Research8.pdf

The problem of fear in TQM –
causes, consequences and

reduction methods –
a literature review

Marek Bugdol
Department of Economics and Management, Uniwersytet Jagiello�nski,

Krak�ow, Poland

Abstract

Purpose – The primary objective of the paper is to present the role and meaning of fear in organizations
implementing TQM. The author’s intention is to identify the causes of fear in the TQM components as well as
the main types of fear, their causes, consequences and methods of reduction.
Design/methodology/approach – The main research method applied is a systematic review of the literature
on the subject. The applied systematic review procedure takes into consideration the indicated research
objective, the selection of the basic literature and publications, the presentation of the publication database and
content analysis. The author also makes use of his own observations ensuing from his acting in the capacity of
a TQM consultant and a juror of the Polish Quality Award.
Findings – The paper presents the causes of fear in the TQM components, the main types of fear and its
consequences. The limited possibilities of eliminating fear are also indicated. Fear appears when, for various
reasons, TQM is improperly implemented and maintained, but also when resources are allocated incorrectly
(e.g. a wrong selection of quality team members), and it is included in social processes (e.g. in the quality team
forming process). It appears when only structural empowerment rather than mental empowerment is applied,
when there exist contradictory expectations with regard to empowerment, in case of excessive and/or “have to”
commitment in particular employees, and when too much emphasis is placed on commitment.
Research limitations/implications – The reflections included in the paper may become useful for quality
management practitioners, as such knowledge allows them to avoid mistakes which are the cause of fear, that is
an emotion making quality improvement difficult. The paper does not present the manifestations and sources
of fear in all TQM components, and they are certainly included in a broadly understood quality culture.
Nevertheless, the gathered and arranged knowledge can be the source of further research.
Originality/value – Being the result of the studies of the literature on the subject, this paper is one of few
publications discussing in a detailed manner one of the principles of effective quality management formulated
by E. Deming, namely “driving fear out”.

Keywords Fear, Empowerment, Commitment, Quality team, Leadership

Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction
Fear is one of the fundamental emotions, a process combining four elements: physiological
arousal, subjective feelings, cognitive interpretation and behavioral expression (Zimbardo
et al., 2017, p. 44). The notion of fear is related to terms such as apprehension, uncertainty,
risk, anxiety, horror. The terms fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably but “anxiety
is seldom clearly represented, as such, in awareness, whereas fear is often unequivocal”
(Schulz, 2006, p. 111). Thus the notion of fear is different from the notion of neurotic anxiety.

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© Marek Bugdol. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative
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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1754-2731.htm

Received 7 February 2019
Revised 6 May 2019

23 July 2019
29 September 2019
25 November 2019

Accepted 13 January 2020

The TQM Journal
Vol. 32 No. 6, 2020

pp. 1217-1239
Emerald Publishing Limited

1754-2731
DOI 10.1108/TQM-02-2019-0047

http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-02-2019-0047

Fear appears when people face external risks. Describing causes of fear, E. Deming also
indicates external causes, for example those connected with the appearance of wrong data
(Deming, 2012).

The problem of fear is not commonplace in the literature on quality management. It is
quite astonishing, since one of the effective quality management principles is that of “driving
out fear”. The discussion on the role and meaning of fear in TQM was started by E. Deming
(1986). In the subsequent years, many other researchers (e.g. Gitlow, 1994; Tamimi and
Gershon, 1995; Sadikoglu, 2005) referred to his views on fear. Deming claimed that all quotas,
standards, numerical goals and management objectives are opposite to constant
improvement, hinder cooperation and cause fear (Deming, 1986). He was convinced that
problem solving and employees’ commitment could not take place in an atmosphere of fear
and no support. In the past, quality control was related to fear because it consisted in
controlling employees rather than processes. It was connected with sanctions. Deming, who
stressed cooperation, employee commitment and fear reduction, changed the approach to
management (Gitlow, 1994). His views were criticized mainly by the supporters of
management oriented towards fast achievement of quantitative goals (e.g. Bailey, 1997).
They were not confirmed in employee opinion surveys conducted by Sadikoglu (2005).

The TQM philosophy emphasizes the commitment of the top management, the use of
statistical techniques of quality control, the improvement in the quality of work environment
through education and training, fear reduction and the elimination of numerical quotas
(Tamimi and Gershon, 1995). TQM aims at employee empowerment and requires overcoming
organizational, communication and interpersonal barriers. However, many TQM
implementation programs fail because of the lack of commitment on the part of top
management, the fear of changes, the fear of losing power in an organization or a sense of
uncertainty (Stabler, 1995; Kolodny, 1995; Waller and Ahire, 1996; Jacokes, 1996). Fear makes
it impossible to take up any improvement measures, hinders communication processes and
paralyses decision makers.

Fear plays an important role in TQM. Therefore, it deserves to be researched carefully.
Consequently, the primary objective of the paper was to present the role and meaning of fear
in organizations implementing TQM. The author’s intention was to identify the causes of fear
in the TQM components, its main types, consequences and reduction methods.

The current status of research on the subject as reflected in the TQM literature
This section presents an outline of the issue of fear as addressed in publications on TQM. The
conducted analysis of the literature concerning the problem of fear in TQM allowed the
author to distinguish several thematic areas.

The first thematic area concerns the general causes of the fear of changes. It refers in
particular to E. Deming’s views on the causes of fear (Deming, 1986; Sadikoglu, 2005), the fear
of changes (Stabler, 1995; Kolodny, 1995), the fear of losing power in an organization (Waller
and Ahire, 1996), a lack of support and situations of uncertainty (e.g. Jacokes, 1996).

Deming claimed that all quotas, standards, numerical goals and management by
objectives were counter to constant improvement, undermined cooperation and teamwork in
a company and caused fear (Deming, 1986). Empirical research proves, however, that time-
based standards do not have to increase fear and distrust (Sadikoglu, 2005).

The literature on the subject shows that in the initial stage of TQM implementation people
are afraid of changes (e.g. Stabler, 1995). Fear increases when they perform tasks in a new
work environment (Kolodny, 1995). One factor making the implementation of TQM difficult is
the fear of losing one’s position, power or perhaps even employment (Waller and Ahire, 1996).
The implementation of TQM and many other management concepts such as re-engineering
or knowledge management generates a sense of threat and fear (Gordon, 1995; Pastore, 2003).

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In the course of implementing all changes oriented towards the improvement of productivity,
attention is paid to not only organizational transformations, but mainly the necessity of
changing the organizational culture and eliminating fear or anxiety connected with the
change process (Carmody, 1994). The fear of changes is not only caused by apprehension of
novelty and the unknown but also results from uncertainty and a lack of support from
management (Jacokes, 1996; The antidote to fear-driven management, 2012).

The second thematic area focuses on deliberations concerning the two opposite concepts:
Drive in Fear and Drive out Fear (e.g. Repenning, 2000; Wicks, 2001). These deliberations are
connected with providing an answer to the following question: What is the role of fear in
quality improvement and does it play a negative role only?

Undoubtedly, the implementation of Total Quality Management or any other new
management concept causes fear which can be more intense if the scope and impact of
changes is large enough. The literature presents two opposite theories concerning the
influence of work safety on the ability of companies to implement changes. According to the
“Drive out Fear” principle, organizations need to participate in ensuring work safety, while
the “Drive in Fear” principle emphasizes the positive role played by uncertainty in justifying
changes (Repenning, 2000). Some researchers and management consultants stress the
positive role played by the fear of losing employment in motivating people to implement
changes. For instance, Kotter (1995) discusses cases in which managers deliberately highlight
poor business results, and the probability of future losses motivates people to implement
changes and improvement processes. Bailey (1997) also claims that the fear of losing
employment is a valuable ally for managers intending to implement a serious organizational
transformation. Such views are contrary to TQM ideas, however, because, first of all, they
refer to financial results only and disregard social results. Secondly, they put emphasis on
motivation oriented towards short-term objectives, which was rejected by Deming. Fear may
force organizations to take up pro-quality activities. Referring to organizations implementing
quality management systems and TQM, Naveh et al. (2004) use the terms “first and second
movers”. “First movers implement a new management practice because of real needs and a
high fit between what the practice suggests and their needs (technical efficiency), second
movers implement the new management practice because of customer pressure and the fear
of falling behind the competition (external pressure)” (Naveh et al., 2004, p. 1843). Conducting
benchmarking analyses may also be caused by the fear of losing the ability to compete with
others (Panwar et al., 2013). The role of fear, in particular the fear of death, is used in various
programs aimed at improving work safety, and even in “zero defects” programs (Halal and
Lasken, 1980).

The third thematic area focuses on the consequences of fear (Craig and Lemon, 2008,
Bloom et al., 2015; Bugdol and Bortniczuk, 2018). In organizations dominated by a culture of
fear, where employees are punished, the acquisition of information of the true causes of
failures in quality improvement is very difficult (Craig and Lemon, 2008). Not only efficiency
but also quality suffers on account of fear. Employees of many companies do not suggest any
corrective measures in fear of punishment. Consequently, such companies have no
opportunity to improve quality, and top-down initiatives bring no results (Bugdol and
Bortniczuk, 2018). Researchers agree that higher competition results in higher management
quality. Yet, when fear dominates, decision-making processes are considerably more difficult
(cf. Bloom et al., 2015).

Previous publications described the notion of fear and its role in quality management in a
rather general manner. They claimed that fear should be eliminated as its presence hindered
quality improvement.

But they failed to describe fear in the particular components of TQM such as commitment,
leadership, empowerment or teamwork. Identifying the types of fear, their causes as well as
consequences not only in the general TQM principles but also in the particular components of

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TQM (e.g. leadership, commitment, empowerment, teamwork) is important both for the
theory as well as the practice of quality management. Commitment was found to be one of the
TQM principles and its role was described in many works (e.g. Oakland, 1995; Arunachalam
and Palanichamy, 2017; Soltani et al., 2005). Leadership plays a special role in TQM, which
has been proved in many researches (e.g. Oakland, 1995; Roberts, 2004; Calvo-Mora et al.,
2005; Calvo-Mora et al., 2018). Empowerment plays an equally significant role (Randeniya
et al., 1995; Zink, 1995; Jayaram et al., 2010; Youssef, 2010). Many authors emphasize the
importance of teams, particularly quality circles, in both the implementation and the
maintenance of TQM (Brockner and Hess, 1986; Oakland, 1995; Jajoo and Kakkad, 2016).
Obviously, various publications mentioned many other components of TQM such as
teamwork, leadership, pursuing lower costs of quality, following the process-based approach,
using statistical methods, satisfaction of internal and external customers, influence on the
environment, self-assessment, resources management, quality policy and quality strategy.
They can be divided into hard and soft elements. Nevertheless, even the four selected
elements can constitute a sufficient basis for identifying the sources and consequences of fear
in TQM. Various publications present evidence indicating that fear plays a significant role in
these particular components (e.g.: Goldstein, 1985; Stoner et al., 2001; Bragg, 2002; Greasley
et al., 2005; Babalola et al., 2016; Andrade et al., 2017 ; Guo et al., 2018; Bugdol and Bortniczuk,
2018; Kop�anyi-Peuker et al., 2018).

There is also a lack of publications focusing on the types, causes and consequences of fear
that can be distinguished within the TQM concept. The literature not related to TQM also
distinguishes various types of fear. For example the fear of changes (Stabler, 1995; Kolodny,
1995; Soltani et al., 2005), the fear of losing power in an organization (Walle and Ahire, 1996),
the fear spreading to employees due to improper management styles (cf. Babalola et al., 2016;
Guo et al., 2018), the fear of other people (Grenny, 2015), the fear of exclusion (Kop�anyi-Peuker
et al., 2018). Taking into consideration the unique character of TQM and its components
indicated above, it can be assumed that there exist types of fear that can be attributed to each
of them. This means that, for instance, the fear of exclusion may be experienced by people
strongly attached to their work teams, and the fear spreading to employees due to improper
management styles results from inappropriate leadership, etc. There is also a shortage of
publications showing how fear can be alleviated and conquered in TQM.

The methods of reducing the fear of changes are described most extensively (Stabler,
1995; Kolodny, 1995; Soltani et al., 2005; Weeks et al., 2004; Dziadkiewicz and Juchniewicz,
2013; Morris, 2015), but there is not enough knowledge of how to address other types of fear
related to TQM.

Taking into consideration the identified publication gap, the following questions can
be posed:

(1) What types of fear can be distinguished within the TQM concept?

(2) What are the causes of fear?

(3) What consequences of fear can be distinguished within the TQM concept?

(4) What are the possibilities for reducing the particular types of fear?

Types of fear
Based on previous literature studies, the following types of fear can be listed::

(1) the fear of changes (Stabler, 1995; Kolodny, 1995; Soltani et al., 2005),

(2) the fear of assessment and of failure to achieve planned results (Deming, 1986),

(3) the fear of losing power in an organization (Walle and Ahire, 1996),

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(4) the fear experienced by employees due to improper management styles ( Nwabueze,
2011; Babalola et al., 2016; Guo et al., 2018; Bugdol; Bortniczuk, 2018),

(5) the fear of punishment (Drummond, 1998; Tremblay et al., 2013; Bugdol, 2018a),

(6) the fear of others (Grenny, 2015),

(7) the fear of exclusion (Kop�anyi-Peuker et al., 2018).

The fear of change is associated with the fear of losing power in an organization, a lack of
support, and situations of uncertainty. Usually these types of fear are noticeable at the
beginning of implementing various management concepts – not just TQM. These types of
fear are best described in the literature. The fear experienced by employees due to improper
management styles appears at various stages of the implementation, maintenance and
improvement of the TQM concept. It is associated with the fear of punishment that both
employees and managers can feel (even CEOs may be afraid of shareholders, owner). Further
types of fear, that is fear from others and of exclusion, are also interrelated and result from the
presence of other people in the organization. Due to the fact that TQM uses different forms of
teamwork, it could be thought that this kind of fear is also character-specific for TQM, but
actually, it can occur in any other organization.

The literature so far does not indicate which sources and consequences of fear we are
dealing with in the components of TQM, and therefore an attempt was made to answer this
question in the next part of the article.

Fear in selected components of TQM
This section discusses probable causes of fear connected with the four selected components
of TQM, i.e. commitment, leadership, empowerment, and teamwork. The selection of these
particular components is justified in the description below. The paper uses some basic
definitions of TQM (e.g. Oakland, 1995). In his research, the author refers to the classical
approach to TQM, especially the views of E. Deming (mainly the idea of the deadly diseases
in organizations), and the concepts aimed at distinguishing the particular components
of TQM.

Commitment
Fear is presented the most often as the cause of a lack of commitment (Tsai and Young, 2010),
and rightly so, but the perverse question could be asked whether commitment itself
triggers fear.

Researchers agree that commitment is one of the most important principles of TQM
(Arunachalam and Palanichamy, 2017). Its absence is said to be the cause of failure of TQM
program implementation. The commitment of top management is particularly significant
because connections among the commitment of top managers and employees, as well as the
effectiveness of TQM programs are usually very close and linear (Soltani et al., 2005).

However, in to diagnose the problem of commitment properly, one should pay
attention to not only the existence of linear relations (even though they are very important).
It is worth mentioning that there are many types of commitment, which is not taken into
account in many researches. The following authors introduced their own typologies of
commitment: Mayer and Schoorman (1998, p. 15), Witt et al. (2001), Bragg (2002), as well as
many others. The most frequently mentioned types of commitment include: effective and
continuing, “to be found in an organization”, organizational, related to work, profession, or
supervision, “have to”, “want to” or “should”, effective and normative, calculative and
behavioral. A review of these typologies shows that, in TQM, value-based commitment (e.g.

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commitment based on trust, justice) and ideological commitment (occurring when someone
works for an idea, value system, primary objective) should be dominant. This is only an
ideal, though. Despite a lack of empirical evidence confirming that certain types of
commitment are the source of fear, on the basis of available theoretical deliberations, it can
be assumed that fear and threat trigger the “have to” type of commitment (Bragg, 2002).
Meanwhile, practical experience indicates that fear causes anticipative and excessive
commitment in individuals, and not commitment itself, but uncontrolled emphasis put on
commitment.

The “must” type of commitment occurs when employees have to work at a particular
workplace because they either have no other option or for various reasons are strongly
connected with the organization.

Fear also triggers anticipative commitment, i.e. commitment with no proper preparation,
for example without employee training. In the 1990s, in a big stock exchange-listed company
that was the Polish Quality Award winner, during the morning meeting of the management,
the CEO said, “We’re going to implement TQM and things will be different as of today, and if
you do not know what it means, then you need to find out as soon as possible”. This statement
caused anxiety in the managerial staff. None of them had ever heard of TQM before. There
had been no training or meeting dedicated to it before.

Excessive commitment of individuals causes suspicion and fear. A company owned by the
town X employed a quality system representative who imposed very ambitious targets on
himself. He wanted the company to become one of the best in the industry. Therefore, he
developed various methods for measuring system effectiveness . The company promptly
implemented an integrated system, the employees used the EFQM-consistent self-assessment
model, and the balanced scorecard method. Rigorous process management principles were
implemented. The personnel’s competences were also assessed and quality training events
were organized regularly. The representative was doing much more than he was required to
do in accordance with his job description. Yet, in time, the representative’s commitment was
no longer respected; the employees were fed up with new tasks and the company
management stopped supporting him. When an external benchmarking group was
established, the representative’s activity was categorized as a threat to the authority. He
was perceived as someone aiming to promote themselves rather than to improve quality. He
was very soon given a notice of termination.

Current research results concerning citizenship behavior constitute indirect evidence
confirming that excessive commitment of individuals causes unnecessary tension (Klotz and
Bolino, 2013).

Excessive emphasis put on commitment makes employees come up with fictitious
solutions. Such a situation occurs where there is strong and completely unjustified pressure
for quality improvement and changes. In a certain organization which was a Polish Quality
Award winner, productiveness improvement groups were introduced. Commitment is one of
the quality improvement methods used in TQM. Employees were expected to present ideas
concerning improvements in the workplace and technological processes. An analysis of
documents and their confrontation with actually implemented activities showed that huge
pressure for commitment led to unethical behaviors. After some time employees started to
put forward fictitious ideas, pretending their interest and commitment. Emphasis on
commitment has to be adjusted to an organization’s needs (Bugdol, 2010).

Leadership
Leadership is another principle of TQM. It is highlighted in very many publications (e.g.
Oakland, 1995; Roberts, 2004; Calvo-Mora et al., 2005; Calvo-Mora et al., 2018). Leadership is
believed to consist in an ability to not only motivate people and determine targets, but also

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eliminate fear (Zhao et al., 2015). Consequently, the question arises whether leadership is
related to fear and if so, in what way.

Firstly, opinions presented by consultants and based on interviews prove that
leadership is full of fear (Crosby, 2018). High quality in TQM very often results from
leaders’ commitment, from strong leadership. High quality is sometimes achieved under
immense pressure which intensifies fear, conformity and suspicion. Fear exists when
expectations are high of leaders who are thrown into their new role (Conquering Leadership
Fears, 2018).

Secondly, besides being leaders, some superiors also manifest authoritarian behaviors.
And authoritarian leadership causes fear, a sense of absence of self-confidence, which does
not foster creativity because employees adopt various defensive attitudes, including
employee defensive silence (Guo et al., 2018; Bugdol and Bortniczuk, 2018; Babalola
et al., 2016).

Thirdly, individuals appointed to be leaders may have to deal with persons who are much
more competent in certain management areas, and this may result in anxiety and fear (cf.
Grenny, 2015).

Fourthly, when people deal with a very strong leader, a situation of uncertainty and fear
can occur. Investors and employees are convinced that such a leader’s absence is a risk to the
organization’s existence. This happens not only in the case of charismatic leaders, but also
when such leaders control enterprises which are very complex in terms of their structure or
objectives of business activities.

Empowerment
There are many definitions of empowerment; according to one of them, empowerment is the
process of eliminating fear and all bureaucratic obstacles that make the decision process
difficult (Hochman, 2005). Empowerment manifests itself in superiors demonstrating their
belief that employee empowerment and the elimination of organizational and psycho-social
barriers exert a positive influence on management effectiveness and efficiency. Various
researches indicate that empowerment has a favorable impact on employees’ trust in
managers, reduces the costs of internal and external control, as well as transaction costs
(Moye and Henkin, 2006). However, not all empowerment programs are successful, which was
shown in the research conducted by Edward and Collinson (2002). Why can empowerment
cause fear?

Firstly, because empowerment can be interpreted differently by employees and superiors.
Superiors do not want to lose their power and demand increased efforts and responsibility
from their subordinates. Employees want to have autonomy and freedom, but they also fear
losing support (Hill and Huq, 2004). “Employees may resist empowerment for fear of taking
on responsibilities or considering that empowerment is a mere rhetoric, while leaders/
managers can be reluctant to adopt empowerment, when decentralized power is seen as a
threat” (Andrade et al., 2017, p. 79).

Secondly, empowerment has various dimensions: the structural dimension (e.g. flattening
organizational structures), the mental dimension (understood as readiness to assume
responsibility), the pedagogical dimension (connected with training and preparing people for
changes). It is emphasized that structural empowerment needs to be supported by mental
empowerment. Structural empowerment without any preparation of employees causes
apprehension and anxiety. And as various researches prove, empowerment can be connected
with nothing else but delegating new responsibilities (Korukonda et al., 1999). Summing up, in
the initial stage of TQM and implementation of empowerment, fear results from
apprehension of changes. It is caused by uncertainty concerning a new division of power
and is connected with a low level of competence-based trust.

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Teamwork
The need for teamwork is emphasized by many researchers (Oakland, 1995, p. 269). It is not
the author’s intention to undermine this need, but merely to indicate the risks connected
with teamwork and the relations between this organizational form and fear. Let us take a
look at quality circles. They have a voluntary character. The literature on the subject offers
very many guidelines concerning successful implementation of quality circles (e.g.
determination of objectives, regularity of meetings, support, etc.) (Jajoo and Kakkad, 2016).
Numerous elements influence the effectiveness of the work of quality circles, for
example members’ self-esteem (Brockner and Hess, 1986). However, the question arises
why this popular organizational form can be a source of fear. There are several reasons
for this.

Firstly, the very process of group development, not only in the case of quality circles,
is very dynamic. It comprises several stages such as the development stage, the turbulent
stage – when group members can manifest mutual hostility and rebel against the existing
rules and structures, the standards formation stage, the effectiveness stage, and the end
of activity stage (Stoner et al., 2001). Fear appears mainly at the turbulent stage when
team members can manifest mutual hostility and rebel against the existing rules and
structures.

Secondly, a duality may occur in the case of quality circles, which was observed already in
the 1980s (Goldstein, 1985). On the one hand, there may exist formal obligatory organizational
forms, and on the other hand, teams are established. A lack of division of power, authority,
and responsibilities, unequal selection of resources, etc. may cause conflicts and …