following interview quotes illustrate

this:

We develop our staff. We send them for training and further studies at the University of the South Pacific, the Fiji Institute of Technology and the Training and Productivity Authority of Fiji. We gave our people a lot of in-house training including customer service training which is conducted by external consultants. This makes employees more sort of responsible in the manner they deal with customers. We also depend a lot on information systems that provide reports so that we can give quick answers to our customers.

Through the PMS practices, individual performance is evaluated, based on routine

tasks and current year work plans which are derived from the company’s broader

action plan and the operational key performance indicators (KPIs), which are used for

staff evaluation. A Strategic Manager commented:

The performance targets we have at workplace are: customer satisfaction, training skills, knowledge/ attitude, professional development and motivation. We recognise effort. There is a positive attitude toward subordinates.

Individual workers are assessed by their superiors on a quarterly basis and are

allocated marks out of 100 on KPI achievement. A manager at a regional office in

Nadi maintained:

PMS practice is measured on individual accountability. Individual workers are allocated marks out of 100 by their respective supervisors. Some of the key performance measures at the regional centres are: punctuality, maintaining error free work and disputes in terms of customer complaints.

29

As for the customer perspective, the key accountability factor was the quality of

service in terms of line repairs which, for residential customers, were as follows:

• 80% of customer line repairs to be done in 24 hours after receiving a

complaint;

• 95% of customer line repairs are to be done in two working days after

receiving a complaint;

• 100% of residential customers’ line repairs are to be done in five

working days after the receipt of a complaint.

For corporate customers, 80% of the line repairs were to be done within two hours of

receiving complaints. According to an engineer, once a complaint (fault in line) is

received, it was logged in the computerised Integrated Customer Management System

and had to be cleared within a specified time limit. Short-term monitoring of service

level is geared towards indicators such as telephone response times and lead times

across various operating areas. A strategic manager commented:

The company is committed to shortening lead times in services. We’re focused in improving services to customers and are pretty much concerned with things like lead times, control activities and service to our customers.

TFL managers and employees became result-oriented. The use of new PMS

practices allowed employees to be rewarded for bonuses if they exceeded 70% in their

quarterly PMS report. A Human Resource Manager commented:

There are a number of rewards in the company. If one performs one gets a bonus. If the company performs better than budgeted amounts, you get extras, and also on top of that is the Cost of Living Adjustment rewards.

Another Strategic Manager stated:

On every quarter, assessment is done. Every individual’s assessment is done. Percentage rating is done which measures the amounts of bonuses. If one doesn’t meet target in the first quarter, one can catch up in the second quarter.

A Quality Manager asserted:

The KPIs are within the reach of employees and encompass both financial and non-financial indicators and are a fair system.

Through the PMS, TQM practices became routinised within TFL. Employees were

rewarded with bonuses on achievement of 70% and above on their quarterly PMS

assessment. This bonus reward would be equivalent to a fortnight’s pay for an

employee. The TQM and PMS practice regimes create and demand systems of

30

surveillance and trigger discipline amongst employees. The employees perform to

achieve desired outcomes and receive a bonus, which is a motivational instrument.

According to an interviewee, PMS practice is used as a form of “discipline”, a way of

making workers more efficient, focused and compliant. That is, they are

institutionalised as part of shared norms of “discipline” and result-oriented.

Interviewees claim that, through PMS techniques, workers are disciplined to adapt

TQM routines to achieve expected results in their quarterly PMS report. PMS

practices were instrumental in shaping TQM routines to be institutionalised. The next

section brings the narrative together by discussing and summarising the findings.

7. Discussion and Conclusion

The paper has employed insights from institutional theory to explain the processes of

implementation of TQM practices. We answer the two research questions posed

earlier in the paper in the following concluding sections.

How were TQM practices institutionalized at TFL?

The enactment and reproduction of TQM practices by TFL members illustrate TQM

routinisation. The introduction of TQM routines within the organization is part of a

process which were used to enact and add legitimacy to broader MCS change within

TFL. The institutional theory framework describes the process through which the

TQM routines are implemented and the organizational members’ use of these

routines. According to interviewees, TQM practices were introduced at TFL in order

to do things differently: to be customer conscious. Tolbert and Zucker (1983) point

out that managers and employees may adopt an innovation in the belief that

innovation improves internal processes in line with technical-rational arguments.

TQM routines were introduced by consultants and managers and promoted by

consultants globally exhibiting mimetic isomorphism. Granlund and Lukka (1998)

point out that consultants promote “same standard solutions globally (p.167).

Consultants were instrumental in bringing the global institution of TQM practices into

TFL, after the CEO asked them to provide training to employees on TQM practice.

Irvine (2007) notes that consultants’ services can be considered as normative

institutional pressure. Consultants are change agents and valued not only for the

knowledge and technical advice they provide, but also for the legitimacy they bestow

(Irvine, 2007).

31

Interview comments suggest that TQM practices are seen partly as a process of

deinstitutionalizing public sector templates and institutionalizing private sector

templates, which is continually evolving. Johnson et al. (2000) emphasise that actors

will not necessarily align themselves with the new institutional templates, rather they

carry forward routines from the public sector and differentially adopt TQM practices

at different paces. TQM practices gain institutional value over time as they become

the accepted way of doing things (Zbaracki, 1998; Hoque and Alam, 1999; Mueller

and Carter, 2005). TQM routines were reproduced at TFL through Quality Action

Teams and the approval from National Quality Council. TQM practices became part

of the “habit” of management and employees which were enacted and reproduced, for

example, the Quality Action Team meetings became a routinised activity. The

processes and associated practices of the Quality Action Team meetings became

taken-for-granted. Having discussed how TQM is institutionalized at TFL, the next

question examines the role various participants played in introducing TQM routines.

How are agents able to introduce TQM routines within TFL?

Institutional contradictions play an instrumental role in the change process as depicted

in the model presented in figure 1. The Fiji government’s public sector reform policy

produced a source of inconsistency in TFL’s participants’ interactions. Throughout

the reform process, the organizational participants were encouraged to operate as if

running a successful business. But the adoption of a consumer focus and an emphasis

on quality service was slow and inconsistent. Such contradiction can produce

institutional crisis. In Fiji the sudden change in government regulation in terms of

public sector reform appeared to be the consequence of interinstitutional

incompatibilities unfolding in the larger institutional environment. The Fiji

government was influenced by donor agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian

Development Bank to introduce neo-liberal policies of public sector reforms. The

TFL was one of the forerunners of this reform and first public sector organization to

be fully privatized.

At the organizational level, the problem of “embedded agency” can be overcome by

institutional entrepreneurs as they are able to envision alternative institutional

arrangements and are able to develop them. The institutional

32

contradictions/inconsistencies within the existing “rules” and “routines” can

encourage previously embedded agents to act as institutional entrepreneurs (Seo and

Creed, 2002).

At TFL, the managers, consultants, Quality Action Teams and National Quality

Council extolled TQM practice as a “new way of working.” The exhortation from

management was to strip away the civil service and engineering routines that had been

firmly protected under the public sector regime. The stripping away of civil service

routines reflected management’s confidence that new ways needed to be adopted.

This paper focused on analysing the changes surrounding MCS innovation of TQM

practices implementation over time within TFL. The contribution this study makes to

the literature is to tease out the micro processes of change within the case

organisation. TQM routines have been conceptualized as institutional change:

routines are habits of organizational participants. DiMaggio and Powell (1991),

Tolbert and Zucker (1996), Johnson et al. (2000) and Modell et al., (2007) underscore

that scholars have paid little attention to the micro processes of institutionalization.

TQM implementation in this paper contributes to ways of addressing this omission.

The particular institutional theory perspective that this paper drew on, enabled us to

explore the micro-processes of TFL rather than the influence of the more macro-level

structures that are more often linked with institutional theory (see also Soin et al.,

2002, Burns and Scapens, 2000). The explicit focus on the role of agency enables the

analysis of the relationship between different agents, for example the CEO and

management team were the institutional entrepreneurs that were the key players who

were driving the adoption of TQM practices.. The study accepts that institutional

theory is a theory of stability. However, with the introduction of institutional

contradictions/inconsistencies as well as institutional entrepreneurs, institutional

theory is expanded in order to explicate institutional change. The study demonstrates

how embedded agents influenced by institutional contradictions take collective action

in order to achieve institutional change in the form of TQM practices implementation.

However, our analysis is limited as it is a single case study. The results, therefore,

may not be applicable to other organizations in Fiji. Our aim was to explain and

understand the dynamics of TQM practices implementation within TFL rather than

33

provide broader theoretic generalizations. There are opportunities for future

comparative empirical studies to further our understanding of how TQM routines are

shaped by institutional contradiction and entrepreneurs as well as the interplay

between institutional forces and intra-organisational power relationships. The study

does have implications for recently privatized state owned enterprises seeking to

implement TQM routines. For these organizations, the TQM routines may offer a set

of practices that can seen as a process used to enact and add legitimacy to broader

MCS change within organizations.

Acknowledgement

Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Auckland Regional Accounting

Conference in 2007 and the Global Accounting and Organisational Change

conference in 2008 at Melbourne. The authors would like to thank Chris Akroyd who

was the discussant for the paper at the Auckland Regional Accounting conference and

the two anonymous reviewers of the Global Accounting and Organisational Change

conference. The paper has also benefited from the feedback received from the

conference participants at these conferences. Special thanks to also Joanne Locke

who has provided some useful feedback on the earlier version of the paper.

34

Appendix 1

Figure 1 ATH Ownership Structure

Telecom Fiji Limited (100%)

FINTEL (51%)

Internet Services Fiji Limited (100%)

Trans Tel Ltd (100%)

Vodafone Fiji Limited (49% Vodafone Europe BV Holdings)

Xceed Pascifica Limited (100%)

Fiji National Provident Fund 58.2%

Institutional & Individuals 7.2%

Amalgamated Telecom Holdings Ltd

Government of Fiji 34.6%

ATH Technology Park Ltd- proposed owner and operator of technology park (100%)

Fiji Directories Limited (90%)

35

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