The purpose of this study was to understand how the concept of quality as an idea was spread to and translated in municipal elderly care. A central question was: How does literature, policy documents and key people describe the function and meaning of the concept of quality? The method of analysis was a qualitative case study with a critical discourse. The theoretical framework of the study is mainly what is known as institutional theory and a line of thought describing how ideas are transferred and spread. The theoretical focus is on how original ideas are interpreted and why they gain a foothold in new contexts. With the help of empirical material in the form of literature, documents and interviews the study shows how the idea of quality was spread from industry to elderly care.   An essential discovery is that the concept of quality has uncritically been implemented to the municipal care of the elderly, correlating to organizational changes, limited resources and the concept of quality becoming a part of the Social Services Act. The municipal care of the elderly tried to apply a quality control system not designed for a human service organization. In order to succeed it tried to make the idea concrete and intelligible by using various system and manuals. The results show that the process has created conservation rather than a change. There is a paradox between quality as a subjectively created value and quality as a quantitative instrument used to create efficiency.