مد روز، مد و تناسب : بررسی ای بر حلقه های کیفیت، مهندسی مجدد فرآیند کسب و کار و کنترل آماری فرآیندها

This paper reports the major findings of a literature-based study which has examined the extent or otherwise to which quality circles (QCs), business process re-engineering (BPR) and statistical process control (SPC) follow the path of fad, fashion and fit. The findings indicate that QCs exhibit boundary conditions between the fad and fashion stages, BPR is in the fad phase, and it was difficult to position SPC using the methodology employed in the study. In tracking the development of management initiatives, from fad through fashion to fit the literature was evaluated using the six-stage model developed by Van der Wiele (Beyond Fads, Eburon, Rotterdam, 1998); however, some difficulties were encountered due to the lack of definition precision, in particular that of fashion. The methodology used to assess the literature in terms of the degree to which the paper describing each initiative represented fad, fashion or fit conditions was relatively successful and this is detailed.

The subject of management fads is well covered in the literature with typical definitions put forward by authors such as Cole [1], Huczynski [2] and Kieser [3]. Amongst those authors there is good agreement that the definition of a fad is: normally a new idea; it is developed in a vague and previously undefined area; and about what its users are initially enthusiastic about, albeit they can quickly lose interest if it turns out not to be as successful as envisaged at the outset. Van der Wiele [4] explores many characteristics of fads, pointing out that “(i) fads can develop in an area of activity which is not well defined, (ii) most fads are not really new ideas, but old ideas translated into new words within a modern context and (iii) fads come to attention very quickly”. Bleckley [5], Byrne [6], Cole [1] and Shapiro [7] have all examined the trends of fads and their impact on an organisation and its management. For example, Cole [1] regards fads as “costly distractions and a panic response to a crisis that prevent managers from concentrating on running their business”. A management fashion is less well defined than a fad, and only Kieser [3] and Robinson [8] from the literature examined have attempted definitions. Robinson's definition – “fashion in its most general sense is the pursuit of novelty for its own sake” – implies something which is new with knowledge of it being restricted, and is very similar to the definition of a fad. Authors such as Cole [1] and Abrahamson [9] in examining trends tend not to distinguish between fads and fashions. Also some of the management activities (e.g. Quality Circles and Business Process Re-engineering) identified by Kieser [3] as fashions were considered as fads by authors such as Bleckley [5], Cole [1], Haari [10] and Kinnell [11]. It is clear from this that both fads and fashions are temporary phases. The organisation passes onto the next one or the fad/fashion dies and is subsequently discarded. Management is always facing problems for which there are no easy solutions and therefore anyone willing to think/talk about possible new ideas for solutions is received with interest. However, there is often no detail about the conditions which are necessary for success and about what specific situations the idea is relevant. In short, the fad is a panacea for everything. Fashion takes the idea a step further and is totally different. The cost of adapting a fashion is much greater than with a fad. The organisation moves into changing behaviour which involves time, money and effort. So an organisation will not move into a fashion unless there is good reason to do so. Normally the organisation will try it out first as a pilot, see what it looks like and then go for full implementation. Learning through their own and others experience is important in this process. For example, the organisation needs to decide in detail why, when, how and in what specific situation the new fashion might be relevant because the move to change behaviour is costly and full of risk. It should also be noted that the adoption of a fashion is often associated with particular powerful people (e.g. the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)). Only one definition of fit (i.e. Kristof [12]) from the management literature was identified, and the relevance of this definition within the context of the fad, fashion and fit methodology is questionable. Kristof [12], taking an organisational approach, defines the person–organisation (PO) fit as “The compatibility between people and the organisation that occurs when at least one entity provides what the other needs, or they share similar fundamental characteristics, or both”. There is various debate in the literature about what managers can do to promote a high level of PO fit. For example, Chan [13] disagrees with Kristof [12], Judge and Ferris [14], and Muchinsky and Monahan [15] in distinguishing PO fit from person–environment fits such as person–job and person–group, claiming that the boundaries are unclear in many studies. The literature, in general, concentrates on P–O fit rather than the fit of management activities within the organisation. Fit is never achieved without changing/adopting the fad/fashion to the organisation. It means that the organisation has changed: its routines; its standard operating procedures; its infrastructure support system (e.g. human resources, information, budgeting, costly reporting, etc.), and thus its organisation memory to sustain the activity/behavior. In other words if it becomes part of normal operating procedures then it fits. The amount of change required in these type of systems which a particular activity (e.g. quality circles, BPR, SPC, etc.) demands will depend upon on how much organisational change is involved between the activity and the previous situation. For example, quality circles demand lots of changes in these systems because the old state of many European and UK organisations was very different (e.g. individual instead of group reward systems, senior management not being assessed on group facilitation behaviour and, a lack of access for groups to management information). By way of a contrast, SPC might be more easily introduced with less deep changes needed in the current organisation systems. Van der Wiele [4], drawing on the work of Hesseling [16], has made a thorough investigation of quality management activities in terms of the path of fad, fashion and fit. He has put forward the following six-stage methodology for tracking this progression within an organisation: Stage 1: Within an organisation there will be a small number of people who will believe in the management initiative which is currently under scrutiny and they will endeavour to explain it to others and convince them that it is important to the future success of the organisation. Stage 2: The interest in the particular management initiative is spread to a wider group of people in the organisation. These two stages relate to the fad phase (i.e. a new idea is brought to the attention of a wide group of people). Stage 3: The initiative is implemented on a small scale. Stage 4: The presence of internal (e.g. head office dictate) and external forces (e.g. customers) results in the initiative being adopted wholesale by an organisation. These two stages relate to the fashion phase (i.e. the idea is implemented and adopted). Stage 5: Performance improvements related to the implementation of the initiative are realised. Stage 6: The practices underlying the initiative become incorporated into the organisation's operating procedures and everyday work activities. These two stages relate to the fit phase (i.e. the idea leads to performance improvement and has become “normal” business practice). The six stages described are not exclusive (e.g. one stage overlaps over and into the other). The essence of this model is that it takes place at the organisational level and can be considered as an organisational change model. According to Van der Wiele [4], when an organisation wants to move from the fad to the fashion phase “the organisation should be in a position to measure the benefits of the adopted management initiative and there should be sufficient internal motivation from both managers and staff”. He describes how, when an organisation has addressed the issues arising in stages 1–4, it will be ready to move into the fit phase and he claims that this is reached when a management initiative has become “normal practice” within the organisation, and “when long-term lasting performance improvements from its adaption are achieved”. The study on which this paper is based has three main objectives: Objective 1. To examine the extent to which quality circles (QCs), business process re-engineering (BP) and statistical process control (SPC) follow the path of fad, fashion and fit as defined by Van der Wiele's [4] six-stage methodology. The rationale for selecting these initiatives is now given. Various studies (e.g. [17]) have suggested that QCs are a fad in Western organisations. BPR is a relatively new concept popularised by the writings of Hammer [18] but within a relatively short period of time the literature (e.g. [19] and [20]) has started to suggest that it is a management fad. SPC has existed since the 1920s, based on the work of Shewhart [21], and the assumption is that it has become a fit within the normal business practices of an organisation. Objective 2. To determine if there are any differences from a business and academic perspective of what constitutes a fad, fashion or fit. Objective 3. To determine what events cause QCs, BPR and SPC to become a fad or fashion and the respective progress or not, as the case may be, to become a fit with normal business practices.

The findings indicate that: QCs are considered to be on the boundary between the fad and fashion phases; BPR is in the fad phase; and SPC is considered to be 50% a fad and 50% on the boundary between the fad and fashion phases. The main reasons underpinning these findings are: • the evidence found in the papers were related simply to the literature definition of a fad or fashion; • the papers contained evidence to support the fad stage, pertaining to stages 1 and 2 of Van der Wiele's [4] methodology; • authors writing about QC tended to concentrate on benefits/successes and problems/failures, which suggests that the QC concept has survived the fad phase but it has not yet fully moved to the fashion phase; • those writers who have produced papers on BPR have argued its position in relation to TQM and Information Technology and this suggests that they are still trying to convince others of the benefits which can be achieved by BPR, and its essential differences in comparison to other management methods; • the basic concept of SPC has existed for over 70 years and therefore in practical terms it could be argued that it is in a fit phase. However, the papers did not contain the necessary evidence in relation to Van der Wiele's [4] description of a fit stage and QCs and BPR have been in existence for a much shorter period of time than SPC and also the boundaries of these two concepts are perhaps more clearly defined than is the case with SPC. Papers on BPR and QCs tended to be written mainly by authors with a management background, equally distributed from a business and academic perspective whereas those on SPC contained a mix of technical, engineering and management authors and the papers tended to be biased to an industrial perspective. Reflecting these findings it should be said that there is a critical difference between the three techniques examined. Quality circles and SPC can keep on being repeated whereas BPR tends to be a one-off activity. It is not possible for an organisation to continue re-engineering its processes, so a fit condition cannot be expected with BPR because it is not repetitive. There was nothing in the papers examined to relate QC, BPR or SPC to the fit definition of Kristof [12] and there was little evidence in relation to stages 5 and 6 of Van der Wiele's [4] methodology. When there was success with either of the three management initiatives there was no evidence to suggest that the respective organisation was planning to improve or extend its development, and if other management activities were introduced then these would be just as successful. It was not possible to examine within the contents of the papers how these concepts had become normal practice within an organisation and were used in everyday work life. Based on the findings of this study, the six stages defined by Van der Wiele [4] cannot be used to examine historical management activities but the methodology can be used to recognise management initiatives. It makes little sense to say that management activities such as QCs and SPC are on the boundary between a fad and a fashion phase when they have been around for 20 and 70 years, respectively. Stages 3–6 (the fashion and fit stages) were too specific to evaluate the data obtained from the literature on QC, BPR and SPC. To facilitate this a column should be included in Table 1 to form a perception of “how often the management activity under study is used in everyday work”, and “the degree to which the activity is integrated into the business processes of the organisation”, thus providing improved evidence of whether or not the activity is in the fit phase. This form of historical analysis needs to be supported by empirical study. The view has been taken in the study that whether a management initiative is a fad, fashion or fit has to do with the properties of the object/product/service. This may only be half the story. Whether something is a fad, fashion or fit may be more a characteristic of the person than the product. Rogers and Kincaid [33] outline the concept of an S curve for the adoption of innovations. In the beginning a few people who like trying out new things adopt the new innovation (i.e. a fad). Then, their experience gets passed on to more people and this leads to a big expansion (i.e. it becomes a fashion). Finally, the remainder is virtually forced by the good experiences of everyone else to adopt the new innovation (i.e. a fit). Therefore, the dimensions implicit in the 6 stages have to do with two dimensions – the number of people involved and the time it takes before adoption. Fit probably only comes when powerful forces from outside agents insist on the adoption of a specific management initiative (e.g. the Ford Motor Company making it a contractual requirement that their suppliers provide statistical evidence of process capability). Another possible weakness with the six-stage approach is that stages 3 and 4 are classified as fashion; however, there is a major difference between them. For example, stage 3 is small-scale pilot type adoption and yet stage 4 means the management initiative has been adopted wholesale. In Rogers and Kincaid [33] terms, stage 3 is at the bottom of the S curve and stage 4 is at the top. There is therefore a case for splitting them and making stage 3 part of the fad dimension and stage 4 fashion. The Rogers S curve for the adoption of innovations tells us that tools and techniques like QCs, BPR and SPC will be adapted first by a small group of organisations who are always up in the front of innovations. Most organisations are hesitant to step into something new. So the techniques then spread slowly through the population as a word of mouth reflects organisations experience with them until the critical mass is reached and the slow trickle of adopters becomes a rush. Most companies will therefore wait until this point. If they have a simple way of measuring, such as we have devised in this paper, the stage at which a particular innovation is in, then it will be easier for them to decide whether or not they must adopt a particular innovation. They will be able to see clearer that it is becoming stuck in the fad or fashion mode and therefore maybe not worth the effort of adoption. A typical example currently would be the fad/fashion to set up business to business exchanges on the Net, and the rush to buy and sell on line. If organisations could follow our simple methods and see what is being written in the relevant journals about these issues, then their decision-making process might well be helped. Another possibility, which could be worth further research, would be for individual companies to use our simple measurement techniques, but not for examining the literature but rather for examining what their own staff think in order to pinpoint at what stage their own company's development is at regarding a particular tool or technique. What are managers talking about? Are they talking in terms of what the tool is, and what benefits it is meant to bring (a fad)? Or are they discussing actual past and current successes and failures, opportunities and problems based on experience of using the tool (i.e. a fashion)? Or are they talking about what can be done about the difficulties and to what degree are they stressing the ways in which the tool/technique has actually fitted into the overall strategy such as the relationship between the tool/technique and customer and competitive demands, and the impact on financial targets (i.e. approaching fit)? Perfect fit would be shown of course by the fact that the tool or technique concerned would no longer be talked about at all; it would just be taken for granted as a part of normal management behavior (i.e. fit). In this way, the organisation once it had ascertained the stage reached, then the next inputs needed in order to move the organisation onwards closer to the fit mode might become clearer. No large differences were found amongst the academic and business authors’ viewpoints on QC, BPR and SPC and the same pattern of published academic and business articles was found over the respective time periods examined. The profile in each case followed the typical product life-cycle of Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline, although there is no evidence from the literature to suggest that QC, BPR and SPC have reached the end of their life-cycles. Comparing the development in the UK of QC, BPR and SPC it was found that all three management activities were adapted differently, as evidenced by: • QCs were developed in Japan, then the concept was transferred later to the US, and later to the UK. The introduction in Japan was spearheaded by the academic fraternity but in the UK this was by business authors. • BPR was formulated in the US and then was transferred to the UK. It was introduced both in the US and UK by those writing from a business perspective. • SPC, in the form of control charts, was developed in the US and then in the UK. It was introduced in the US by academic authors but in the UK by academic and business authors simultaneously. The influence of the academic and business authors can be more easily evaluated if the column containing the information about business authors is subdivided into consultants and practitioners. In addition, more data could be provided on authors by the inclusion of a column indicating the region, and/or the country of the author. This would provide the data for more detailed examination on the area of concentration of particular developments. It could also be argued that it is not reasonable to derive information indirectly from bibliographic references, which can be biased by a range of factors, and that statistical analysis of the field would reveal much more. This again is another area for future research.