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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM RICHARD J. GOEKE AND O. FELIX OFFODILE, KENT STATE UNIVERSITY © 2005, ASQ

Six Sigma has been implemented at many organizations, and has reportedly generated billions of dollars in cost savings. Despite claims that Six Sigma is not another management fad, its basic tenets and history thus far appear analogous to total quality management (TQM), which was labeled by many as a management fad. By looking at the number of articles published by year, the degree of similarity between the two management philosophies was measured using the Kolmogorov Goodness-of-Fit test. This study found significant similarity between the distributions of TQM and Six Sigma article counts, and gave impetus for the authors’ use of analogy forecasting to offer an estimate of Six Sigma’s remaining life cycle. The authors’ results show that Six Sigma has about seven years left in its life cycle. Key words: analogy forecasting, life cycles, Six Sigma, TQM

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INTRODUCTION A relatively recent management philosophy, Six Sigma has drawn intense interest from the business community. With a growing number of proponents reporting billions of dollars in savings, Six Sigma has become a strategic initiative for many firms (Dusharme 2001; Harry and Schroeder 2000; Johnson and Swisher 2003; New Straits Times-Management Times 2003). Some have noted, however, that Six Sigma bears a striking resemblance to total quality management (TQM). J. M. Juran, one of the most respected quality experts of this century, claimed that “Six Sigma is essentially a new name for quality improvement” (Elliot 2003). Others are even more critical, dismissing Six Sigma as another management fad (Clifford 2001; Costanzo 2002; Dangleish 2003; Dusharme 2001). The implication that any management practice is a fad often stirs up great emotion, because the term “fad” is usually seen as negative. This negativity, however, is shortsighted, as management fads usually create something positive within the adopting firm. Indeed, management fads introduce change to the organization (Fichman 2004), and, if effective, can become part of good, mainstream management practice (Gibson and Tesone 2001). In addition, management fads add to the firm’s knowledge and experience base (also known as absorptive capacity), which allows firms to learn more efficiently (Cohen and Levinthal 1990). Heightened absorptive capacity eases the transition to new fads, as fads often build upon the knowledge gained from previous fads (Abrahamson 1996). Finally, early adopters of a fad are often considered more progressive than their later-adopting peers (Carson et al. 1999; Gibson and Tesone 2001).

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM Management fads, like consumer fads, exhibit a hump-shaped life cycle, where a period of great interest is followed by a period of declining interest. Indeed, management fads at some point lose their individual identities, as they either succeed (the fad becomes part of mainstream management practice), or they fail (the fad is dismissed as passé with little lasting benefit) (Gibson and Tesone 2001). In either case, the distribution of articles published on the fad has been shown to mirror the fad’s life cycle in terms of the amount of attention and notoriety the fad is receiving (Abrahamson 1996; Abrahamson and Fairchild 1999). As noted earlier, actual use of the fad may continue long after it has faded from the spotlight, especially when the fad succeeds and becomes part of mainstream management practice. However, the number of publications is one of the most quantifiable and objective methods of displaying a fad’s attention-generating power. Therefore, it is the fad’s individual identity, and not its actual use, that this study seeks to explore. Determining where one is in the fad’s life cycle, however, is difficult in real time. All of the management fad studies the authors found analyzed the fad only after its number of citations had fallen from peak levels. The implication that any management practice is a fad often stirs up great emotion, because the term “fad” is usually seen as negative. This negativity, however, is shortsighted, as management fads usually create something positive within the adopting firm. Indeed, management fads introduce change to the organization, and, if effective, can become part of good, mainstream management practice. This study seeks to go beyond prior work, by observing the Six Sigma management philosophy in real time, and then offering a forecast for its remaining life cycle. This can be done via analogy forecasting, which holds that the forecast for the adoption of a new technology can be modeled upon an existing technology when the two technologies are sufficiently analogous (Martino 1983). Analogy forecasting has been used to

create forecasts in many different fields, including the adoption of DirectTV (Bass, Gordon, and Githens 2001), the replacement of oil rigs (Kaiser, Mesyanzhinov and Pulsipher 2004), and the success of new retail stores (Mendes and Themido 2004). The authors intend to extend analogy forecasting to management philosophies, and propose that a forecast for Six Sigma’s remaining life cycle can be based upon the life cycle of TQM, if the two management philosophies are sufficiently analogous. The remainder of this article compares Six Sigma with TQM, and then reviews management fads and analogy forecasting. Hypotheses are then proposed, with a discussion of results and significant findings. The authors then offer implications for management, and conclude with directions for future research.

LITERATURE REVIEW Six Sigma Versus TQM The authors’ objective in this section is to summarize and compare the principal tenets of Six Sigma and TQM, as a complete analysis of both topics is not within the scope of this study. Harry and Schroeder (2000) define Six Sigma as “…a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does….” It can help an organization reduce defects and improve profitability using several basic tenets (Harry and Schroeder 2000; Johnson and Swisher 2003; Pande, Neuman, and Cavanagh 2000; Williams 2003), as shown in Table 1. Table 1 lists the chief tenets of Six Sigma, and also puts forth many of the major components of TQM. Although Table 1 does not list all of the major facets of TQM, indeed, a formal definition of TQM does not exist (Kujala and Lillrank 2004), it does summarize many of the prescriptions offered by quality experts such as W. Edwards Deming, J. M. Juran, Kaoru Ishikawa, Armand V. Feigenbaum, and Philip B. Crosby, and is consistent with the TQM review as put forth by Douglas and Judge (2001).

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM improvement the primary goal of each project. This represents a significant departure from TQM, as the authors have found nothing in the TQM literature requiring a certain level of profit improvement from each project. Despite the difference TQM and Six Sigma place on profit improvement, the two philosophies do have many common themes. Therefore, based on the literature review, it appears that as a management philosophy, Six Sigma is analogous to TQM.

Table 1 Comparison of Six Sigma to TQM. Item

Six Sigma

TQM

Customer focus

√

√

Process focus

√

√

Management by fact

√

√

Collaboration

√

√

Organizational learning

√

√

Profitability focus

√

“Better is cheaper”

√

√

Management Philosophies as Fads

Benchmarking

√

√

“Hidden factory”

√

√

Quality in service economy

√

√

Carson et al. (1999) describes management fads as “managerial interventions, which appear to be innovative, rational, and functional and are aimed at encouraging better organizational performance.” Abrahamson (1996) equated the term fad with fashion, and defines management fashion as “a relatively transitory collective belief, disseminated by management fashion setters, that a management technique leads rational management progress.” Due in part to their temporary nature and limited lives, management fads often receive a lot of attention, prompting Gibson and Tesone (2001) to posit that fads have life cycles of their own, such that the “fad loses its specific identity as an intervention strategy, which results in the decline of its notoriety.” The “temporariness” of fads may have cultural elements as well. Quality circles (QC) were considered to be a fad in the United States, yet in Japan, QCs were seen much differently (Gibson and Tesone 2001). After World War II, Japan was eager to rid itself of the negative connotations associated with the label “Made in Japan,” and embarked on a prolonged, comprehensive program to improve quality and productivity. In Japan, QCs were just one part of the quality improvement effort, as prescribed by Deming and other quality experts. When obstacles arose, Japanese managers made the commitment to see them through, in part because they took a long-term view. In the United States, however, business saw QCs as the embodiment of quality improvement, and when obstacles arose, U.S. managers could not make the same commitment, in part, because of the intense

Based on the previous comparison, it appears that the basic tenets of the two management philosophies have much in common. Auxiliary concepts mentioned by Six Sigma, such as “better is cheaper,” “benchmarking,” “hidden factory,” and improvement in a service economy (Harry and Schroeder 2000), have roots in the TQM philosophy as well (Crosby 1979; Feigenbaum 1983; Ishikawa 1985; Juran 1951). In addition, the impetuses and adoption rates of Six Sigma and TQM appear similar. TQM rose in prominence during the 1970s and 1980s, due in part to severe profit erosion caused by heightened foreign competition (Gehani 1993), which is a primary impetus for adopting Six Sigma today (Costanzo 2002; Harry and Schroeder 2000; New Straits Times-Management Times 2003; Williams 2003). Adoption rates for the two philosophies appear similar as well. At the peak of its popularity, TQM was implemented in 75 percent of U.S. and British firms (The Economist 1992), whereas Six Sigma was recently found to be implemented in 70 percent of surveyed companies (Johnson and Swisher 2003). Table 1 demonstrates a striking similarity between Six Sigma and TQM, with the chief difference being the importance of profitability improvement. While TQM implied that improved profits would result from improved product quality, Six Sigma makes profit

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM pressure for quick results. So in the United States, quality improvement efforts have often been winked at as something temporary that will disappear when the next fad arises. The life cycle of a fad, however, does not necessarily undermine its effectiveness. Fads can profoundly change companies by introducing useful ideas, even as the fad itself fades (Miller and Hartwick 2002). As organizations incorporate the fad, the adoption of new fads often improves and builds upon the preceding fad(s) (Gibson and Tesone 2001; Taylor and Wright 2003). Therefore, although fads may be temporary in nature, they often leave long-standing, positive influences on the organization.

The Life Cycles of Management Fads In exploring the life cycles of management fads, Gibson and Tesone (2001) defined separate stages in the fad’s life, and Abrahamson (1996) used the number of journal citations to establish the distribution of the fad’s life cycle. Using the framework proposed by Ettorre (1997), Gibson and Tesone (2001) observed five separate stages in a management fad’s life cycle: 1) discovery, 2) wild acceptance, 3) digestion, 4) disillusionment, and 5) hard core. In stage 1, the fad begins by receiving some public attention, with a few articles appearing in the literature. During stage 2, the fad becomes very popular, with many citations in the literature and wide adoption in the business community. Stage 3, however, signals the fad’s climax, as articles appear that question the fad’s effectiveness. Disillusionment sets in at stage 4, so that by stage 5, only the hard-core supporters remain. For TQM, Gibson and Tesone (2001) placed stage 1, discovery, between 1950 and 1971, as this was the period in which many of TQM’s founders were presenting their codified prescriptions to the business community. Wild acceptance (stage 2) likely occurred between 1971 and 1991, as several studies reported wide use of TQM (Eskildson 1994; The Economist 1992). In addition, the U.S. government initiated the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award during this

period, which emphasizes the main tenets of TQM and is a coveted goal for thousands of organizations (Hart and Bogan 1992; Gehani 1993). Digestion (stage 3), which represents the climax of the fad, likely occurred during 1992 to 1993. This period saw many articles, especially in the business press, that questioned the effectiveness of TQM (Fuchsberg 1992; Mathews and Katel 1992; Szwergold 1992; Jacob 1993; Greising 1994). The next stage, disillusionment, occurred from 1993 to 1996, as several studies found widespread disappointment among firms and their TQM efforts (Choi and Behling 1997; Ernst and Young/American Quality Foundation 1992). Stage 5, hard core, occurred from 1996 through today, with supporters who remain loyal to TQM, even as it seemed to have slipped from prominence. Several empirical studies from the late 1990s found evidence confirming the relationship between TQM and stock price performance and/or operating earnings (NIST 1996; Lemak and Reed 1997; Hendricks and Singhal 1997). In addition, several studies using firm selfreported data found strong relationships between TQM and firm performance (Powell 1995; Agus and Sagir 2001; Agus 2001; Agus and Abdullah 2000). Therefore, although citations in the literature may have tailed, this does not necessarily imply that use of the fad has been discontinued. Rather, it implies that the fad has been taken over by another one or assimilated into mainstream management practice. The aforementioned review summarizes how Gibson and Tesone (2001) applied their five stages of the management fad life cycle to TQM. In addition, they analyzed four other management fads using the same life-cycle framework, with the results of TQM and QC fads shown in Table 2. The table demonstrates that fads can vary widely regarding the length of their discovery and wild acceptance stages. Digestion and disillusionment, however, appear much less variable, as for both fads, digestion lasted two years and disillusionment lasted four to five years. Separately, Abrahamson (1996) viewed management fads as fashions, and sought to determine how management fashion arose, who were the fashion setters and followers, and whether management fashions

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM Figure 1 Number of quality circle articles in ABI-Inform, by year (Abrahamson 1996).

Stage

TQM

QC

50

Discovery

1950-1971

1977-1979

40

Wild acceptance

1971-1991

1979-1981

Digestion

1992-1993

1981-1982

Disillusionment

1993-1996

1982-1986

Hard core

1996 and later

1986 and later

were beneficial to shareholders, employees, managers, and other stakeholders. By counting and plotting the number of articles covering QC by year in the ABIInform database, Abrahamson postulated the rise and fall of the QC fad, as shown in Figure 1. As seen in the figure, the number of articles covering QCs showed little increase from 1977 to 1980. Between 1980 and 1982, the number of articles surged, reflecting the popularity of QCs in business. However, after the peak in 1982, the number of articles decreased, reflecting the decline of QCs as a management fad. It appears that the two studies, though using two separate methodologies, achieved similar results regarding the QC management fad. The peak year for QC citations in the Abrahamson (1996) study is 1982, which is the same time frame that Gibson and Tesone (2001) found as the climax (that is, stage 3 ending and stage 4 beginning). Since the two studies agree on the peak of the QC management fad, the authors will seek to replicate the aforementioned agreement for TQM. If Abrahamson (1996) and Gibson and Tesone (2001) are similar for TQM, and if TQM and Six Sigma have similar article count distributions, then by using analogy forecasting, a forecast for the life cycle for Six Sigma may be offered based on the life cycle of TQM.

FORECASTING LIFE CYCLES AND HYPOTHESES Analogy forecasting, as proposed by Martino (1983), can be used to predict the adoption of a new technology

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30 20 10 0 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 Year

based upon the known history of an existing technology, if the two technologies have sufficient similarity between them. The authors propose to extend analogy forecasting to predict the life cycles of management fads, because Six Sigma appears to be analogous to TQM. Specifically, a forecast of Six Sigma may be possible by using TQM as a model. To use TQM as the basis for creating a forecast for the remaining life cycle of Six Sigma, the authors will compare the distributions of articles on TQM with that of articles on Six Sigma using the Business Source Premier database. If there is enough similarity between the distributions using a goodness-of-fit test, then the remaining life cycle of Six Sigma can be extrapolated from the distribution of TQM articles. Before this can be done, however, the authors must first establish that: 1. Business Source Premier is an adequate substitute for ABI-Inform. 2. The distribution of TQM articles is similar to the TQM life-cycle stages as proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001) in Table 2. Requirement 1 is necessary since the ABI-Inform database is not available for this research, but Business Source Premier is. Therefore, one must first validate that Business Source Premier is an adequate substitute for ABI-Inform by replicating the Abrahamson (1996) methodology for QC, using the former database. The distribution of QC from Business Source Premier can then be compared to that from

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Table 2 Life cycle stages of the TQM and QC fads (Gibson and Tesone 2001).

Number of Articles

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM ABI-Inform (Abrahamson 1996), and the degree of similarity between the two can be assessed using a goodness-of-fit test. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is: H1: Business Source Premier will serve as an adequate substitute for ABI-Inform by validating that the distribution of QC citations from Business Source Premier has significant similarity to that from ABI-Inform (Abrahamson 1996). The degree of similarity between two distributions can be assessed using nonparametric statistics. Two tests, the Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test (Kgf test) and the Wilcoxan signed rank test (Wsr test) may have applicability, depending on the nature of the distributions represented by the plots (Conover 1980). If the Kgf test and the Wsr test (if applicable) support hypothesis 1, then Business Source Premier can be used as a substitute for ABI-Inform with regard to the QC management fad. However, one then must validate that Business Source Premier accurately reflects the TQM life cycles as proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001) in Table 2. This will be accomplished by repeating Abrahamson’s (1996) methodology for TQM, then comparing the resulting distribution of TQM articles to the life-cycle stages for TQM as proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001) in Table 2. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is: H2: There is adequate agreement between the distribution of TQM citations from Business Source Premier and the TQM life-cycle stages proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001). If hypothesis 2 is supported, then one can apply Abrahamson’s (1996) methodology to Six Sigma using the Business Source Premier database. If the distributions of Six Sigma and TQM are sufficiently similar, then by using analogy forecasting (Martino 1983), a forecast for Six Sigma can be modeled on the life cycle of TQM. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is: H3: The distributions of Six Sigma citations will be significantly analogous to that of TQM from hypothesis 2, such that a forecast for the Six Sigma life cycle can be offered. As in hypothesis 1, the Kgf test will be used to assess the level of similarity between the TQM and Six Sigma

Figure 2 Number of quality circle articles in Business Source Premier and ABI-Inform, by year. 50 40 30 20 10 0 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 Year Bus Src Prem ABI-Inform

distributions. In addition, the Wsr test may be employed, if its underlying assumptions can be met.

Hypothesis 1 To test hypothesis 1, the authors counted the number of QC articles in the Business Source Premier database for each year between 1977 and 1986. This was done by searching for the phrase “quality circle” in the default fields of Business Source Premier, using both peer-reviewed and nonpeer-reviewed articles. The results of this study, along with the results from Abrahamson (1996) in Figure 1, are combined in Figure 2. To measure the degree of similarity between the two distributions, the Kgf test was used. This test measures the degree of similarity between two distributions, providing exact results and confidence levels, even when the samples are small (Conover 1980). In addition, the Kgf test is the least restrictive in terms of assumptions, only requiring that the two distributions be random. The authors contend that the two distributions being compared — the first from ABI-Inform and the other from Business Source Premier — are random distributions, in that the number of articles published each year has no bearing on the number of articles published in the next year. To assess the degree of similarity between two distributions, the Kgf test employs the cumulative relative frequency (crf) of each distribution, then calculates a test statistic based on the largest vertical distance between the two crfs. The two distributions

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM Figure 3 Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test (ABI-Inform vs. Business Source Premier). 1.0000 0.8000 0.6000 0.4000 0.2000 0.0000 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 Year Bus Src Prem ABI-Inform

are considered similar at the given probability level if the maximum vertical distance is not significant. In using the Kgf test, the null hypothesis assumes that two distributions are equal. Therefore, the p-value indicates the probability at which the two distributions are equal, so a higher p-value is desired. The results of the Kgf test are summarized in Figure 3. For the two distributions shown in Figure 3, the largest distance separating their crfs occurs in 1982, where the difference is .1967 (that is, test statistic is .1967). This test statistic, when compared with the Kolmogorov Two-Sided Test Statistic of 0.489 for a sample of 10 (Conover 1980, Table A14), reveals that the two distributions are similar at a significance level corresponding to α = .01 and .05, thereby supporting the authors’ hypothesis that Business Source Premier is substitutable for ABI-Inform. The Wsr test may have applicability as well, but several more assumptions must be met before it can be used (Conover 1980). Specifically, each distribution must be symmetric, be mutually independent, have the same median, and have measurement scales that are at least interval. The authors contend that two requirements—that the distributions are mutually independent and both have interval measurement scales—are valid. Another assumption, that the two distributions have the same median, has support as well. When calculating the median for a distribution with an even number of observations, the halfway point between the two values that flank the median is typically used. However, any point between the two

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values would be correct as well (Becker 1995). The medians for the ABI-Inform and Business Source Premier distributions calculate at 18.5 and 15.5, respectively. However, the median for ABI-Inform could in fact be equal to the median of Business Source Premier, as 15.5 lies between the fifth and sixth observations of ABI-Inform (that is, 12 and 25). The last assumption required by the Wsr test, that the two distributions be symmetric, is problematic, as the symmetry of the two distributions is debatable. Therefore, the Wsr test was calculated, but under the condition that one of its assumptions may not be supported. The Wsr test measures the similarity between two distributions by determining both the vertical difference between two points and the direction (positive or negative) of that difference. The differences are ranked and totaled, and this summation is then divided by the square root of the total squared ranks. This calculation in effect creates a T-statistic, which can be tested for significance using t distribution tables (hence the need for symmetric distributions). Results for the Wsr show the sum of the signed rank of differences by year, = 19.5, with the square root of the sum of squares test statistic (T) =

= 16.86, and = 1.1566. Using

a t distribution table, this indicates that the two distributions (that is, ABI-Inform and Business Source Premier) are similar at a significance level corresponding to α = .01 and .05. Since the Kgf test and Wsr test both confirm similarity between ABI-Inform and Business Source Premier at a significance level corresponding to α = .01 and .05, hypothesis 1 is supported. With hypothesis 1 supported, Business Source Premier can be used as the basis for confirming the Gibson and Tesone (2001) fad life-cycle stages as applied to TQM.

Hypotheses 2 and 3 The methodology for hypothesis 2 was identical to hypothesis 1, except that the key words “total quality management” were used in the search’s default fields. The resulting distribution is shown in Figure 4.

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM Figure 6 Number of TQM and Six Sigma articles in Business Source Premier, by year. 600

500

500

400

400 Count

600

300

300 200

100

100

0 81

84

87

90 93 Year

96

99

02

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Figure 5 Number of Six Sigma articles in Business Source Premier, by year. 200 150 100

0 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 Year

Figure 4 shows that the number of articles covering “total quality management” grew steadily until its peak in 1993-1994, and has seen a steady decline ever since. The authors contend that these results display adequate similarity to those proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001) in Table 2, as both studies found the peak for TQM to be within one year of each other. The authors previously found that Abrahamson (1996) and Gibson and Tesone (2001) achieved similar results for the QC management fad, because both identified the fad’s peak to be in the same time frame. In hypothesis 2, the Abrahamson (1996) methodology repeated for TQM and the Gibson and Tesone (2001) life-cycle stages for TQM show similarity as well. Gibson and Tesone (2001) posited that TQM grew in popularity until its peak in 1992-1993, whereas this study found the peak to be just one year

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50

0

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 Year Six Sigma TQM

later (1993-1994). Since the peak for TQM was found to be in the same time frame in both studies, the authors contend that hypothesis 2 is supported. For hypothesis 3, the methodology from hypotheses 1 and 2 was repeated, but the phrase “Six Sigma” was used to search in the default fields of Business Source Premier. The results of this search are shown in Figure 5, which shows that the number of articles covering Six Sigma remained flat until 1997, but has increased steadily each year since then. This increase indicates that Six Sigma is still in stage 2 (wild acceptance) of the fad life cycle as proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001). It is not clear from Figure 5, however, if Six Sigma has reached stage 3 (digestion), which marks the peak of the fad’s popularity. This may be the case, as several firms that have implemented Six Sigma are now experiencing financial difficulty (Philips and Kampmeier 2002). In addition, a number of recent articles openly question the effectiveness of Six Sigma (Clifford 2001; Costanzo 2002; Dangleish 2003). These events by themselves, however, are not sufficient to declare that Six Sigma is in stage 3 (digestion) and therefore has reached its peak as a management fad. To better gauge how close Six Sigma is to stage 3, this study extends analogy forecasting to management philosophies, by predicting the life cycle of Six Sigma based on the life cycle of TQM. Therefore, the results of Figures 4 and 5 are combined, and shown as Figure 6.

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Figure 4 Number of TQM articles in Business Source Premier, by year.

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM of stage 4, forecasted to occur in about seven years, only the hard-core supporters of Six Sigma (stage 5) will remain.

Figure 7 Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test (Six Sigma vs. TQM). 1

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Year Six Sigma TQM

Figure 6 demonstrates that, at least for the first 12 years of both philosophies, the life cycles of Six Sigma and TQM appear to be similar. As in hypothesis 1, the Kgf test was employed to assess the degree of similarity between the two distributions. In order to calculate the Kgf test statistic, the distributions shown in Figure 6 were converted to cumulative relative frequencies (crf), and shown in Figure 7. The largest vertical distance separating the two crfs was calculated to be .1436, which occurs in year ten. This indicates that the two plots in Figure 7 (that is, Six Sigma and TQM) are similar at a significance level corresponding to α = .01 and .05, as .1436 is less than the Komogorov Two-Sided Test Statistic for a sample of twelve (.449 and .375, respectively) (Conover 1980, Table A14). The second test, the Wsr test, could not be administered, as the plots for the first twelve years are clearly not symmetric. Nonetheless, based on the results of the Kgf test, the distributions of Six Sigma and TQM are significantly similar, and hypothesis 3 is supported. Therefore, because of the similarity between Six Sigma and TQM, analogy forecasting can be used to propose a forecast for the remainder of Six Sigma’s life cycle. Using analogy forecasting and prior fad life cycles as proposed by Gibson and Tesone (2001), the authors forecast that Six Sigma will likely reach its peak as a management fad in two years. This peak (stage 3) will be immediately followed by stage 4 (disillusionment), and based on Gibson and Tesone (2001), will last approximately four to five years. At the conclusion

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Management fads, like consumer fads, generate substantial interest in a short period, and then seem to disappear. For this reason, many managers view fads as something to be tolerated, or even worse, ignored. This line of reasoning, however, is flawed and shortsighted, as management fads can and do change the organization for the better. Management fads can help the organization by becoming a mainstream best practice, adding to the firm’s absorptive capacity and helping the company’s image. Management fads, when successful, disappear from view because they have become part of good, mainstream management practice. Two examples include management by objective (MBO) and QCs (Gibson and Tesone 2001). Prior to MBO, goals were set at the top and then forced down through the organization. MBO represented a radical departure from previous practices, and though it gets little attention today, MBO has been incorporated into today’s corporate best practices. Similarly, QCs may have been a fad, but live on in today’s self-managed work teams, which are hallmarks of the most progressive companies. Even when management fads don’t work out as planned, they still benefit the organization by adding to the firm’s collective knowledge. This collective knowledge allows firms to learn new ideas and methods more efficiently in the future. Indeed, fads often build upon prior fads, and the investment in prior learning pays off by lowering the learning curve to the next fad. In addition, firms are viewed as more progressive when they have adopted a progressive management, especially when it is early in its life cycle. The results of this study will help managers understand where Six Sigma is in its life cycle. Regardless of the stage a company is in the Six Sigma implementation strategy, the results of the study could have far-reaching implications in several ways.

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM First, for firms that have not yet adopted Six Sigma, the authors’ results may provide some advantage for them, especially with regard to training costs. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Six Sigma is the “belt” training program, which can be very expensive (Dusharme 2001; Friedman and Gitlow 2002). One reason that costs may be so high is simple economics—demand exceeds supply, because Six Sigma is still in the wild acceptance stage. However, if the fad peaks in two years as predicted, then demand will likely diminish for training, which should result in lower training costs for the client company. Even when management fads don’t work out as planned, they still benefit the organization by adding to the firm’s collective knowledge. This collective knowledge allows firms to learn new ideas and methods more efficiently in the future. If the nonadopting firm has previously implemented TQM, then it may be prudent to determine what benefit is expected from Six Sigma, since this study found substantial similarity between the two. Conversely, if the organization has not previously implemented TQM, then managers may need to assess their ability to leapfrog to Six Sigma without first investing in TQM. Second, for firms that have already adopted Six Sigma, these results indicate that something new will be arriving soon. Indeed, Abrahamson and Fairchild (1999) have aptly demonstrated how the decline of one fad precipitates the rise of the next. For example, the decline of QCs coincided with the rise of TQM. Therefore, firms with Six Sigma knowledge and experiences will be better able to “catch the next wave.” However, adopting managers may need to assess their current Six Sigma program. If Six Sigma is not delivering results as expected, then managers may be able to look to prior programs (that is, TQM) for guidance. For example, successful TQM implementations were highly dependent on senior management support (Bandyopadhyay and Sprague 2003; Taylor

and Wright 2003; Yong and Wilkinson 2002), and the effort required to initiate TQM was very different from the effort required to maintain TQM (Bullington et al. 2002). If necessary, Six Sigma consultants are still widely available to help, since it is still in the wild acceptance stage. Once Six Sigma moves too far beyond its peak, however, consultants will be much more difficult to find. As evidence, the number of TQM consultants available today is dwarfed by the number of Six Sigma consultants. In closing, it is difficult to imagine any organization that has not incorporated some aspect of TQM into its mainstream management practices, whether or not it considered TQM to be a management fad. Even though Six Sigma appears analogous to TQM, it most certainly has something to offer the adopting firm. Therefore, all firms, whether they’ve adopted Six Sigma or not, would be wise to assess what Six Sigma has to offer, and then be aware that the next management philosophy may be just around the corner.

CONCLUSION The findings of this research may be significant on several fronts. First, these findings confirm the methodology by Abrahamson (1996) in measuring the life cycle of QC. This study found a high degree of similarity between Business Source Premier and ABI-Inform as sources of data with regard to the number of articles published by year. Second, this study largely confirms Gibson and Tesone (2001) regarding the TQM life cycle, as the peak years in both studies were nearly identical. Third, this study found a high degree of similarity between the life cycles of TQM and Six Sigma, as they exist thus far. Finally, using analogy forecasting, a forecast for the remaining life cycle of Six Sigma can be offered, based on the similarity of its main tenets and its current life cycle to TQM. This study does, however, have several limitations, which should be noted. First, the creation of any forecast is necessarily fraught with risk, as the authors are seeking to predict an unknown future. Analogy forecasting allows one to create a forecast for one

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM phenomenon if it is sufficiently analogous to another. While this study found significant similarity between Six Sigma and TQM, there is no guarantee that their futures will be identical simply because their pasts are similar. It deserves repeating that even though a management philosophy may be considered a fad, this does not diminish its usefulness to the organization. For example, even though TQM may be a management fad that is well past its peak, there still is a substantial amount of interest in the subject. In 2002, more than 200 articles were written on the subject of TQM, 10 years after its peak. This indicates that long after its peak, a management fad may still have significant impact on an organization. Therefore, even if Six Sigma is nearing stage 3, it will likely deliver positive benefits long after its popularity has peaked with the business community. Furthermore, given the qualityconscious nature of the average consumer, even if Six Sigma as it is known today should cease to exist, similar management fads, or even a “morphing” of Six Sigma itself, will evolve to take its place. Analogy forecasting allows one to create a forecast for one phenomenon if it is sufficiently analogous to another. While this study found significant similarity between Six Sigma and TQM, there is no guarantee that their futures will be identical simply because their pasts are similar. The “morphing” of management methodologies over time would be an interesting area for further research. For example, Six Sigma as originally implemented at Motorola in the late 1980s is much different from the Six Sigma being implemented by firms around the world today. These changes in the philosophy itself may make the philosophy more adoptable to more organizations, and, thus, it is the morphing of the philosophy (and not the philosophy itself) that accounts for changes in adoption rates. In conclusion, there appears to be ample evidence that Six Sigma and TQM have much in common, not

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only in the their main tenets, but in how closely their life cycles track each other. This study found significant similarity between the distributions of articles on each philosophy, and offered a forecast for the life cycle of Six Sigma. Based on the results of this study, it appears that Six Sigma is in the latter years of stage 2 (wild acceptance) and will likely reach its peak in popularity (stage 3) within two years. Following this peak, Six Sigma will then experience disillusionment (stage 4) for four to five years, such that in seven years, only the hard-core supporters (stage 5) will actively pursue Six Sigma. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. Michael Hu, whose guidance with the statistical analysis is much appreciated.

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Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM New Straits Times-Management Times. 2003. Six Sigma: The new corporate buzzword. (March 5). Pande, P. S, R. P. Neuman, and R. R. Cavanagh. 2000. The Six Sigma way: How GE, Motorola and other top companies are honing their performance. New York: McGraw-Hill. Philips, E. J., and C. Kampmeier. 2002. Book Review: Six Sigma: The breakthrough management strategy revolutionizing the world’s top corporations. Consulting to Management — C2M 13, no. 4: 57-59. Powell, T. C. 1995. Total quality management as competitive advantage: A review and empirical study. Strategic Management Journal (January): 15-37. Szwergold, J. 1992. Why most quality efforts fail. Management Review (August): 5. Taylor, W. A., and G. H. Wright. 2003. A longitudinal study of TQM implementation: Factors influencing success and failure. Omega (April): 141-154. Williams, T. 2003. Six Sigma is legit. Quality (March): 6. Yong, J., and A. Wilkinson. 2002. The long and winding road: The evolution of quality management. Total Quality Management (January): 101-121.

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BIOGRAPHIES Richard J. Goeke is a teaching fellow in the College of Business Administration at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. His teaching and research interests focus on issues germane to large corporations, including quality management, R&D management, information systems, and human resources. Previously, Goeke worked 17 years in industry, where he was a member of numerous quality improvement teams in retail, accounting, and information systems. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. O. Felix Offodile is a professor in the Management & Information Systems Department at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He received his doctorate in industrial engineering from Texas Tech University, and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on a wide range of manufacturing and quality topics, including quality and cost control. Offodile has been a process and quality consultant to industry, and his research interests continue to focus on issues related to manufacturing and quality management. His research has been published in such journals as Technometrics, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Omega, and International Journal of Management Science. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].