The Illusion of Empowerment: A Case Study on the Implementation of

Total Quality Management Practices in Turkey

International Labour Process Conference

2006Temmuz GONC-SAVRAN, M.A. Sociology

Department of Sociology

Anadolu University

TURKEY

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.

Plan of the paper

in fo rm atio n o n thefa c to ry rese a rch e d a nd

th e s truc tu re o f tra in ing

th e o pe ra tio n o fsu g g es tio n -re w a rd sys tem

th e s truc tu re o fco m m u n ica tion

co n c lus io ns

in te rn a liz in g q u a lityw ith th e h e lp o f

h ie ra rchy

th e au toc ra tic cu ltu rein the o rg an iza tion

th e stru ctu re o f em p ow e rm e ntin the fac to ry

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.

The structure of empowerment in the factory I

g e n era l d ire c to r

d e pa rtm e nt ch ie fs(w h ite -co lla re d)

b la ck b e lts

b lu e -co lla re d w o rke rs

ch ie fs (fo rem e n)(b lu e -co lla re d)

ite m e n g in e e rs

g re en be lts

d e pa rm e nt m an ag e rs

d e p artm e n t d irec to rs

•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 can’t dare to oppose something to what managers say” (blue-collared worker)•There exist eight levels of managerial hierarchy from top to bottom.

Who takes the decisions that are directly related to your work? N=85

The structure of empowerment in the factory II

42%

20%

24%

14%

first superior

engineers or directors

together

I do

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”)

The structure of empowerment in the factory III

Are you involved in the decision -making process related to your work? (if yes, how?) N=85

“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”

42%

52%

6%

no

they ask our opinion if a problemoccurs

by giving suggestions

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 1994:5) ‘a redistribution or devolution of decision-making power to those who do not currently have it’ (Cunningham et al.1996:144).

• “consultative participation: Employees give their opinion, but do not have a veto or complete decision-making power” (Cotton et al. 1980:12).

“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”.

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 doesn’t 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.

• 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

Suggestion-reward system I

•Suggestions for non-production activities are not made, since workers already know that

those suggestions won’t be accepted.

Suggestion-reward system IIReasons for suggestion making Sample

general n=85

Who feel a gap n=43

Who do not feel a gap n=41

For my own ease 24 % 23 % 24 %

Because of the quota obligation 17 % 30 % 2 %

For the profit of the factory 13 % 12 % 15 %

Because of my responsibility 13 % 16 % 10 %

To reach better quality 12 % 5 % 20 %

For monetary awards 5 % 2 % 7 %

There is not a specific reason 16 % 12 % 22 %

TOTAL 100 % 100 % 100 %

“When I make a suggestion on item quality, it reduces the possibility to cause a defect on the line” (blue-collared worker)

“I don’t 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)

The structure of communication in the factory

The most important problem that workers experience with management N=85

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 ‘don’t have chat’ ” (blue-collared workers)

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.

49%51% feels a gap

does not feel a gap

“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 don’t 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.

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 don’t 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 Eskişehir, 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 can’t have any overtime payment if the work-load is not heavy enough

(blue-collared worker)

• 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, 1965:101). 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)

Autocratic Culture in the Organization II

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)

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 doesn’t 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.