Realizing competitive advantages through quality

This paper aims at increasing the understanding of the processes and dynamics of CI implementation. The paper presents findings from a longitudinal case study of how the organization is renewed by the embedding of quality-related managerial ideology. It approaches CI from the perspective of organizational renewal, and looks at implementation as a managerial ideological change process. The paper draws on multi disciplinary concepts. The concept of ideology from political science is applied. Ideology is viewed as a force of organizational renewal, in other words, as a means that exerts influence on managerial thinking and practices. The ideological perspective provides new conceptual ideas and practical insights into CI implementation. The case study shows that CI implementation is cyclical and reveals companyspecific cycles. These cycles imply a challenge to management: the progress in developing CI capabilities is embedded in a rooted managerial ideology through which inimitable competitive advantages can be realized. Introduction While the interest of organizations in adopting and implementing CI has significantly increased in the last few years, research on CI has not been able to produce a sound theoretical basis for this practically-oriented phenomenon. Although some encouraging results have been produced in the last few years (Bessant et al., 1994; Bessant and Caffyn, 1997) different perspectives are needed to approach organizational CI implementation to shed further light on the comprehensive concept of CI (Gilmore, 1999) and on the dynamics of the processes of CI implementation. This paper looks at CI implementation processes in the organization as a form of organizational renewal. Renewal involves innovative behavior and encompasses reforms on two levels: in managerial ideological thinking and in organizational practices. Current organizations have a constant need for adopting, developing and spreading new ideas: innovativeness should be a systemic property of an organization. The processes of organizational renewal are complex, involving multilevel managerial processes. For capturing ideological change processes in the focus The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emerald-library.com Winner of John Bessant Best Paper Award 1998 at the 2nd International EuroCINet Conference `̀ Continuous Improvement: from idea to reality'', Enschede, The Netherlands, 14-15 September 1998