Laatu ja työprosessi:diskurssien taistelu rakennustyömaalla

The main research aim was to examine work and quality in a medium-sized construction company. My ambition was to find out how the top brass, middle managers and workers consider quality within construction. In this study I search for answers to questions as why these groups treat quality as they do and why they act in the labour process as they act. The study is qualitative with strong connections to ontological and epistemological commitments of critical management studies. In the theoretical part of the study I examine quality management, work, the history and significance of work to the individual and the change of work from the juxtaposition of the modern times to the flexible temporary work of postmodernity. I examine the effects of the changes in working life on the subjectivity of the individuals now when identities are changing constantly and autonomy as a value has replaced solidarity. I examine the product quality originating from the labour process as a manifestation of individuals’ conception of reality and structural changes in the society. I have carried out the empirical part as a single case study. The most significant data consists of the interviews of the top brass, middle management and workers. The study proves that every group in the examined organization creates its own discourse regarding the work in the labour process and the resulting quality. The top brass appreciates quality as operational quality — in other words as an undisturbed and economical progression of the labour process. The discourse of the top brass underlines substantial economical result achieved with technocratic and, above all, normative control. The top brass tries to make its view hegemonic and its patriarchal view motivates the other groups to generate their own discourses. The subjectivity of the middle management is based on an entrepreneurial attitude with a concern to product’s suitability to the customer. Its discourse shows an effort to create freedom for its own quality perception. The workers ...