Fashion Setting in Quality Management and Continuous Improvement

Natcha Thawesaengskulthai and James Tannock

International Studies of Management & Organization, 2008, vol. 38, issue 2, 5-24

Abstract: The area of business improvement is particularly prone to the emergence of management fashions. This paper contributes to the understanding of this phenomenon, supported by empirical evidence concerning quality management (QM) and continuous improvement (CI) initiatives. Quantitative evidence of the trends of academic and management discourse on these themes is presented, based on annual publication numbers for a range of important QM and CI approaches. These trends in QM and CI initiatives from the literature are then compared with reported industrial practice, using data from an international company survey conducted by Bain and Company over several years. A quantitative comparison of publication trends with this usage data shows that publication and usage trends appear to resemble each other, but industrial usage tends to lag behind academic discussion and may endure after the latter declines. The article concludes by discussing how these facts help to explain fashions in QM and CI approaches and suggests that dissemination effects are important to global developments in these fields.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.2753/IMO0020-8825380201

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