Multi-level learning of a quality management routine: a UK housebuilder case study

The UK Government currently pressurises and incentivises volume housebuilders to build more new homes annually, as current demand outstrips supply. However, accelerating the housebuilding production process negatively impacts new home build quality, resulting in defects that require rectification. The implementation of stringent quality management standards is recognised as improving build quality standards, as it removes a degree of uncertainty from the housebuilding process. Changes to organisational procedures in this way rely on individuals across housebuilder organisations collectively learning new working practices from the top down. While ample academic research has explored how ideas at the individual level become codified learning at the organisational level, there is little investigating how top-down learning unfolds across housebuilder organisations over time, or the conditions that contribute to its success or failure. This thesis, therefore, aims to enhance the understanding of top-down multi-level learning in relation to UK housebuilder quality management standards. It pursues an interpretive qualitative case study approach, using a practice view of organisational routines to inform the means of inquiry. Methods include participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Fieldwork undertaken within three regional offices of a major UK housebuilder, studies how individuals in three different teams learnt to use a new quality management routine. An inductive approach to data analysis, using Gioia et al.'s methodology (2013), is adopted, which also includes an abductive element to determine the study’s main findings. This thesis is the first to consider multi-level learning from a housebuilder perspective and therefore contributes to both academic and housebuilder understanding of learning in relation to quality management standards. Findings here challenge several assumptions expressed in the organisational learning literature.