The Illusion of Empowerment: A Case Study on the Implementation of Total Quality Management Practices in Turkey

1
The Illusion of Empowerment A Case Study on the
Implementation of Total Quality Management
Practices in Turkey

• International Labour Process Conference
• 2006

Temmuz GONC-SAVRAN, M.A. Sociology Department of
Sociology Anadolu University TURKEY
2
Aim of the study
The mainstream literature regards that
implementations of TQM practices would reduce the
hierarchy in the organizations. This reduction is
thought to be through encouraging workers
participation in decision making process and
empowerment. Thus, TQM would have positive impact
upon workers job satisfaction. This paper tries
to critically asses this contention and to
explore whether empowerment is implemented so as
to reduce the hierarchy in the Turkish case. This
study draws upon fieldwork conducted in a formal
sector factory which has a number of national and
international quality awards The firm is located
in Eskisehir, Turkey.
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Plan of the paper
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Information on the firm researched

• A foreign joint-venture firm established in 1985,
  produces aircraft engines and their items
  exports 93 of its products
• 506.000 square meter area, including recreation
  areas.
• Cell production with CNC (Computerized Numerical
  Control) machines and CVP (Characteristic
  Verification Plan).
• winner of a number of national and international
  quality awards
• All of the blue-collared workers are male.

• The Average wage in the firm was 3,560 YTL
  (approximately 1512 GBP ) while the minimum
  average wage was 350,153 YTL (net) (149 GBP).
• Private health insurance, lunch, transportation
  and pocket money for religious holidays.
• Skilled workers, of whom 97 have technical
  education 29 are graduated from technical
  colleges.
• The top managers and some engineers on the shop
  floor were foreign (mainly American) until 1991.
• There is no trade union in the factory.

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The structure of empowerment in the factory I

• Workers do their work according to the
  instruction of the management. They are not
  allowed to decide changing in work tasks unless
  informing their superiors or having the approval
  of management.
• you cant dare to oppose something to what
  managers say (blue-collared worker)
• There exist eight levels of managerial hierarchy
  from top to bottom.

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The structure of empowerment in the factory II

• Who takes the decisions that are directly related
  to your work? N85

• Examples of how they decide
• When an item comes to me on the quality check
  point, I can say yes or no. Only I decide to
  approve an item to pass the qulity circle (a
  quality control department worker who reported as
  I decide).
• we are usually asked to give our opinion when
  there occurs a problem on the bench (a
  production department worker who is in the view
  of taking decision together)

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The structure of empowerment in the factory III
Are you involved in the decision -making process
related to your work? (if yes, how?) N85

• How are you involved into the decision making
  process?
• if they come and ask how something will be done,
  we give suggestions,
• they come and ask our opinion when necessary
• we are called, we are bound to give answers
  according to the atmosphere over there
• I give my opinion when a detect occurs

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The structure of empowerment in the factory IV

• empowerment is simply gaining the power to make
  your voice heard, to contribute to plans and
  decisions that affect you (Foy 19945) a
  redistribution or devolution of decision-making
  power to those who do not currently have it
  (Cunningham et al.1996144).
• consultative participation Employees give their
  opinion, but do not have a veto or complete
  decision-making power (Cotton et al. 198012).
• It s not easy to make suggestions about social
  aspects of the work such as to have better meals
  and transport services (blue-collared worker)
• Through suggestion-reward system, management
  makes workers to have a feeling as if they were
  involved in decision making process. This does
  not give workers any control on what work they
  do. This is in line with what Friedman (1977)
  calls responsible autonomy.

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The structure of training in the factory

• Of the workers, 89 participated regular
  training activities in the last year.
• The average training duration is two hours per
  worker.
• Almost all the training courses in the last year
  were work task quality, cleaning of the items and
  various operation processes
• Of the workers, 29 require to be trained on
  different themes
• where the items are exactly attached on the
  engine and what function do the items definitely
  have (blue-collared worker)
• Provision of an English language course, since
  the most programs and operation schemes are
  instructed in English on the shop floor.

• This indicates that training doesnt render the
  workers fully aware of and command on the
  production process. This situation denotes that
  the aim of the training is not to create an
  empowered multi-skilled TQM worker who would be
  involved in and participate to the whole work in
  the factory.

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Suggestion-reward system I

• There is a suggestion quota for every worker in
  the factory. Still, every process of production
  has a limited time that allows the work hardly be
  done at time and there is no additional time to
  make suggestions. Thus, making suggestions is an
  element making the work load heavier.
• Rewards between 30-300 USA dollars, according to
  the amount of cost reduction that a suggestion
  provides to the firm.
• Suggestion theme distribution in the last year
• reducing the process time 61
• cost reduction 20
• improving item quality 12
• safety and health of workers 7

• Suggestions for non-production activities are not
  made, since workers already know that those
  suggestions wont be accepted.

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Suggestion-reward system II
When I make a suggestion on item quality, it
reduces the possibility to cause a defect on the
line (blue-collared worker) I dont make
..suggestions, because it would turn back to me
if a problem occurs... If a suggestion results in
a positive outcome, the management will have it,
if a suggestion creates unexpected problems in
the application process the management will have
us pay the bill. (blue-collared worker)
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The structure of communication in the factory
The most important problem that workers
experience with management N85 the lack of
communication and dialogue with managers........
..........(68) harsh behaviours and pressure of
managers.................................(20)
Subjective evaluation of workers based on
information gathered from third
persons..........................................
..................................................
....(8) the injustice inequity of management
on evaluating the suggestions..(4)
we have a director who does not say even a hi
to us in the mornings although. (blue-collared
worker) when they see us outside, none of the
managers or superiors greet us (blue-collared
worker) In addition, social areas which have
public autonomy and workers could communicate to
each other are controlled in a high degree to
drink a coup of tea together is forbidden,
managers say that everybody should go to the
cabin and drink teas there they say us
dont have chat (blue-collared workers)
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The gap between managers and workers

• Tend to be less satisfied with physical working
  conditions, the wages, the workload, the pace of
  work and working hours.
• Strongly less satisfied with relations between
  the managers and the workers and tend to evaluate
  management negatively especially on dealing with
  their problems and behaving fair to them.
• Current managers satisfy only 1/3.
• The gap between managers and workers it depends
  on the event, if you agree with the management,
  there will be no problem .
• (junior worker)

• Senior workers who work in the factory since it
  was established.
• Many of them personally know the current managers
  for a long time
• Perceiving little or no gap between managers
  and workers does not necessarily indicate an
  objective observation one of the reasons of this
  perception seems to be an intimacy arising from
  personal ties. Of the senior workers, 95 are
  satisfied from current managers.

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Us/ them distinction

• Workers believe that managers still make the
  us/them distinction and this annoys them.
• one year we celebrated the new year all together
  in the factory, but we heard that there was
  another celebration in the management club after
  this celebration, if so, let them dont come
  here, we are quite happy to celebrate our own new
  year. (blue-collared worker)
• the relation of the management with its
  coordination is generally good, I mean due to all
  of us here ?managers and white collared workers?
  were grown up in the same culture and speak the
  same language, important problems do not occur.
  (manager)
• Workers wear blue collar uniforms, white-collared
  wear white ones, workers and white collared have
  lunch in seperate times, white and blue collars
  use different car parking places, both sides go
  to the factory swimming pool at different days
  and times, etc. All these practices and
  applications prove that there strongly exists the
  us and them distinction.

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Autocratic Culture in the Organization I

• managers told us whether you work well or you
  will be fired next year (blue-colared worker)
• ...for example they say to us do you think you
  do a good work here? You just push the buttons,
  everybody can do what you do here
  (blue-coll.worker)
• they can surely dismiss us, if we get unionised
  (blue-collared .worker)
• it is very distressing to take papers written
  things like your mistake has caused a 40.000
  dollars-cost, they should know we dont cause
  defects willingly (blue-collared worker)
• When made a mistake, psychology of people
  seriously worsens in such a way that they may
  need psychological support once one became
  tongue-tied because of fear (blue-collared
  worker).
• The fear of dismissal also reinforces the power
  of management.The firm is probably the best place
  to work in Eskisehir, where there are only a few
  formal sector firms. Of the workers, 34 feel a
  fear of unemployment. This fear is one of the
  reasons of the assent on heavy workload
• when workload reduced, workers fear of
  dismissal begins (blue-collared worker)
• a heavy workload is better than unemployment
  (blue-collared worker)
• we cant have any overtime payment if the
  work-load is not heavy enough (blue-collared
  worker)

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Autocratic Culture in the Organization II

• These evidence support the suggestions of Lauter
  (1968) that Turkish managers are highly
  centralized, of Hofstede (1984) that in the
  Turkish society of which power distance is high,
  individuals are predominantly autocratic and obey
  the rules strictly and of Wasti (1998) that
  workers are not sufficiently autonomous in
  Turkey.
• As to Terrill, Authoritarianism has long been a
  characteristic of every phase of Turkish life
  (Terrill, 1965101). Some expressions of the
  workers also indicate the autocratic culture in
  the organization has its roots in national
  culture

they managers... see us as brainless, as
people who are not able to think without help.
Managers who came from USA were astonished when
they saw that workers could learn things in 2
months although 6-months training were needed to
learn it in the USA. They admired us.
(blue-collared worker) When Americans were
here, they used to eat on the same table with us.
But the Turkish managers were eating on different
tables. When Turkish managers saw them, they felt
ashamed and began to eat on the same table with
us...they went back to their different tables
after the Americans went back to their country
(blue-collared worker)
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Internalising quality with the help of hierarchy

• Workers are involved in the quality improvement
  techniques
• either to decrease the possibility of causing a
  defect, as a precaution to being dismissed
  individually
• or to find a way to work more by reducing time of
  operations in order to block a possible massive
  dismissal arising from a reduction in workload.
• In either ways, workers try to protect themselves
  from a possible dismissal. we have to adopt TQM,
  in order to make as less mistake as possible. So
  that we can keep our jobs.
• The failure in fulfilling the requirements of TQM
  such as empowerment and participation of workers
  and eliminating bureaucratic and hierarchic
  layers reminds the phrase of TQM from above,
  which Nichols and Sugur (2004) stated that fits
  best in the Turkish case.
• TQM requires a hegemonic structure to be created
  and power to be internalised by individuals. TQM
  may not always have the workers internalise the
  power, but it accomplishes to create a compliant
  attitude with a fear culture and with the help
  of the labour market conditions
• I have to implement TQM whether I like it or
  not (blue-collared worker)
• to adopt quality is necessary as an image
  (blue-collared worker)

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Conclusions

• The data show that empowerment, especially when
  implemented in a limited extent, does not create
  a large-scale transformation of organizational
  forms and practices. TQM practices are not
  prescriptions to reduce the hierarchy in the
  organizations.
• The Turkish case confirms that TQM doesnt have a
  significant impact upon workers job
  satisfaction, because being excellent in hard
  aspects of TQM does not mean a taken for granted
  success in soft aspects. TQM does not
  necessarily change the power relations in
  organizations.
• This study shows that the problems of poor
  infrastructure and the lack of technological
  know-how should not be generalized for all
  developing countries. What is interesting is that
  empowerment is still an illusion in an
  international-awards winner, a leader formal
  sector firm in Turkey.
• It is clear that TQM makes the firm feel
  responsible to their shareholders and customers
  but it has not made the cake bigger for workers
  and failed to empower the workers.