Implementing Quality Culture

Abstract

The theoretical part of this case study focuses on concepts of quality and organisational culture. Organisational culture manifests itself as the values and behaviour of individuals. Both of these themes have an increasingly important role inside companies, due to the continuous changes and intense competition in today’s business world, putting challenges on organisations to maintain and develop their position in the market. Combining these two theoretical areas – quality and organisational culture, Total Quality Management (TQM) is dis-cussed as a cultural phenomenon inside organisations.

The empirical part of this longitudinal case study researched the implementation of quality culture inside one unit of the case company – Wärtsilä Finland Oy, Power Plants. The implementation of quality culture was studied through the quality management development program used in the organisation: Quality Awareness Campaign (QAC). First, before executing the QAC, the level of values and behaviour, in other words the quality culture of the personnel on an individual and organisational level was surveyed. At the same time the respon-dents were asked to define quality inside the organisation. Then after the QAC, the level of values and behaviour were measured again to find out if there had been any change in the quality culture.

The study includes both qualitative and quantitative data, collected through the survey questionnaires conducted before and after the QAC. The results of the study showed that the quality culture did not change after the QAC. The responses specified the current experiences of good quality in everyday work and the appreciated values prevalent inside the case company’s unit.