Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 34
Forecasting Management Philosophy
Life Cycles: A Comparative Study
of Six Sigma and TQM
RICHARD J. GOEKE AND O. FELIX OFFODILE, KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
Six Sigma has been implemented at many organiza-
tions, 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 manage-
ment (TQM), which was labeled by many as a man-
agement 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
34 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ
© 2005, ASQ
INTRODUCTION
A relatively recent management philosophy, Six Sigma
has drawn intense interest from the business commu-
nity. 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, how-
ever, is shortsighted, as management fads usually cre-
ate 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 prac-
tice (Gibson and Tesone 2001). In addition, manage-
ment 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 consid-
ered more progressive than their later-adopting peers
(Carson et al. 1999; Gibson and Tesone 2001).
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 35
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 inter-
est 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 spot-
light, especially when the fad succeeds and becomes
part of mainstream management practice. However,
the number of publications is one of the most quan-
tifiable 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 observ-
ing 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 tech-
nology 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 philoso-
phies, 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 suffi-
ciently 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 opera-
tions, 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).
www.asq.org 35
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 36

Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM

Table 1 Comparison of Six Sigma to TQM.

improvement the primary goal of each project. This
represents a significant departure from TQM, as the
Item Six Sigma TQM
authors have found nothing in the TQM literature
Customer focus √ √ requiring a certain level of profit improvement from
Process focus √ √
each project.
Despite the difference TQM and Six Sigma place on
Management by fact √ √ profit improvement, the two philosophies do have many
Collaboration √ √ common themes. Therefore, based on the literature
review, it appears that as a management philosophy,
Organizational learning √ √
Six Sigma is analogous to TQM.
Profitability focus √

“Better is cheaper”

Benchmarking
√

√
√

√
© 2005, ASQ
“Hidden factory” √ √
Quality in service economy √ √
Based on the previous comparison, it appears that
the basic tenets of the two management philosophies
have much in common. Auxiliary concepts men-
tioned 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
Management Philosophies as Fads
Carson et al. (1999) describes management fads as
“managerial interventions, which appear to be inno-
vative, rational, and functional and are aimed at
encouraging better organizational performance.”
Abrahamson (1996) equated the term fad with fash-
ion, and defines management fashion as “a relatively
transitory collective belief, disseminated by manage-
ment fashion setters, that a management technique
leads rational management progress.” Due in part to
their temporary nature and limited lives, manage-
ment 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, compre-
hensive 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

36 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ

Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 37
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 necessar-
ily 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 influ-
ences 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 num-
ber 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) disil-
lusionment, 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 com-
munity. 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 pre-
senting 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, dis-
illusionment, 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 self-
reported 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 disillu-
sionment lasted four to five years.
Separately, Abrahamson (1996) viewed manage-
ment fads as fashions, and sought to determine how
management fashion arose, who were the fashion set-
ters and followers, and whether management fashions
www.asq.org 37
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 38

Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM

Table 2 Life cycle stages of the TQM and Figure 1 Number of quality circle articles in
QC fads (Gibson and Tesone 2001). ABI-Inform, by year (Abrahamson 1996).
Stage TQM QC 50
Discovery 1950-1971 1977-1979 40

Number of Articles
Wild acceptance 1971-1991 1979-1981
30
Digestion 1992-1993 1981-1982
20

© 2005, ASQ
Disillusionment 1993-1996 1982-1986
10
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 ABI-
Inform 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
© 2005, ASQ
0
77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Year
based upon the known history of an existing technol-
ogy, 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

38 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ

Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 39
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 distri-
bution 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) sup-
port 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 pro-
posed by Gibson and Tesone (2001) in Table 2.
Therefore, hypothesis 2 is:
H2: There is adequate agreement between the distri-
bution 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
Count
20
10
0
© 2005, ASQ
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 distri-
butions, providing exact results and confidence lev-
els, 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 dis-
tributions 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
www.asq.org 39
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 40
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
Cumulative Relative Freq
0.8000
0.6000
0.4000
0.2000
0.0000
© 2005, ASQ
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 distribu-
tions 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 distribu-
tion 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 mutu-
ally 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
40 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ
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 sym-
metry 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 differ-
ence 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 = 16.86, and
test statistic (T) = = 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 similar-
ity 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.
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 41

Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM

Figure 4 Number of TQM articles in Business Figure 6 Number of TQM and Six Sigma articles
Source Premier, by year. in Business Source Premier, by year.

600 600
500 500
400 400

Count
Count

300 300

200 200

100 100

© 2005, ASQ
0 0

© 2005, ASQ
81 84 87 90 93 96 99 02 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21
Year Year
Six Sigma TQM

Figure 5 Number of Six Sigma articles in

later (1993-1994). Since the peak for TQM was found
Business Source Premier, by year.
to be in the same time frame in both studies, the
200 authors contend that hypothesis 2 is supported.
For hypothesis 3, the methodology from hypothe-
150 ses 1 and 2 was repeated, but the phrase “Six Sigma”
was used to search in the default fields of Business
Count

100 Source Premier. The results of this search are shown

in Figure 5, which shows that the number of articles
50 covering Six Sigma remained flat until 1997, but has
increased steadily each year since then. This increase
© 2005, ASQ

0 indicates that Six Sigma is still in stage 2 (wild

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 simi-
lar 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) methodolo-
gy 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
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 (diges-
tion), 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 finan-
cial 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 suffi-
cient 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 manage-
ment 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.

www.asq.org 41
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 42
Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM
Figure 7 Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test
(Six Sigma vs. TQM).
1
Cumulative Relative Freq
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 disappear. For this reason, many managers view fads
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
© 2005, ASQ
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 (disillusion-
ment), and based on Gibson and Tesone (2001), will
last approximately four to five years. At the conclusion
42 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ
of stage 4, forecasted to occur in about seven years,
only the hard-core supporters of Six Sigma (stage 5)
will remain.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
OF THE STUDY
Management fads, like consumer fads, generate sub-
stantial interest in a short period, and then seem to
as something to be tolerated, or even worse, ignored.
This line of reasoning, however, is flawed and short-
sighted, 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, main-
stream 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, espe-
cially 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.
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 43
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” train-
ing 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 imple-
mented 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 experi-
ences 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 implementa-
tions 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 organiza-
tion 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 fore-
cast 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
www.asq.org 43
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 44
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 manage-
ment 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 quality-
conscious 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
44 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ
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.
REFERENCES
Abrahamson, E. 1996. Management fashion. Academy of
Management Review 21, no. 1: 254-285.
Abrahamson, E., and G. Fairchild. 1999. Management fashion:
Lifecycles, triggers, and collective learning processes.
Administrative Science Quarterly 44, no. 4: 708-740.
Agus, A. 2001. A linear structural modeling of total quality man-
agement practices in manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Total
Quality Management (August): 561-573.
Agus, A., and M. Abdullah. 2000. The mediating effect of cus-
tomer satisfaction on TQM practices and financial performance.
Singapore Management Review 22, no. 2: 55-73.
Agus, A., and R. M. Sagir. 2001. The structural relationships
between total quality management, competitive advantage and
bottom line financial performance: An empirical study of
Malaysian manufacturing companies. Total Quality Management
(December): 1018-1024.
Bandyopadhyay, J. K., and D. A. Sprague. 2003. Total quality
management in an automotive supply chain in the United States.
International Journal of Management 20, no. 1: 17-22.
Bass, F. M., K. Gordon, and M. L. Githens. 2001. DirectTV:
Forecasting diffusion of a new technology prior to market launch.
Interfaces 31, no. 3: 82-93.
Becker, W. E. 1995. Statistics for business and economics.
Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing.
Bullington, S. F., J. Y. Easley, A. G. Greenwood, and K. E.
Bullington. 2002. Success factors in initiating versus maintaining
a quality improvement process. Engineering Management
Journal 14, no. 3: 8-14.
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 45
Forecasting Management Philosophy Life Cycles: A Comparative Study of Six Sigma and TQM
Carson, P. P., P. A. Lanier, K. D. Carson, and B. J. Berkenmeier.
1999. An historical perspective on fad adoption and abandon-
ment: developing theory from the management fad jungle.
Journal of Management History (May): 320-333.
Choi, T. Y., and O. C. Behling. 1997. Top managers and TQM
success: One more look after all these years. Academy of
Management Executive 11, no. 1: 37-47.
Clifford, L. 2001. Why you can safely ignore Six Sigma. Fortune
(January 22): 140.
Cohen, W. M., and D. A. Levinthal. 1990. Absorptive capacity:
A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative
Science Quarterly 35, no. 1: 128-152.
Conover, W. J. 1980. Practical nonparametric statistics, 2nd edi-
tion. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Costanzo, C. 2002. Celebrated Six Sigma has its critics, too.
American Banker (August 28): 1-2.
Crosby, P. B. 1979. Quality is free. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Dangleish, S. 2003. Six Sigma? No thanks. Quality (April): 22.
Douglas, T. J., and W. Q. Judge, Jr. 2001. Total quality manage-
ment implementation and competitive advantage: The role of
structural control and exploration. Academy of Management
Journal 44, no. 1: 158-169.
Dusharme, D. 2001. Six Sigma survey: Breaking through the Six
Sigma hype. Quality Digest. See URL: www.qualitydigest.com
/nov01/html/sixsigmaarticle.html.
The Economist. 1992. The cracks in quality. (April 18): 67-68.
Elliot, M. 2003. A quality world, a quality life. Industrial
Engineer (January): 26-33.
Ernst and Young and American Quality Foundation. 1992.
International quality study: The definitive study of the best interna-
tional quality management practices, top-line findings. Cleveland.
Eskildson, L. 1994. Improving the odds of TQM’s success. Quality
Progress (April): 61-63.
Ettorre, B. 1997. What’s the next business buzzword.
Management Review (September): 33-35.
Feigenbaum, A. V. 1983. Total quality control. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Fichman, R. G. 2004. Going beyond the dominant research par-
adigm for information technology innovation research: Emerging
concepts and methods. Journal of the Association for Information
Systems 5, no. 8: 314-355.
Friedman, M., and H. Gitlow. 2002. Six Sigma for CPAs. The
CPA Journal (November): 56-59.
Fuchsberg, G. 1992. Quality programs show shoddy results.
Wall Street Journal, May 14, B1.
Gehani, R. R. 1993. Quality value-chain: A meta synthesis of
frontiers of quality movement. Academy of Management
Executive 7, no. 2: 29-42.
Gibson, J. W., and D. V. Tesone. 2001. Management fads:
Emergence, evolution, and implications for managers. Academy
of Management Executive 15, no. 4: 122-133.
Greising, D. 1994. Quality: How to make it pay. Business Week
(August 8): 54-59.
Harry, M., and R. Schroeder. 2000. Six Sigma: The breakthrough
management strategy revolutionizing the world’s top corpora-
tions. New York: Currency/Doubleday.
Hendricks, K. B., and V. R. Singhal. 1997. Does implementing an
effective TQM program actually improve operating performance?
Empirical evidence from firms that have won quality awards.
Management Science (September): 1258-1274.
Hart, C. W. L., and C. E. Bogan. 1992. The Baldrige. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Ishikawa. K. 1985. What is total quality control? Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Jacob, R. 1993. TQM: More than a dying fad? Fortune (October
18): 66-72.
Johnson, A., and B. Swisher. 2003. How Six Sigma improves
R&D. Research Technology Management (March/April): 12-15.
Juran, J. M. 1951. Quality control handbook. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Kaiser, M. J., D. V. Mesyanzhinov, and A. G. Pulsipher. 2004. Long-
term infrastructure forecasting in the Gulf of Mexico: a decision- and
resource-based approach. Energy Policy 32, no. 10: 1209-1224.
Kujala, J., and P. Lillrank. 2004. Total quality management as a cul-
tural phenomenon. Quality Management Journal 11, no. 4: 43-55.
Lemak, D. J., and R. Reed. 1997. Commitment to total quality
management: Is there a relationship with firm performance?
Journal of Quality Management 2, no. 1: 67-86.
Mathews, J., and P. Katel. 1992. The cost of quality: faced with
hard times, business sours on total quality management.
Newsweek (July 6): 48-49.
Martino, J. P. 1983. Technological forecasting for decision mak-
ing. New York: Elsevier Science Publishing.
Mendes, A. B., and I. H. Themido. 2004. Multi-outlet retail site
location assessment, International Transactions in Operational
Research 11, no. 1: 1-18.
Miller, D., and J. Hartwick. 2002. Spotting management fads.
Harvard Business Review (October): 26-27.
NIST. 1996. Study finds ‘quality stocks’ yield big payoff.
National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department
of Commerce.
www.asq.org 45
Goeke 3/23/05 10:15 AM Page 46
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.
46 QMJ VOL. 12, NO. 2/© 2005, ASQ
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 corpora-
tions, including quality management, R&D management, informa-
tion 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 rgoeke@kent.edu.
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 foffodil@bsa3.kent.edu.