IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jadmsc/v10y2020i2p32-d361184.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Have the Reports of TQM’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated? A Re-Examination of the Concept’s Historical Popularity Trajectory

Author

Listed:
  • Dag Øivind Madsen

    (Department of Business, Marketing and Law, School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bredalsveien 14, 3511 Hønefoss, Norway)

Abstract

There is a vast literature on Total Quality Management (TQM), one of the most influential management concepts introduced during the twentieth century. In the TQM literature, there are multiple conflicting views on TQM’s historical popularity trajectory. In the past, commentators have debated whether TQM represents a lasting trend, or instead should be considered a more short-lived management fad or fashion. Since the 1990s, skeptics have speculated about the imminent fall, death, and burial of TQM, and even delivered eulogies. However, others claim that the level of interest has picked back up and that TQM is alive and well. Therefore, this paper attempts to synthesize and reconcile these differing views on the long-term trajectory of TQM and provide an updated picture and status report, taking into account the latest findings and developments in research and practice. The evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that, even though TQM has become much less noticeable in public management discourse compared to the heydays of the 1980s and 1990s, the concept has persisted and even to this day remains widely used by organizations worldwide.

Suggested Citation

  • Dag Øivind Madsen, 2020. "Have the Reports of TQM’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated? A Re-Examination of the Concept’s Historical Popularity Trajectory," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:10:y:2020:i:2:p:32-:d:361184
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/10/2/32/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/10/2/32/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hélène Giroux, 2006. "‘It Was Such a Handy Term’: Management Fashions and Pragmatic Ambiguity," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(6), pages 1227-1260, September.
    2. Thomas C. Powell, 1995. "Total quality management as competitive advantage: A review and empirical study," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 15-37.
    3. Easton, George S & Jarrell, Sherry L, 1998. "The Effects of Total Quality Management on Corporate Performance: An Empirical Investigation," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(2), pages 253-307, April.
    4. Bjarne Bergquist & Henrik Eriksson & Rickard Garvare & Jacob Hallencreutz & Jostein Langstrand & Erik Vanhatalo & Thomas Zobel, 2012. "Alive and kicking–but will Quality Management be around tomorrow? A Swedish academia perspective," Quality Innovation Prosperity, Technical University of Košice, Department of integrated management, vol. 16(2).
    5. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    6. Lis Lisboa Bernardino & Francisco Teixeira & Abel Ribeiro de Jesus & Ava Barbosa & Maurício Lordelo & Herman Augusto Lepikson, 2016. "After 20 years, what has remained of TQM?," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 65(3), pages 378-400, March.
    7. Jung, Dong-II & Lee, Won-Hee, 2016. "Crossing the management fashion border: The adoption of business process reengineering services by management consultants offering total quality management services in the United States, 1992–2004," Journal of Management & Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(5), pages 702-719, September.
    8. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz, 2015. "Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(11), pages 2215-2222, November.
    9. Natcha Thawesaengskulthai & James Tannock, 2008. "Fashion Setting in Quality Management and Continuous Improvement," International Studies of Management & Organization, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 5-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dag Øivind Madsen & Daniel Johanson, 2016. "Examining customer relationship management from a management fashion perspective," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1161285-116, December.
    2. Charles J. Corbett & María J. Montes-Sancho & David A. Kirsch, 2005. "The Financial Impact of ISO 9000 Certification in the United States: An Empirical Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1046-1059, July.
    3. Yaser Mansour Almansour, 2015. "The Impact of Total Quality Management Components on Firms Performance," International Journal of Management Sciences, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 6(8), pages 384-394.
    4. Sadikoglu, Esin & Zehir, Cemal, 2010. "Investigating the effects of innovation and employee performance on the relationship between total quality management practices and firm performance: An empirical study of Turkish firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 13-26, September.
    5. Lilian DE MENEZES & Garry GELADE & Stephen WOOD, 2008. "A Longitudinal Study of the Latent Class Clusters of Modern Management Practices and their Association with Organizational Performance in British Manufacturing," EcoMod2008 23800028, EcoMod.
    6. Dag Øivind Madsen, 2020. "The Evolutionary Trajectory of the Agile Concept Viewed from a Management Fashion Perspective," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-22, May.
    7. Lanzenauer, Christoph Haehling von & Huesmann, Monika, 2002. "Der Ausbreitungsprozess des Managementinstrumentes TQM," Discussion Papers 2002/22, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    8. Martinez-Costa, Micaela & Martinez-Lorente, Angel R. & Choi, Thomas Y., 2008. "Simultaneous consideration of TQM and ISO 9000 on performance and motivation: An empirical study of Spanish companies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 23-39, May.
    9. Juan L. Nicolau & Ricardo Sellers, 2011. "The Effect of Quality on Hotel Risk," Tourism Economics, , vol. 17(1), pages 39-52, February.
    10. Ghobadian, A. & Gallear, D., 2001. "TQM implementation: an empirical examination and proposed generic model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 343-359, August.
    11. Khor Saw Chin* & Saudah Sofian & Oh Yit Leng, 2018. "The Impact of Total Quality Management on Corporate Performance in Malaysian Public Listed Companies," The Journal of Social Sciences Research, Academic Research Publishing Group, pages 22-30:2.
    12. Vera Ferrón Vílchez & Nicole Darnall, 2016. "Two are Better Than One: The Link Between Management Systems and Business Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 221-240, May.
    13. Iqbal, Anam & Asrar-ul-Haq, Muhammad, 2018. "Establishing relationship between TQM practices and employee performance: The mediating role of change readiness," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 62-68.
    14. Conca, Francisco Jose & Llopis, Juan & Tari, Juan Jose, 2004. "Development of a measure to assess quality management in certified firms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(3), pages 683-697, August.
    15. Tari, Juan Jose & Sabater, Vicente, 2004. "Quality tools and techniques: Are they necessary for quality management?," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 267-280, December.
    16. Corredor, Pilar & Goñi, Salomé, 2011. "TQM and performance: Is the relationship so obvious?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 830-838, August.
    17. Nicolau, Juan Luis & Sellers, Ricardo, 2010. "The quality of quality awards: Diminishing information asymmetries in a hotel chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 832-839, August.
    18. Gordana Pejović & Jovan Filipović & Ljiljana Tasić & Valentina Marinković, 2016. "Towards medicines regulatory authorities' quality performance improvement: value for public health," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 22-40, January.
    19. Ana Kundid Novokmet & Andrijana Rogošiæ, 2017. "Long-Term Financial Effects of Quality Management System Maturity Based on ISO 9001 Principles," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(S11), pages 1003-1003.
    20. Nicolau, Juan Luis & Sellers, Ricardo, 2002. "The stock market's reaction to quality certification: Empirical evidence from Spain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 632-641, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:10:y:2020:i:2:p:32-:d:361184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.