Based on data collected in Brazilian and Scottish organizations, this paper discusses the centrality of power, objectives and institutions for the analysis of quality definition in organizations. The research is an exploratory and comparative case study. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources, and were analysed using qualitative techniques. A clustering process for qualitative data was also used. The results suggest that quality perceptions vary among organizational groups, as well as among institutional environments, which implies that some precaution must be taken in the application of concepts, such as quality, that have been frequently mistaken as universal.
quality in organizations; institutional environments; centrality of power; organizational objectives
