CHECKING OUT SERVICE - EVALUATING EXCELLENCE, HRM AND TQM IN RETAILING

We evaluate a number of the claims made in the debate between the pres criptive and critical literature that surrounds 'excellence', with a p articular focus on human resource and quality management. The critical literature contains two positions, broadly a traditional control pers pective and the other concerned with the structuring of meaning. The e mpirical basis of the paper is an investigation of an HRM and quality initiative in a leading supermarket company. The initiative embodies m any of the prescriptions of the gurus of excellence. We present both q ualitative and quantitative data collected from shopfloor and manageri al staff. Our findings lend little support to the traditional criticis m that, if management objectives are realised, they are achieved throu gh some combination of sham empowerment, work intensification and incr eased surveillance. Our evidence lends more support to the optimistic view that modern techniques of quality and human resource management c an benefit employees. We suggest that the alternative concern with the way meanings are constructed has more plausibility, because the new m anagerial discourse of quality has affected the attitudes of a signifi cant number of employees towards customer service. However, there was considerable variation in how employees received the programme's messa ge and thus its effects are by no means uniform. Moreover, we encounte r an unanticipated and previously unremarked consequence of managerial discourses, that employees use these as resources in their struggles with managers in order to bring managers into line with workforce expe ctations.