Description
Study Report on Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture:- Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture
Study Report on Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture
A f u n d a m e n ta l a im o f th e s e r v ic e m a n a g e m e n t d is c o u r s e is th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n o f th e c u ltu r e o f organisations to a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence. In this paper, the construction of culture as an effect of service management initiatives is analysed from a sensemaking perspective. The study draws on data from a two-and-a-half-year study of the introduction of service management initiatives at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. The study concludes that the program of service management reform creates heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than the coherent and consistent culture of service excellence that it was supposed to produce. Keywords: service management, sensemaking, organisational culture, reform, health care.
Structured abstract
Research paper
Purpose A f u n d a m e n ta l a im o f th e s e r v ic e m a n a g e m e n t d is c o u r s e is th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n o f th e c u ltu r e o f organisations to a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence. The aim of this paper is to analyse the possibility and plausibility of such changes. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on data from a two-and-a-half-year study of the introduction of service management initiatives at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. Interviews and participant observation are used to gather data. Sensemaking theory is adopted to evaluate the change of service culture. Findings It is concluded that the program of service management reform studied here creates heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than the culture of coherent and consistent service excellence that it was supposed to produce. Research implications The study suggests that a shift in focus from 'prescription' to 'description' is required in research into service culture. Practical implications Service organisations are multi-faceted—thus rendering cultural engineering ineffective. The creation of shared meaning in a common, consistent, and coherent service culture is therefore not usually possible. Managers should concentrate on understanding the culture of their organisations, rather than attempting to change that culture. Originality/value The paper investigates an attempt to create service culture. Such a study has not been undertaken in previous research.
Introduction
The development of service management (Grönroos, 2000; Zeithaml and Bittner, 2002) is one of the most significant contributions to marketing theory and practice in recent decades. In fact, Vargo and Lusch (2004) have argued that service management has laid the foundations for a new dominant logic in marketing. One of the enduring concepts in service management scholarship has been the idea of the 'parttime marketer'—that every person in an organisation has to act as a marketer if the organisation is to survive and prosper (Grönroos, 1982; Gummesson, 1990). Service 'culture' has thus been at the centre of the service management research agenda for more than a decade (Berry and Parasuraman, 1993; Brown et al., 1994). The fundamental aim in this endeavour has been the transformation of the culture of organisations into a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence, using a service management framework. The emphasis has been on instilling certain values (such as 'customer orientation' and 'process orientation') into employees. The research into service culture has been mainly prescriptive. It has focused on what culture a service organisation should have, and how that service culture should be created (Berry, 1999; Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). Empirical assessments of the effect of service management initiatives on organisational culture have, in contrast, been absent. The present paper focuses on a reform program at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. The reform program of the County Council of Värmland (CCV) aimed to create a service culture using various means. A model for measuring customer-perceived service quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al., 1985) formed the central part of the program. The final aim of the utilisation of the model was to infuse general service-quality values (such as empathy, responsiveness, and trust) (Parasuraman et al., 1985) into the personnel. Another building block of the reform program was the creation of service maps, which described the main processes of the organisation from the customer's perspective (Grönroos, 2000; Kingman-Brundage, 1991). In addition, the management had attended courses and conferences focusing on service management, and was keen to put the knowledge gained into practice. In the interviews conducted as part of the present study, management stated that its explicit aim was to change the organisational culture in accordance with the intentions of the reform program. The reform program at the CCV can thus be seen as an attempt to create a service culture. The aim of this paper is to analyse whether this attempt was successful. Because the creation of a service culture has been considered a prerequisite for service firms, and because there is a lack of previous research on deliberate attempts to create such a culture, the present study is of significance to service management research and to service practice in general. The paper begins with a review of previous research into organisational culture in general, and service culture in particular. The paper continues with a presentation of Weick's sensemaking theory (Weick, 1979; 1995), which is used to evaluate whether the program in service management reform
studied here created the consistent and coherent service culture that it was supposed to create. The study then describes the qualitative methods used in the present research. A case study of the reform program at the CCV is then presented, with a description of the reform process being combined with an analysis of it. The study concludes that the reform program at the CCV failed to produce a coherent and consistent service culture, and the paper discusses the major obstacles to change and the creation of culture. The study then makes suggestions for future service management research—recommending that culture should be treated from a 'descriptive' perspective, rather than a 'prescriptive' perspective. The paper concludes with a summary of the key conclusions.
Literature review
Since the publication of Smircich's (1983) seminal paper on organisational culture, conceptualisations of culture have been commonly divided into a 'metaphor perspective' and a 'variable perspective'. According to the metaphor perspective, organisations are treated as cultures, and the analysis is mainly descriptive (Alvesson, 2002; Martin, 2002; Morgan, 1986). In contrast, the variable perspective treats culture as something that organisations have, and such an approach has focused on prescribing appropriate cultures for organisations (Berry, 1999; Peters and Waterman, 1982). Research into service culture has largely been positioned within the latter (variable) perspective. The fundamental aim has been to prescribe which values should characterise service organisations and how they should be implemented. The prescriptions have often been based on case studies focusing on so-called 'excellent' service firms (Berry, 1999; Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Muldrow et al., 2002; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). Berry (1999), for example, based his study on award-winning organisations—such as Bergstrom Hotels, Midwest Express Airlines, and Dana Commercial Credit. He found that the organisations studied were all driven by seven values—(i) innovation; (ii) joy; (iii) respect; (iv) teamwork; (v) social profit; (vi) integrity; and (vii) excellence. Schneider and Bowen (1995) suggested a framework for building a winning service organisation by means of instilling certain values and norms. The manager's role was to direct the actual implementation of the service management values. Within the metaphor perspective, case studies of different types of organisations have dominated. The aim has been to understand more fully how organisations work using the cultural metaphor. In contrast to the variable perspective, the metaphor perspective has been much closer to an anthropological conceptualisation of culture (Geertz, 1973). The focus has been on identifying certain significant symbols and the meanings that these symbols have in the organisations studied. According to Alvesson (1995), collectives have symbols that are "charged" with meaning that is not obvious to an external observer. The symbols have to be interpreted if their meaning is to be revealed. According to the metaphor perspective, it is important that management has the ability to manage different meanings, rather than the ability to create a singular and coherent culture (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991; Smircich and Morgan, 1982).
Despite the importance of service culture to contemporary management theory and practice, very little is known about how organisations react to interventions designed to produce a certain culture. Indeed, certain organisation theorists (Harris and Ogbonna, 1999; McCabe et al., 1998; Ogbonna and Harris, 2000; 2002; Sturdy; 1998) have argued that a consistent and coherent market- oriented culture is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to develop. Harris and Ogbonna (1999), for example, have argued that the literature on market-oriented culture ignores the pluralistic nature of organisational culture. Ogbonna and Harris (2002) believed that the connection between marketoriented culture and performance is weak. However, although these organisation theorists have provided competent evaluations of the creation of market-oriented culture, their focus can be criticised for having a weak connection with service management in general and with service culture in particular. In addition, their critiques have often been based on ideological conviction, rather than on an analysis of the cognitive micro-processes of 'culture-making'. The present paper evaluates a process of culture-making. In the absence of appropriate models for such a study, the present paper adopts Weick's sensemaking theory (Weick, 1979; 1995) to analyse the change of culture at the CCV. The justification for the use of this framework is twofold —(i) because it is widely held to be one of the most important contributions to contemporary organisation theory (Scott, 2003); and (ii) because, properly elaborated, it explicitly addresses the construction of organisational cultures.
Conceptual analysis
Sensemaking
At the heart of the Weickian sensemaking theory are the concepts of extracted cues and cognitive frames. Extracted cues are what people single out as the centre of attention from the environment in which these cues have been enacted. "Extracted cues are simple, familiar structures that are seeds from which people develop a larger sense of what might be occurring" (Weick, 1995, p. 50). If no cues are extracted, sensemaking cannot happen. To make sense of extracted cues, such cues are compared and understood in terms of the cognitive frames of reference of the individual concerned. The cognitive frame of reference is not an explicit concept used by Weick (1995) to explain the sense made from the extracted cues. Rather, he used different concepts to explain the same phenomenon: "Embellishment occurs when a cue is linked with a more general idea?" (Weick 1995, p. 57); "Enactment ?provides the frame within which cues are extracted and interpreted ?" (Weick 1995, p. 59); "The stories are templates. They are products of previous efforts of sensemaking" (Weick 1995, p. 61). The terms "general idea", "frame", "stories", and "templates" have somewhat different connotations, but they all serve the purpose of defining the standpoint(s) from which the interpretation of extracted cues is made. To enhance clarity and reduce complexity, they are grouped here under the heading of 'cognitive frame'. When cues are set in a cognitive frame, they can be understood, interpreted, and made sense of.
However, sensemaking is not the same as the interpretation of extracted cues. Sensemaking is about 'reading the text', as well as 'writing' it. Weick (1995) argued that individuals actively create the environment from which they extract cues. According to Weick (1995, p. 30), they " ? produce part of the environment they face". He introduced the concept of the enacted environment to describe the result of the process of creating the environment. Environments are 'enacted' when something surprising or unusual is happening; for example, when a reform program is introduced into an organisation. This provides the starting-point for sensemaking. The enactment of reality is informed by the cognitive frames—because the cognitive frames affect the actions taken, in turn creating the response perceived by others. Cognitive frames are not static. They are in a continuous state of development, elaboration, and redefinition. Previous experience and actions are the building blocks of cognitive frames (Weick, 1979). By assessing a flow of events against past experience, people make sense of that flow. Sensemaking thus works retrospectively; it is driven by history. Socialisation has a significant effect on the formation of cognitive frames. But it must also be noted that the actual context of the sensemaking event has a significant effect on which cognitive frames are applied to extract cues from the enacted environment, as well as how and with what result the cues are interpreted (Weick, 1995). Criticism from a spouse produces flows of sensemaking that are different from those produced by similar criticism from a superior at work. The cognitive frames employed in organisational sensemaking thus differ from sensemaking in other contexts. And organisational contexts themselves differ, one from another. It is therefore important to make the context explicit when studying organisational reform from a sensemaking perspective. As a result of the above discussion, the conceptual framework utilised in the present paper is presented in Figure 1. Take in Figure 1 about here
Organisational culture and collective sensemaking
Weick (1979; 1995) took a phenomenological and social-constructionist view of culture—arguing that people in interaction with each other create symbols, meanings, values, and norms. Weick (1995) argued that a culture exists when the sensemaking relating to a certain issue (for example, service management) is shared throughout the organisation. To evaluate the creation of culture, the present study created an analytical typology based on Weickan sensemaking theory. A distinction is made between the intensity of sensemaking and the consistency of sensemaking throughout the organisation. The term 'intensity' refers to the quantity of sensemaking produced within the organisation, whereas 'consistency' refers to the level of uniformity of the sensemaking. A combination of these two analytical concepts produces the typology shown in Figure 2. Take in Figure 2 about here
Four scenarios can be described.
• If the intensity and consistency are both high, shared sensemaking will result. Shared
sensemaking entails all, or almost all, organisational members producing identical (or at least similar) sensemaking. If the production of shared sensemaking relating to a program in service management reform is in accordance with the intentions of the program, and is stable over time, a service culture will evolve.
• If the intensity is high but the consistency low, sub-groups produce different sensemaking.
Such a combination can be referred to as conflicting sensemaking.
• If the consistency is high but the intensity is low, all organisational members produce similar
sensemaking, but the low intensity (few cues extracted) produces feeble sensemaking.
• If both the intensity and consistency are low, the sensemaking can be described as
fragmentary—with almost no sensemaking being produced. Interpreted in management terms, the shared sensemaking described above conforms to the ideal prescribed in the service management literature (Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Berry, 1999; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). The other outcomes represent various shortcomings of service management initiatives in attempts to create a coherent service culture. The emergence of various types of sensemaking could be due to various factors. For example, varying numbers of cues might be extracted from the environment, or the cognitive frames of organisational members might be dissimilar. Such situations might produce conflicts, dysfunctional processes, and so on.
Methodology
From a methodological perspective, the work of Weick (1979, 1995) has often (and properly) been associated with a social constructionist ontology and epistemology; but it is a social constructivism that requires qualification. Weick emphasised the processes of objectification of culture, rather than the result/structure—that is, he emphasised organising, rather than organisation (Weick, 1979). Weick's analysis thus focused on the process of social construction, but at the neglect of the objective results of such processes. The present study adopts the view that it is important to balance a description and analysis of the process with a description and analysis of the structure. This is because culture, according to the essentials of social constructivism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967), is dependent on such structures for its existence. In fact, any analysis of sensemaking, according to Weick (1979; 1995) himself, is dependent on structure since the cognitive frames are the result of previous sensemaking. In the present paper, Weick's radical process-focused social constructivism is balanced by a focus on structure.
Data on the CCV service management reform were collected through interviews, participant observation, and the study of documents. The empirical study lasted approximately two-and-a-half years— from late 1998 until the beginning of 2001. During this time reform activities were at their most intense. A total of 60 hours of unstructured interviews was collected from CCV employees (mostly administrators, doctors, and nurses). In addition, participant observation of meetings (concerning the service management reform program) were conducted over two months. The authors' understanding was enhanced by extensive informal discussions. With respect to document study, everything written in the press from 1990 to 2000 about the CCV (approximately 25 folders of material), as well as internal documentation of organisational development that had taken place during the same time period, was collected and studied.
Case study
Background
In December 1996, a new county council director (CCD) was appointed at the CCV. She was required to implement a major reform program—CCV 2002—which was inspired by service management ideas in general, and the concepts of service quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001) in particular. The goals were satisfied customers, satisfied employees, and a balanced economy. Before introducing this program of service management reform, the CCD attempted to dismiss senior administrators because she felt that their ideas regarding management and change in public organisations were outdated and inadequate to carry out the forthcoming endeavour. Her attempt was only partially successful. A few new senior administrators were appointed. Among these was a new financial director (FD) who, together with the CCD, became the driving force behind CCV 2002. However, some administrators retained their previous positions and others continued at lower levels within the CCV. These developments created two actor groups in the organisation —the new management and the old administrators—who held conflicting opinions on how the CCV should be organised. The former group consisted of the newly appointed administrators (with the CCD and the FD as the driving forces), whereas the latter group consisted of the administrators who had been working at the CCV for several years (and who had been responsible for management issues in the organisation). The old administrators resisted the reform program, which was largely driven by the new management.
Context Participants' awareness of reform
As noted above, previous experiences are the building blocks of cognitive frames, and context determines the cognitive frames that are applied in current situations. The context at the CCV was one of radical organisational change. This was quite clear to both actor groups for three reasons. First, CCV 2002, which had been initiated in 1998, was the first major reform program since the late 1970s. Secondly, there had been a great deal of explicit discussion regarding reform at the CCV—including
meetings and seminars on the subject, the hiring of consultants, and extensive publicity in the regional media. Thirdly, people began to speak spontaneously about the reform program during interviews and participant observations conducted as part of the present study. The significance of the reform was thus widely acknowledged.
Experiences of old administrators
According to Weick (1995), the sensemaking process is based on previous experience concerning organisational reform (the context). At the end of the 1970s, a local administrative discourse and practice—the Värmland Way (VW)—had been introduced at the CCV. Because most of the old administrators had been working at the CCV before the introduction of the VW, their understanding of organisational reform was based on their experience of the 1970s VW. The VW thus had a significant effect on their collective cognitive frames. Almost all of these old administrators therefore thought that the VW was the appropriate way to organise health care in the county of Värmland. The central tenet of the VW was small-scale operation—whereby the five hospitals in Värmland would remain. According to internal documents, three reasons for keeping the hospitals had been presented. First, the five hospitals met a perceived need for proximity—which was considered to be important for emergencies and convenience of social visits. Secondly, collaboration of different competencies was thought to be enhanced in a smaller hospital, as compared with a larger one. Thirdly, a smaller hospital was thought to be easier to manage than a larger one.
Experiences of new administrators
The new management argued that the VW was an impediment to the reform process at the CCV — because it recommended stability rather than change. And since the practices of the old administrators were based on the VW, the new management criticised the old administrators for having introduced 'oldfashioned' policies and structures, and for being an obstacle to change. The goals of the CCV 2002 program favoured by new management were: (i) to satisfy employees and patients; and (ii) to create a balanced budget. The central means of reaching those goals was the introduction of a process organisation in place of the traditional hierarchical organisation that had been in use at the CCV since the end of the 1970s. This process organisation was to focus on the customer and his or her needs. As the starting-point for this customer-centric organisation, internal "customer journeys" for the main services provided by the CCV (for example, treatment of particular medical and surgical conditions) were described using service maps (Grönroos, 2000; Kingman-Brundage, 1991). Process groups, consisting of personnel with extensive knowledge and experience of the processes singled out for attention, were formed to create these service maps and to identify the measures required to realise the goals within their disciplines. Another means of realising the reform was gauging customer-perceived quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al., 1985) and personnel satisfaction.
Service management vs public administration
The differences between the old administrators and the new administrators, and the conflict that ensued, essentially derived from the differing underlying philosophies of VW and CV 2002. The new managers were inspired by the service management discourse, which had been having significant influence on the reform of public organisations in Sweden since the late 1980s (Ferlie et al., 1996; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000 ). The CCD and the FD had attended courses and conferences on quality management, service mapping, service culture, and the other building blocks of service management, and they had used these ideas to reform organisations that they had managed before coming to the CCV. Based on their previous experience, they saw the CCV as a very 'backward' organisation. The old administrators, in contrast, had explicitly resisted the service management ideas. They believed that service management was a passing fad that was not in accordance with their values for managing public organisations. The VW can thus be seen as an expression of the traditional Swedish model of public administration. This model emphasises such values as political democracy, public ethics, and the security of life and property (Lundquist, 1998).
Enacted environment
According to the concept of enacted environments, the actors themselves create their environment. In the present case, this process involved the conflict between the old administrators and the new management. The new administrators were critical of the existing organisational structure and practices at the CCV. As the financial director observed:
After working for 25 years in public organisations, the CCV was a completely new experience. I had never experienced such a backward organisation.
However, as previously noted, the reform program met with resistance from the old administrators. In this they were joined by the senior physicians. The old administrators claimed that the conflict gathered momentum when the FD was appointed. They felt that the new management had no confidence in them, and that the criticism levelled at them by new management had been misdirected. They also perceived implicit criticism, and they felt even more discouraged because it was difficult to argue with non-explicit criticism. As one administrator observed:
Very much of the mood here was; get rid of the past, do some weeding out. This mood became more evident when the financial director was appointed; the mood of rejecting history and putting an emphasis on the changes ? but things were not as bad as [the new management] had described them. If they had been a little keener to put some emphasis on the positive side of our history, they would have been able to be very sharp in their criticisms as well. The criticisms they put forward were too sweeping. If they had been specific in their criticisms, they might have been able to establish trust and mutual confidence.
Moreover, the old administrators did not believe that CCV 2002 was a solution to the CCV's financial problems. On the contrary, the old administrators believed that the practices of the new management and the implicit practice of CCV 2002 were making the situation worse. They maintained
that the new management did not have any knowledge of how health care actually worked. They saw the reform program as a threat to the caring traditions of medicine that had been cultivated at the CCV for centuries.
Good health care and good health care administration
The environment that the actors were enacting thus involved differing concepts of good health care and good healthcare administration—issues that went to the heart of the professional identities of both the new management and the old administrators. The new management was inspired by the service management discourse—urging 'modernisation' in accordance with 'service values' and arguing for rapid and radical change. In contrast, the old administrators, inspired by their understanding of traditional public administration, were urging the 'conservation' of the 'civil-service' paradigm. Conflict over such issues concerns the very heart of good administration of public organisations. Of central importance to the new managers was the imperative to ensure that the CCV was driven by customer orientation. However, the traditional 'professionalism' of the personnel was overshadowed in such a paradigm—as evidenced by service mapping and the measurement of customerperceived quality. The old administrators believed that such reasoning did not take account of the values of the medical profession. As one administrator observed:
You must have something that triggers the doctors if you are to succeed in carrying out reform.
According to the old administrators, the whole project was therefore unrealistic—because it did not appeal to the basic values of the healthcare professions (Abbott, 1988; Freidsson, 1970). In this enactment of reality, the conflict between the two actor groups was thus created by fundamentally different principles (health care and healthcare administration), and was intensified by actions and reactions to the conflict thus created.
Extracted cues
The old administrators: Equality and preservation With respect to good health care, the old administrators extracted the cue of patient equality from the enacted environment, and with respect to healthcare administration, conservation was extracted as a cue. Their cognitive frames were coloured by their ideal of public administration—emphasising the values of political democracy, public ethics, and the security of life and property. These values can all be said to have connotations of equality. In addition, the local administrative discourse that had been developed and valued by the old administrators emphasised small-scale operations—which can also be said to be an expression of equality in the county of Värmland, in that small-scale operations were believed to ensure that all citizens received proper health care. In addition, the old administrators believed that the established practices were adequate. If change were to be made, they wished to see such change made with careful thought. The old administrators can thus be said to have also extracted a cue of preservation.
The new management: Customer utility and process orientation The new management clearly extracted different cues. With respect to good health care, they extracted the cue of customer utility from the enacted environment, and with respect to good healthcare administration, customer process orientation was extracted. The new management did not explicitly disown the traditional professional values of health care (such as saving lives and relieving pain), but these were certainly overshadowed by their emphasis on service orientation. Taking into account the previous experience of the new management, and comparing this with the organisational practice they discovered at the CCV, it was apparent to the new management that the CCV was lacking in process orientation from the customer's perspective. It was also obvious to the new management that ideas were lacking with respect to how the expectations of customers should influence the design of the organisation in general, and the provision of services in particular. Customer orientation was thus missing from health care at the CCV, and the new management was therefore trying to promote it.
Outcome and reasons
In the case being analysed here, it is apparent that no shared sensemaking evolved. Even though the intensity of sensemaking was high, the level of consistency was low (Figure 2). The sensemaking produced by the old administrators and that produced by the new management were contradictory. The program of service management reform at the CCV thus created conflicting sensemaking. In terms of culture, the result can thus be depicted as the creation of two sub-cultures—(i) a civil-service culture of the old administrators; and (ii) a service culture of the new management. The old administrators and the new management were working in opposing paradigms for managing public-sector organisations—which made them perceive reality differently. According to Figure 1, an explanation for the obstacles to change and the creation of culture will be found in two dimensions—the consistency and the intensity of sensemaking in an organisation. The two central concepts in Weick's (1995) sensemaking theory—cognitive frames and extracted cues—can be used to explain the levels of intensity and consistency produced. Extracted cues thus explain the intensity of sensemaking—because people can extract different numbers of cues. Cognitive frames explain the consistency of sensemaking—because cognitive frames can differ widely among people, thus producing dissimilar and inconsistent sensemaking. The major obstacles to change and the creation of culture thus lie with people extracting different cues and/or having dissimilar cognitive frames.
Discussion
The major points of discussion arising from the study are considered below.
1. Production of heterogeneous cultures
The extant research into culture in service management has been devoted to prescribing the culture that organisations should have if they are to succeed. The main argument has been that a coherent culture of service excellence must be created (Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Berry, 1999; Schneider and
Bowen, 1995). However, as noted in the introduction to the present paper, assessments of the actual 'making' of service culture are missing from the extant literature. This paper has shown that a program in service management reform can produce heterogeneous cultures, rather than a coherent culture. This is consistent with the criticism levelled by certain organisation theorists (such as Harris and Ogbonna, 1999) concerning the literature on market-oriented culture. The senior managers and administrators at the CCV divided into two actor groups which, as a result of reform, produced different cultures. If the present study had included other occupational groups (such as doctors, nurses, and medical technicians) and sub-groups (such as surgeons, psychiatrists, and radiologists), the number of cultures constructed as an effect of reform might well have increased.
2. Production of conflicting cultures
Apart from creating several sub-cultures, programs in service management reform can also produce conflicting cultures. The service culture of the new managers and the civil-service culture of the old administrators were in sharp contrast. Such a result is neither desired nor expected in the extant literature on culture in service management. However, the production of conflicting sub-cultures is not especially surprising. In organisation studies, several researchers have argued that cultural division within organisations is commonplace (Alvesson, 1995; Kunda, 1992; Martin 2002). Theoretical arguments have also been made which claim that culture is likely to follow occupational groups (Van Maanen and Barley, 1985). The present analysis has shown that people are inclined to make sense in accordance with the logic of their history, rather than in accordance with unfamiliar theoretical innovations, such as service management.
3. Prescription and description
It is apparent that service management research requires a concept of culture that takes account of conflict and heterogeneity. In the literature review of research into organisational culture, a distinction was made between the variable perspective and the metaphor perspective, and the point was made that research into service culture has been clearly positioned in the variable perspective. The present paper recommends a shift in focus to the metaphor perspective. Such an approach to culture would focus on descriptions rather than prescriptions, and would identify conflict and heterogeneity if they exist (Alvesson, 2002). It is also recommended that the focus should be on the 'normal' service organisation, rather than the 'excellent' service organisation. These shifts in thinking would allow for a deeper understanding of service organisations—which is a prerequisite for effective change.
Implications for management
The first implication for management practice is that the creation of shared meaning (in the form of a common, consistent, and coherent service culture) is not especially important. The majority of service organisations are too multifaceted for effective cultural engineering. Rather, it is important that management is capable of managing different meanings. Managers require the ability to understand
and manage in different cultural settings. The metaphor of the 'diplomat' is appropriate for the management of modern service firms. Secondly, managers can benefit from adopting a 'metaphor approach' to culture, rather than a 'variable perspective'. Such a change of perspective implies a focus on seeing organisations as cultures—rather than trying to change the values and norms of organisational members. This would enable managers to understand the possibility and plausibility of change—thus avoiding conflict and constraints. Finally, the issues presented in this paper are not unique to the case of the CCV. On the basis of the findings of the literature on organisational change (Ferlie et al., 1996; Quist, 2003; Skålén, 2002; 2004), it is apparent that the introduction of change initiatives in general, and service management initiatives in particular (especially in public-service organisations), will result in conflicts, disagreements, and constraints. The case of the CCV is, in many ways, representative of the process of organisational change resulting from service management reform.
Conclusion
A fundamental aim of the extant research into service culture has been the transformation of the culture of organisations into a consistent and coherent culture of service excellence using a service management framework. The sensemaking analysis of the present study concludes that the introduction of a program of service management reform can create heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than coherent and consistent cultures. For further research, a descriptive approach to culture within service management is recommended, rather than the prevailing focus on prescription.
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Sturdy, A. (1998) "Customer Care in a Consumer Society: Smiling and Sometimes Meaning it?", Organization, Vol 5 No 1, pp. 27-53. Van Maanen, J. and Barley, S.R. (1985) "Cultural Organization: Fragments of a Theory", in P.J. Frost, L.F. Moore, M.R. Louis, C.C. Lundberg, and J. Martin, (Eds.) Organizational Culture, Sage, London. Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2004) "Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing", Journal of Marketing, Vol 68 No 1, pp. 1-17. Weick, K.E. (1979), The Social Psychology of Organizing, MacGraw-Hill, New York. Weick, K.E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage, London. Zeithaml, V.A. and Bitner, M.J. (2002). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, MacGraw-Hill, New York.
Figure 1 The conceptual framework
Extracted cues: The object of sensemaking. Cognitive frames: Drives the interpretation of the extracted cues and thus provides the content of sense-making. Affects the enactment of environment. Enacted environment: The constructed/perceived environment from which cues are extracted. Previous experience: Produces and reproduces the cognitive frames. Makes sensemaking a retrospective process.
Enacted environment
Previous experience
Cognitive frames
Extracted cues
Sensemaking
Figure 2 Types of organisational sensemaking
Intensity _ High Consistency _ High _ Low
_
Shared sensemaking Feeble sensemaking
_ _
Low_ Conflicting sensemaking Fragmentary sensemaking
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doc_444700059.docx
Study Report on Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture:- Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture
Study Report on Prescription to Description: A Critique and Reorientation of Service Culture
A f u n d a m e n ta l a im o f th e s e r v ic e m a n a g e m e n t d is c o u r s e is th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n o f th e c u ltu r e o f organisations to a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence. In this paper, the construction of culture as an effect of service management initiatives is analysed from a sensemaking perspective. The study draws on data from a two-and-a-half-year study of the introduction of service management initiatives at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. The study concludes that the program of service management reform creates heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than the coherent and consistent culture of service excellence that it was supposed to produce. Keywords: service management, sensemaking, organisational culture, reform, health care.
Structured abstract
Research paper
Purpose A f u n d a m e n ta l a im o f th e s e r v ic e m a n a g e m e n t d is c o u r s e is th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n o f th e c u ltu r e o f organisations to a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence. The aim of this paper is to analyse the possibility and plausibility of such changes. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on data from a two-and-a-half-year study of the introduction of service management initiatives at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. Interviews and participant observation are used to gather data. Sensemaking theory is adopted to evaluate the change of service culture. Findings It is concluded that the program of service management reform studied here creates heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than the culture of coherent and consistent service excellence that it was supposed to produce. Research implications The study suggests that a shift in focus from 'prescription' to 'description' is required in research into service culture. Practical implications Service organisations are multi-faceted—thus rendering cultural engineering ineffective. The creation of shared meaning in a common, consistent, and coherent service culture is therefore not usually possible. Managers should concentrate on understanding the culture of their organisations, rather than attempting to change that culture. Originality/value The paper investigates an attempt to create service culture. Such a study has not been undertaken in previous research.
Introduction
The development of service management (Grönroos, 2000; Zeithaml and Bittner, 2002) is one of the most significant contributions to marketing theory and practice in recent decades. In fact, Vargo and Lusch (2004) have argued that service management has laid the foundations for a new dominant logic in marketing. One of the enduring concepts in service management scholarship has been the idea of the 'parttime marketer'—that every person in an organisation has to act as a marketer if the organisation is to survive and prosper (Grönroos, 1982; Gummesson, 1990). Service 'culture' has thus been at the centre of the service management research agenda for more than a decade (Berry and Parasuraman, 1993; Brown et al., 1994). The fundamental aim in this endeavour has been the transformation of the culture of organisations into a culture of consistent and coherent service excellence, using a service management framework. The emphasis has been on instilling certain values (such as 'customer orientation' and 'process orientation') into employees. The research into service culture has been mainly prescriptive. It has focused on what culture a service organisation should have, and how that service culture should be created (Berry, 1999; Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). Empirical assessments of the effect of service management initiatives on organisational culture have, in contrast, been absent. The present paper focuses on a reform program at the public hospital in the county of Värmland in Sweden. The reform program of the County Council of Värmland (CCV) aimed to create a service culture using various means. A model for measuring customer-perceived service quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al., 1985) formed the central part of the program. The final aim of the utilisation of the model was to infuse general service-quality values (such as empathy, responsiveness, and trust) (Parasuraman et al., 1985) into the personnel. Another building block of the reform program was the creation of service maps, which described the main processes of the organisation from the customer's perspective (Grönroos, 2000; Kingman-Brundage, 1991). In addition, the management had attended courses and conferences focusing on service management, and was keen to put the knowledge gained into practice. In the interviews conducted as part of the present study, management stated that its explicit aim was to change the organisational culture in accordance with the intentions of the reform program. The reform program at the CCV can thus be seen as an attempt to create a service culture. The aim of this paper is to analyse whether this attempt was successful. Because the creation of a service culture has been considered a prerequisite for service firms, and because there is a lack of previous research on deliberate attempts to create such a culture, the present study is of significance to service management research and to service practice in general. The paper begins with a review of previous research into organisational culture in general, and service culture in particular. The paper continues with a presentation of Weick's sensemaking theory (Weick, 1979; 1995), which is used to evaluate whether the program in service management reform
studied here created the consistent and coherent service culture that it was supposed to create. The study then describes the qualitative methods used in the present research. A case study of the reform program at the CCV is then presented, with a description of the reform process being combined with an analysis of it. The study concludes that the reform program at the CCV failed to produce a coherent and consistent service culture, and the paper discusses the major obstacles to change and the creation of culture. The study then makes suggestions for future service management research—recommending that culture should be treated from a 'descriptive' perspective, rather than a 'prescriptive' perspective. The paper concludes with a summary of the key conclusions.
Literature review
Since the publication of Smircich's (1983) seminal paper on organisational culture, conceptualisations of culture have been commonly divided into a 'metaphor perspective' and a 'variable perspective'. According to the metaphor perspective, organisations are treated as cultures, and the analysis is mainly descriptive (Alvesson, 2002; Martin, 2002; Morgan, 1986). In contrast, the variable perspective treats culture as something that organisations have, and such an approach has focused on prescribing appropriate cultures for organisations (Berry, 1999; Peters and Waterman, 1982). Research into service culture has largely been positioned within the latter (variable) perspective. The fundamental aim has been to prescribe which values should characterise service organisations and how they should be implemented. The prescriptions have often been based on case studies focusing on so-called 'excellent' service firms (Berry, 1999; Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Muldrow et al., 2002; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). Berry (1999), for example, based his study on award-winning organisations—such as Bergstrom Hotels, Midwest Express Airlines, and Dana Commercial Credit. He found that the organisations studied were all driven by seven values—(i) innovation; (ii) joy; (iii) respect; (iv) teamwork; (v) social profit; (vi) integrity; and (vii) excellence. Schneider and Bowen (1995) suggested a framework for building a winning service organisation by means of instilling certain values and norms. The manager's role was to direct the actual implementation of the service management values. Within the metaphor perspective, case studies of different types of organisations have dominated. The aim has been to understand more fully how organisations work using the cultural metaphor. In contrast to the variable perspective, the metaphor perspective has been much closer to an anthropological conceptualisation of culture (Geertz, 1973). The focus has been on identifying certain significant symbols and the meanings that these symbols have in the organisations studied. According to Alvesson (1995), collectives have symbols that are "charged" with meaning that is not obvious to an external observer. The symbols have to be interpreted if their meaning is to be revealed. According to the metaphor perspective, it is important that management has the ability to manage different meanings, rather than the ability to create a singular and coherent culture (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991; Smircich and Morgan, 1982).
Despite the importance of service culture to contemporary management theory and practice, very little is known about how organisations react to interventions designed to produce a certain culture. Indeed, certain organisation theorists (Harris and Ogbonna, 1999; McCabe et al., 1998; Ogbonna and Harris, 2000; 2002; Sturdy; 1998) have argued that a consistent and coherent market- oriented culture is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to develop. Harris and Ogbonna (1999), for example, have argued that the literature on market-oriented culture ignores the pluralistic nature of organisational culture. Ogbonna and Harris (2002) believed that the connection between marketoriented culture and performance is weak. However, although these organisation theorists have provided competent evaluations of the creation of market-oriented culture, their focus can be criticised for having a weak connection with service management in general and with service culture in particular. In addition, their critiques have often been based on ideological conviction, rather than on an analysis of the cognitive micro-processes of 'culture-making'. The present paper evaluates a process of culture-making. In the absence of appropriate models for such a study, the present paper adopts Weick's sensemaking theory (Weick, 1979; 1995) to analyse the change of culture at the CCV. The justification for the use of this framework is twofold —(i) because it is widely held to be one of the most important contributions to contemporary organisation theory (Scott, 2003); and (ii) because, properly elaborated, it explicitly addresses the construction of organisational cultures.
Conceptual analysis
Sensemaking
At the heart of the Weickian sensemaking theory are the concepts of extracted cues and cognitive frames. Extracted cues are what people single out as the centre of attention from the environment in which these cues have been enacted. "Extracted cues are simple, familiar structures that are seeds from which people develop a larger sense of what might be occurring" (Weick, 1995, p. 50). If no cues are extracted, sensemaking cannot happen. To make sense of extracted cues, such cues are compared and understood in terms of the cognitive frames of reference of the individual concerned. The cognitive frame of reference is not an explicit concept used by Weick (1995) to explain the sense made from the extracted cues. Rather, he used different concepts to explain the same phenomenon: "Embellishment occurs when a cue is linked with a more general idea?" (Weick 1995, p. 57); "Enactment ?provides the frame within which cues are extracted and interpreted ?" (Weick 1995, p. 59); "The stories are templates. They are products of previous efforts of sensemaking" (Weick 1995, p. 61). The terms "general idea", "frame", "stories", and "templates" have somewhat different connotations, but they all serve the purpose of defining the standpoint(s) from which the interpretation of extracted cues is made. To enhance clarity and reduce complexity, they are grouped here under the heading of 'cognitive frame'. When cues are set in a cognitive frame, they can be understood, interpreted, and made sense of.
However, sensemaking is not the same as the interpretation of extracted cues. Sensemaking is about 'reading the text', as well as 'writing' it. Weick (1995) argued that individuals actively create the environment from which they extract cues. According to Weick (1995, p. 30), they " ? produce part of the environment they face". He introduced the concept of the enacted environment to describe the result of the process of creating the environment. Environments are 'enacted' when something surprising or unusual is happening; for example, when a reform program is introduced into an organisation. This provides the starting-point for sensemaking. The enactment of reality is informed by the cognitive frames—because the cognitive frames affect the actions taken, in turn creating the response perceived by others. Cognitive frames are not static. They are in a continuous state of development, elaboration, and redefinition. Previous experience and actions are the building blocks of cognitive frames (Weick, 1979). By assessing a flow of events against past experience, people make sense of that flow. Sensemaking thus works retrospectively; it is driven by history. Socialisation has a significant effect on the formation of cognitive frames. But it must also be noted that the actual context of the sensemaking event has a significant effect on which cognitive frames are applied to extract cues from the enacted environment, as well as how and with what result the cues are interpreted (Weick, 1995). Criticism from a spouse produces flows of sensemaking that are different from those produced by similar criticism from a superior at work. The cognitive frames employed in organisational sensemaking thus differ from sensemaking in other contexts. And organisational contexts themselves differ, one from another. It is therefore important to make the context explicit when studying organisational reform from a sensemaking perspective. As a result of the above discussion, the conceptual framework utilised in the present paper is presented in Figure 1. Take in Figure 1 about here
Organisational culture and collective sensemaking
Weick (1979; 1995) took a phenomenological and social-constructionist view of culture—arguing that people in interaction with each other create symbols, meanings, values, and norms. Weick (1995) argued that a culture exists when the sensemaking relating to a certain issue (for example, service management) is shared throughout the organisation. To evaluate the creation of culture, the present study created an analytical typology based on Weickan sensemaking theory. A distinction is made between the intensity of sensemaking and the consistency of sensemaking throughout the organisation. The term 'intensity' refers to the quantity of sensemaking produced within the organisation, whereas 'consistency' refers to the level of uniformity of the sensemaking. A combination of these two analytical concepts produces the typology shown in Figure 2. Take in Figure 2 about here
Four scenarios can be described.
• If the intensity and consistency are both high, shared sensemaking will result. Shared
sensemaking entails all, or almost all, organisational members producing identical (or at least similar) sensemaking. If the production of shared sensemaking relating to a program in service management reform is in accordance with the intentions of the program, and is stable over time, a service culture will evolve.
• If the intensity is high but the consistency low, sub-groups produce different sensemaking.
Such a combination can be referred to as conflicting sensemaking.
• If the consistency is high but the intensity is low, all organisational members produce similar
sensemaking, but the low intensity (few cues extracted) produces feeble sensemaking.
• If both the intensity and consistency are low, the sensemaking can be described as
fragmentary—with almost no sensemaking being produced. Interpreted in management terms, the shared sensemaking described above conforms to the ideal prescribed in the service management literature (Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Berry, 1999; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). The other outcomes represent various shortcomings of service management initiatives in attempts to create a coherent service culture. The emergence of various types of sensemaking could be due to various factors. For example, varying numbers of cues might be extracted from the environment, or the cognitive frames of organisational members might be dissimilar. Such situations might produce conflicts, dysfunctional processes, and so on.
Methodology
From a methodological perspective, the work of Weick (1979, 1995) has often (and properly) been associated with a social constructionist ontology and epistemology; but it is a social constructivism that requires qualification. Weick emphasised the processes of objectification of culture, rather than the result/structure—that is, he emphasised organising, rather than organisation (Weick, 1979). Weick's analysis thus focused on the process of social construction, but at the neglect of the objective results of such processes. The present study adopts the view that it is important to balance a description and analysis of the process with a description and analysis of the structure. This is because culture, according to the essentials of social constructivism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967), is dependent on such structures for its existence. In fact, any analysis of sensemaking, according to Weick (1979; 1995) himself, is dependent on structure since the cognitive frames are the result of previous sensemaking. In the present paper, Weick's radical process-focused social constructivism is balanced by a focus on structure.
Data on the CCV service management reform were collected through interviews, participant observation, and the study of documents. The empirical study lasted approximately two-and-a-half years— from late 1998 until the beginning of 2001. During this time reform activities were at their most intense. A total of 60 hours of unstructured interviews was collected from CCV employees (mostly administrators, doctors, and nurses). In addition, participant observation of meetings (concerning the service management reform program) were conducted over two months. The authors' understanding was enhanced by extensive informal discussions. With respect to document study, everything written in the press from 1990 to 2000 about the CCV (approximately 25 folders of material), as well as internal documentation of organisational development that had taken place during the same time period, was collected and studied.
Case study
Background
In December 1996, a new county council director (CCD) was appointed at the CCV. She was required to implement a major reform program—CCV 2002—which was inspired by service management ideas in general, and the concepts of service quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001) in particular. The goals were satisfied customers, satisfied employees, and a balanced economy. Before introducing this program of service management reform, the CCD attempted to dismiss senior administrators because she felt that their ideas regarding management and change in public organisations were outdated and inadequate to carry out the forthcoming endeavour. Her attempt was only partially successful. A few new senior administrators were appointed. Among these was a new financial director (FD) who, together with the CCD, became the driving force behind CCV 2002. However, some administrators retained their previous positions and others continued at lower levels within the CCV. These developments created two actor groups in the organisation —the new management and the old administrators—who held conflicting opinions on how the CCV should be organised. The former group consisted of the newly appointed administrators (with the CCD and the FD as the driving forces), whereas the latter group consisted of the administrators who had been working at the CCV for several years (and who had been responsible for management issues in the organisation). The old administrators resisted the reform program, which was largely driven by the new management.
Context Participants' awareness of reform
As noted above, previous experiences are the building blocks of cognitive frames, and context determines the cognitive frames that are applied in current situations. The context at the CCV was one of radical organisational change. This was quite clear to both actor groups for three reasons. First, CCV 2002, which had been initiated in 1998, was the first major reform program since the late 1970s. Secondly, there had been a great deal of explicit discussion regarding reform at the CCV—including
meetings and seminars on the subject, the hiring of consultants, and extensive publicity in the regional media. Thirdly, people began to speak spontaneously about the reform program during interviews and participant observations conducted as part of the present study. The significance of the reform was thus widely acknowledged.
Experiences of old administrators
According to Weick (1995), the sensemaking process is based on previous experience concerning organisational reform (the context). At the end of the 1970s, a local administrative discourse and practice—the Värmland Way (VW)—had been introduced at the CCV. Because most of the old administrators had been working at the CCV before the introduction of the VW, their understanding of organisational reform was based on their experience of the 1970s VW. The VW thus had a significant effect on their collective cognitive frames. Almost all of these old administrators therefore thought that the VW was the appropriate way to organise health care in the county of Värmland. The central tenet of the VW was small-scale operation—whereby the five hospitals in Värmland would remain. According to internal documents, three reasons for keeping the hospitals had been presented. First, the five hospitals met a perceived need for proximity—which was considered to be important for emergencies and convenience of social visits. Secondly, collaboration of different competencies was thought to be enhanced in a smaller hospital, as compared with a larger one. Thirdly, a smaller hospital was thought to be easier to manage than a larger one.
Experiences of new administrators
The new management argued that the VW was an impediment to the reform process at the CCV — because it recommended stability rather than change. And since the practices of the old administrators were based on the VW, the new management criticised the old administrators for having introduced 'oldfashioned' policies and structures, and for being an obstacle to change. The goals of the CCV 2002 program favoured by new management were: (i) to satisfy employees and patients; and (ii) to create a balanced budget. The central means of reaching those goals was the introduction of a process organisation in place of the traditional hierarchical organisation that had been in use at the CCV since the end of the 1970s. This process organisation was to focus on the customer and his or her needs. As the starting-point for this customer-centric organisation, internal "customer journeys" for the main services provided by the CCV (for example, treatment of particular medical and surgical conditions) were described using service maps (Grönroos, 2000; Kingman-Brundage, 1991). Process groups, consisting of personnel with extensive knowledge and experience of the processes singled out for attention, were formed to create these service maps and to identify the measures required to realise the goals within their disciplines. Another means of realising the reform was gauging customer-perceived quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al., 1985) and personnel satisfaction.
Service management vs public administration
The differences between the old administrators and the new administrators, and the conflict that ensued, essentially derived from the differing underlying philosophies of VW and CV 2002. The new managers were inspired by the service management discourse, which had been having significant influence on the reform of public organisations in Sweden since the late 1980s (Ferlie et al., 1996; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000 ). The CCD and the FD had attended courses and conferences on quality management, service mapping, service culture, and the other building blocks of service management, and they had used these ideas to reform organisations that they had managed before coming to the CCV. Based on their previous experience, they saw the CCV as a very 'backward' organisation. The old administrators, in contrast, had explicitly resisted the service management ideas. They believed that service management was a passing fad that was not in accordance with their values for managing public organisations. The VW can thus be seen as an expression of the traditional Swedish model of public administration. This model emphasises such values as political democracy, public ethics, and the security of life and property (Lundquist, 1998).
Enacted environment
According to the concept of enacted environments, the actors themselves create their environment. In the present case, this process involved the conflict between the old administrators and the new management. The new administrators were critical of the existing organisational structure and practices at the CCV. As the financial director observed:
After working for 25 years in public organisations, the CCV was a completely new experience. I had never experienced such a backward organisation.
However, as previously noted, the reform program met with resistance from the old administrators. In this they were joined by the senior physicians. The old administrators claimed that the conflict gathered momentum when the FD was appointed. They felt that the new management had no confidence in them, and that the criticism levelled at them by new management had been misdirected. They also perceived implicit criticism, and they felt even more discouraged because it was difficult to argue with non-explicit criticism. As one administrator observed:
Very much of the mood here was; get rid of the past, do some weeding out. This mood became more evident when the financial director was appointed; the mood of rejecting history and putting an emphasis on the changes ? but things were not as bad as [the new management] had described them. If they had been a little keener to put some emphasis on the positive side of our history, they would have been able to be very sharp in their criticisms as well. The criticisms they put forward were too sweeping. If they had been specific in their criticisms, they might have been able to establish trust and mutual confidence.
Moreover, the old administrators did not believe that CCV 2002 was a solution to the CCV's financial problems. On the contrary, the old administrators believed that the practices of the new management and the implicit practice of CCV 2002 were making the situation worse. They maintained
that the new management did not have any knowledge of how health care actually worked. They saw the reform program as a threat to the caring traditions of medicine that had been cultivated at the CCV for centuries.
Good health care and good health care administration
The environment that the actors were enacting thus involved differing concepts of good health care and good healthcare administration—issues that went to the heart of the professional identities of both the new management and the old administrators. The new management was inspired by the service management discourse—urging 'modernisation' in accordance with 'service values' and arguing for rapid and radical change. In contrast, the old administrators, inspired by their understanding of traditional public administration, were urging the 'conservation' of the 'civil-service' paradigm. Conflict over such issues concerns the very heart of good administration of public organisations. Of central importance to the new managers was the imperative to ensure that the CCV was driven by customer orientation. However, the traditional 'professionalism' of the personnel was overshadowed in such a paradigm—as evidenced by service mapping and the measurement of customerperceived quality. The old administrators believed that such reasoning did not take account of the values of the medical profession. As one administrator observed:
You must have something that triggers the doctors if you are to succeed in carrying out reform.
According to the old administrators, the whole project was therefore unrealistic—because it did not appeal to the basic values of the healthcare professions (Abbott, 1988; Freidsson, 1970). In this enactment of reality, the conflict between the two actor groups was thus created by fundamentally different principles (health care and healthcare administration), and was intensified by actions and reactions to the conflict thus created.
Extracted cues
The old administrators: Equality and preservation With respect to good health care, the old administrators extracted the cue of patient equality from the enacted environment, and with respect to healthcare administration, conservation was extracted as a cue. Their cognitive frames were coloured by their ideal of public administration—emphasising the values of political democracy, public ethics, and the security of life and property. These values can all be said to have connotations of equality. In addition, the local administrative discourse that had been developed and valued by the old administrators emphasised small-scale operations—which can also be said to be an expression of equality in the county of Värmland, in that small-scale operations were believed to ensure that all citizens received proper health care. In addition, the old administrators believed that the established practices were adequate. If change were to be made, they wished to see such change made with careful thought. The old administrators can thus be said to have also extracted a cue of preservation.
The new management: Customer utility and process orientation The new management clearly extracted different cues. With respect to good health care, they extracted the cue of customer utility from the enacted environment, and with respect to good healthcare administration, customer process orientation was extracted. The new management did not explicitly disown the traditional professional values of health care (such as saving lives and relieving pain), but these were certainly overshadowed by their emphasis on service orientation. Taking into account the previous experience of the new management, and comparing this with the organisational practice they discovered at the CCV, it was apparent to the new management that the CCV was lacking in process orientation from the customer's perspective. It was also obvious to the new management that ideas were lacking with respect to how the expectations of customers should influence the design of the organisation in general, and the provision of services in particular. Customer orientation was thus missing from health care at the CCV, and the new management was therefore trying to promote it.
Outcome and reasons
In the case being analysed here, it is apparent that no shared sensemaking evolved. Even though the intensity of sensemaking was high, the level of consistency was low (Figure 2). The sensemaking produced by the old administrators and that produced by the new management were contradictory. The program of service management reform at the CCV thus created conflicting sensemaking. In terms of culture, the result can thus be depicted as the creation of two sub-cultures—(i) a civil-service culture of the old administrators; and (ii) a service culture of the new management. The old administrators and the new management were working in opposing paradigms for managing public-sector organisations—which made them perceive reality differently. According to Figure 1, an explanation for the obstacles to change and the creation of culture will be found in two dimensions—the consistency and the intensity of sensemaking in an organisation. The two central concepts in Weick's (1995) sensemaking theory—cognitive frames and extracted cues—can be used to explain the levels of intensity and consistency produced. Extracted cues thus explain the intensity of sensemaking—because people can extract different numbers of cues. Cognitive frames explain the consistency of sensemaking—because cognitive frames can differ widely among people, thus producing dissimilar and inconsistent sensemaking. The major obstacles to change and the creation of culture thus lie with people extracting different cues and/or having dissimilar cognitive frames.
Discussion
The major points of discussion arising from the study are considered below.
1. Production of heterogeneous cultures
The extant research into culture in service management has been devoted to prescribing the culture that organisations should have if they are to succeed. The main argument has been that a coherent culture of service excellence must be created (Berry and Bendapudi, 2003; Berry, 1999; Schneider and
Bowen, 1995). However, as noted in the introduction to the present paper, assessments of the actual 'making' of service culture are missing from the extant literature. This paper has shown that a program in service management reform can produce heterogeneous cultures, rather than a coherent culture. This is consistent with the criticism levelled by certain organisation theorists (such as Harris and Ogbonna, 1999) concerning the literature on market-oriented culture. The senior managers and administrators at the CCV divided into two actor groups which, as a result of reform, produced different cultures. If the present study had included other occupational groups (such as doctors, nurses, and medical technicians) and sub-groups (such as surgeons, psychiatrists, and radiologists), the number of cultures constructed as an effect of reform might well have increased.
2. Production of conflicting cultures
Apart from creating several sub-cultures, programs in service management reform can also produce conflicting cultures. The service culture of the new managers and the civil-service culture of the old administrators were in sharp contrast. Such a result is neither desired nor expected in the extant literature on culture in service management. However, the production of conflicting sub-cultures is not especially surprising. In organisation studies, several researchers have argued that cultural division within organisations is commonplace (Alvesson, 1995; Kunda, 1992; Martin 2002). Theoretical arguments have also been made which claim that culture is likely to follow occupational groups (Van Maanen and Barley, 1985). The present analysis has shown that people are inclined to make sense in accordance with the logic of their history, rather than in accordance with unfamiliar theoretical innovations, such as service management.
3. Prescription and description
It is apparent that service management research requires a concept of culture that takes account of conflict and heterogeneity. In the literature review of research into organisational culture, a distinction was made between the variable perspective and the metaphor perspective, and the point was made that research into service culture has been clearly positioned in the variable perspective. The present paper recommends a shift in focus to the metaphor perspective. Such an approach to culture would focus on descriptions rather than prescriptions, and would identify conflict and heterogeneity if they exist (Alvesson, 2002). It is also recommended that the focus should be on the 'normal' service organisation, rather than the 'excellent' service organisation. These shifts in thinking would allow for a deeper understanding of service organisations—which is a prerequisite for effective change.
Implications for management
The first implication for management practice is that the creation of shared meaning (in the form of a common, consistent, and coherent service culture) is not especially important. The majority of service organisations are too multifaceted for effective cultural engineering. Rather, it is important that management is capable of managing different meanings. Managers require the ability to understand
and manage in different cultural settings. The metaphor of the 'diplomat' is appropriate for the management of modern service firms. Secondly, managers can benefit from adopting a 'metaphor approach' to culture, rather than a 'variable perspective'. Such a change of perspective implies a focus on seeing organisations as cultures—rather than trying to change the values and norms of organisational members. This would enable managers to understand the possibility and plausibility of change—thus avoiding conflict and constraints. Finally, the issues presented in this paper are not unique to the case of the CCV. On the basis of the findings of the literature on organisational change (Ferlie et al., 1996; Quist, 2003; Skålén, 2002; 2004), it is apparent that the introduction of change initiatives in general, and service management initiatives in particular (especially in public-service organisations), will result in conflicts, disagreements, and constraints. The case of the CCV is, in many ways, representative of the process of organisational change resulting from service management reform.
Conclusion
A fundamental aim of the extant research into service culture has been the transformation of the culture of organisations into a consistent and coherent culture of service excellence using a service management framework. The sensemaking analysis of the present study concludes that the introduction of a program of service management reform can create heterogeneous and conflicting cultures, rather than coherent and consistent cultures. For further research, a descriptive approach to culture within service management is recommended, rather than the prevailing focus on prescription.
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Figure 1 The conceptual framework
Extracted cues: The object of sensemaking. Cognitive frames: Drives the interpretation of the extracted cues and thus provides the content of sense-making. Affects the enactment of environment. Enacted environment: The constructed/perceived environment from which cues are extracted. Previous experience: Produces and reproduces the cognitive frames. Makes sensemaking a retrospective process.
Enacted environment
Previous experience
Cognitive frames
Extracted cues
Sensemaking
Figure 2 Types of organisational sensemaking
Intensity _ High Consistency _ High _ Low
_
Shared sensemaking Feeble sensemaking
_ _
Low_ Conflicting sensemaking Fragmentary sensemaking
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