Obstacles to implementing total quality management in the UK construction industry

Since at least the Tavistock studies, the need to improve communication and coordination in the construction process has been stressed. This paper reports from a study of 25 construction projects where QA and a number of procedures were in use which might have been expected to bring such improvement. The finding was, however, that coordination was poor. The purpose of the paper is to consider how this finding is to be explained. With reference to the markets/hierarchy theoretical framework, it is proposed that the use of this and other similar frameworks in fact obscures the empirical reality which they are intended to explain. It is accepted that the meta-language which such frameworks supply may enable researchers and those practitioners who choose to use this language to share their interests and concerns. However, the relationship between the abstract and global concepts which feature in such talk and the reality to which they refer needs closer enquiry. This paper proposes that our knowledge of the impact of QA has been compromised by the lack of such attention. The paper then inspects the global proposition that QA has been a step in the right direction towards TQM. With the aim of giving this proposition a stronger empirical referent, six key principles of TQM are used as a benchmark against which to assess the significance of the empirical data drawn from the study. It is proposed that greater attention to such data is necessary to provide a sounder basis for establishing what needs to be done to stimulate change.