Quality managers, authority and leadership

Steve McCabe, John Rooke, David Seymour and Phil Brown

Construction Management and Economics, 1998, vol. 16, issue 4, 447-457

Abstract: Some quality managers in the construction industry are attempting to institute total quality (TQ) management. Having established quality assurance (QA) systems, these managers have realized that the benefits to be gained from this bureaucratic approach are limited. They now aim to transform the culture of the industry, making it less adversarial and more customer centred. Using a sociological analysis based on the forms of legitimation of power identified by Max Weber, the institutional situation of quality managers is examined and their consequent ability to introduce innovation is assessed. Weber suggests that there are three forms of authority: traditional, charismatic and rational. These are considered in the light of some modern organization theory and with reference to the particular problem of cultural change. Managers have the best hope of successfully introducing TQ when they can establish a measure of charismatic authority. This is consis7 tent with the centrality given to the concept of leadership by writers on TQ. The practicalities of this are investigated through an account of the process of setting up a quality circle.

Keywords: Quality Management; Change Management; Culture; Charismatic Authority; Leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014461998372222 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:16:y:1998:i:4:p:447-457

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/014461998372222

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().