PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT POMS

Vol. 14, No. 4, Winter 2005, pp. 468 – 481

issn 1059-1478 兩 05 兩 1404 兩 468$1.25 © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of

Production and Operations Management
Roger G. Schroeder • Kevin Linderman • Dongli Zhang
Donaldson Chair in Operations Management and Co-Director, Joseph M. Juran Center for Leadership in Quality,
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
Associate Professor in Operations and Management Science, Carlson School of Management, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
Ph.D. Student in Operations and Management Science, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
rschroeder@csom.umn.edu • klinderman@csom.umn.edu • dzhang@csom.umn.edu

M any contributions have been made to the field of quality since the inaugural issue of Production and
Operations Management in 1992. The first issue called for more research and teaching on TQM,
which resulted in two special issues dedicated to TQM. Many other articles related to quality have also
been published in the first fifty issues of the journal on topics ranging from technical methods to the
Baldrige Award and ISO 9000. As we review these articles, we assess their contribution and the
progression of the field of quality. Although past research has advanced our understanding of quality,
there still exists many research opportunities in developing more theory, using additional research
methodologies, and studying emerging topics in this field.
Key words: quality; performance; Baldrige; ISO 9000; TQM
Submissions and Acceptance: Received February 2005; revision received March 2005; accepted April 2005.

1. Introduction the intense Japanese competition in u.s. markets.

Thirty-eight papers on quality have appeared in the However, academics had not researched TQM, and
first 50 issues of Production and Operations Management. were not teaching it in u.s. universities, finding them-
A graph of the number of articles published in each selves lagging industry practices. This spawned two
year is shown in Figure 1. The figure indicates a letters, reprinted from the Harvard Business Review,
stream of publications with special issues being an and one article in the first issue of Production and
important stimulus to publication of articles on qual- Operations Management calling for more research and
ity. teaching about TQM and subsequently, the commis-
The purpose of this article is to analyze all of the sioning of two special issues on TQM and Quality that
articles from the first fifty issues that pertain to quality appeared in 1994 and 1995. The third special issue on
and to suggest future directions for research that Quality appeared later in 2001 and served to provide
could be pursued. This is a challenging task since new research up to that time. These three special
much has been written on quality in these fifty issues issues on quality contained 25 articles or about two-
covering a wide variety of subjects and topics. In order thirds of the total articles on quality in the first fifty
to simplify the task, we will suggest a classification issues.
scheme to help analyze these articles and assess their Since TQM played such a major role in the early
contribution to knowledge about quality. issues of Production and Operations Management, it is
The inaugural issue of the journal in 1992 coincided fitting to suggest a classification system for this section
with an important time in the history of the quality that begins with articles concerning the TQM para-
field. During the 1980’s, industry had been going digm. But, in the spirit of the journal reaching out to
through far reaching changes that were dubbed Total all audiences, a number of traditional technical articles
Quality Management (TQM), primarily in response to have also appeared in the first fifty issues. The TQM
468
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 469

Figure 1 Number of POM articles on quality by year.

paradigm spawned interest and lead to several articles Business Review, gave a positive response to their call
on the Baldrige and ISO 9000 frameworks that were on behalf of the Production and Operations Manage-
emerging in the early 1990’s. Finally, the first fifty ment Society. This issue was rounded off by a per-
issues contained articles related to human resources spectives piece on “The Quality Revolution” (Cole
and quality, service quality, and quality and perfor- 1992). In it, Cole noted that our understanding of
mance. This suggests the following categories that are quality had undergone great changes in the last de-
used to organize the publications. cade due to Japanese advances. This has rendered
TQM Paradigm obsolete the traditional notion of tradeoffs, forcing a
Technical Tools new understanding of cost-quality relationships.
Baldrige, ISO 9000, and ISO 14000 The next significant article on the TQM paradigm
Human Resources and Quality appeared in volume 4, number 3, “Partial Quality
Service Quality Management: An Essay”, written by Kolesar (1995). In
Quality and Performance his essay, he laments that companies are only half-
While these categories can be used to organize past heartedly implementing TQM. While executives tout
papers, they do not illuminate future directions the advantages of TQM, workers and mangers are not
needed. Therefore, we use the Baldrige framework implementing the TQM paradigm at lower levels. His
later in this paper to suggest possible gaps in the concern is that this will lead to the demise of TQM
literature and to provide fodder for future research. which, of course, proved to be prophetic.
In the same issue, Ahire, Landeros, and Golhar
2. Articles on Quality Management (1995) provide a TQM literature review and agenda
2.1 Total Quality Management Paradigm for future research. This was a comprehensive survey
As mentioned earlier, the first issue of the journal in of 226 TQM-related articles from 44 refereed manage-
1992 addressed a brewing controversy about TQM. ment journals published between 1970 and 1993. Us-
While industry had been aggressively adopting TQM ing the Baldrige framework, they were able to identify
during the 1980’s, the academic community was gaps in the literature that were in need of further
largely asleep on the topic to the consternation of the research. These gaps included a lack of empirical re-
CEO’s of major companies including Motorola, Amer- search and the need for a better theoretical base. While
ican Express, Ford Motor, Procter & Gamble, IBM, and these gaps have been filled to some extent particularly
Xerox. As a result, these CEO’s signed a letter, re- with more empirical research, the theoretical base is
printed from the Harvard Business Review, in the first still lacking as discussed later.
issue of the journal calling for universities to take Finally, this special issue contained an article on a
action and begin researching and teaching TQM in TQM based incentive system that supports TQM im-
partnership with industry (Robinson et al. 1992). Sin- plementation (Symons and Jacobs 1995). In this article,
ghal and Hayes (1992), also reprinted from the Harvard the authors provide a case study to demonstrate the
 Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
470 Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

incremental effects on productivity and quality of im- sive. Flynn, Schroeder, and Sakakibara (1994) devel-
plementing a TQM based incentive system that uses a oped perceptual scales to empirically measure con-
variety of performance measures, including an explicit cepts related to TQM.
incentive for reduction in variability in product vari-
ables. 2.2 Technical Tools
It wasn’t until 2001 that the next two articles ap- Some of the first breakthroughs in quality manage-
peared on the TQM paradigm. The first article by ment occurred with the development of technical
Sousa and Voss (2001) provide a useful contingency- tools. Shewhart’s (1939) original work on the develop-
basis for quality management, rather than the univer- ment of Statistical Process Control (SPC) and the
sal approach. In their article, they show from empiri- PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) cycle had a profound
cal data that the quality practices adopted are a affect of the field. Even though the first publications
function of the strategy chosen. on technical tools date back to the 1930’s, advance-
Finally, Jack, Stephens, and Evans (2001) provide an ments are still being made today. The first technical
integrative summary of doctoral level research in article in Production and Operations Management ap-
quality management. They demonstrate that doctoral peared in volume 2. In this article, Sahin (1993) studies
dissertations on quality management accelerated start- the impact of conformance quality on manufacturer’s
ing in 1990, peaked in 1995, and then declined by 1998. and user’s replacement costs while the product is un-
They also noted that research in quality management der warranty. He also discusses the value of inspec-
had become more interdisciplinary, used more rigor- tion and presents an application based on real data.
ous methodologies, and increased the use of theories In volume 3, Moskowitz, Plante, and Wardell (1994)
from other disciplines. But, they observed, “quality published an article entitled: “Using run-length distri-
management is no longer a ‘hot button’ topic; and butions of control charts to detect false alarms.” They
many of the ‘low hanging fruit’ had been picked” show how the run-length probability distribution can
(Jack, Stephens, and Evans, 2001, p. 380). They noted be used to detect out of control points on control
that TQM research had peaked as measured by Ph.D. charts instead of the commonly used average run-
dissertation output and was now being replaced by length. They demonstrate that average-run length
other topics. alone as a guide for determining whether a signal is a
Several major contributions to TQM were made false alarm or otherwise can be misleading.
during the first 50 issues. First, TQM was established Singhal (1995) in his introduction to volume 4, num-
as an important problem in industry that needed to be ber 3, noted this special issue was devoted to devel-
addressed by academics. Several doctoral disserta- oping sophisticated quality improvement approaches
tions were written in the early 1990’s with a peak in through business-academe collaborations. In this is-
dissertation output by 1995 (Jack, Stephens, and sue, three technical papers appeared. The first was a
Evans, 2001). Also, scholarly review of the TQM liter- paper by Cox, Bell, and Glover (1995) that demon-
ature has helped develop an organized conceptual strated a new customer service data-driven learning
understanding of quality and established a basis for approach to process improvement. In cooperation
developing a body of knowledge in the field of quality with u.s. West, they developed the approach that used
management. an artificial intelligence statistical tree growing
During the same era, scholars publishing in other method to analyze complex customer service data.
journals also contributed to the Total Quality Manage- Their objective was to analyze data rapidly to identify
ment paradigm. Dean and Bowen (1994), writing in the areas in which more careful study should yield the
the Academy of Management Review, begin to develop a greatest benefits in process design and improvement.
theoretical definition of TQM, and argued that TQM Chen and Tirupati (1995) showed how integrating
consists of three fundamental concepts— customer product inspection and process control could reduce
satisfaction, continuous improvement, and teamwork. quality costs. They use process-status information
They noted that TQM could be better informed by (based on process control) in making product-inspec-
more management theory. Anderson, Rungtusan- tion decisions. Their work was motivated by the op-
atham, and Schroeder (1994) draw on management erations of a wafer fabrication facility of a semicon-
theory to develop a theory underlying Deming’s man- ductor manufacturer.
agement method. Hackman and Wageman (1995) ad- Finally, Alwan and Radson (1995) in this special
dressed the issue of whether or not the TQM para- issue discuss implementing time-series based statisti-
digm exhibits discriminate and convergent validity. cal process control. A practical limitation on the use of
By analyzing the content of TQM, they argue that time-series modeling is that its implementation re-
TQM does demonstrate discriminate and convergent quires sophisticated statistical skills, whereas stan-
validity, but could lose discriminate validity from dard control charts use only elementary statistical
management theory as TQM becomes more expan- knowledge. This choice raises questions of manage-
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 471

ment philosophy, statistical techniques, and computa- Reimann and Hertz (1994) compared the Baldrige
tion that the authors address. Award and ISO 9000. In their article, they pointed out
It wasn’t until five years later in 2000 that another that the Baldrige Award is aimed at enhanced com-
technical article appeared on quality by Kanyamibwa petitiveness while ISO 9000, at that time, was con-
and Ord (2000), “Economic process control under un- cerned primarily with conformance to specifications.
certainty.” They developed a loss function approach Competitiveness factors addressed by Baldrige that
that enables derivation of optimal sampling and in- were not considered by ISO 9000 in 1994 were cus-
spection policies as well as deciding whether to adjust tomer and market focus, results orientation, continu-
the process or to continue production without adjust- ous improvement, competitive comparisons, a tie to
ment. They allowed for variability in the production business strategy, cycle time and responsiveness, in-
process and for the possibility of both continuous tegration via analysis, public responsibility, human
mean shift and variance deterioration within the pro- resource development, and information sharing. Note,
duction run. This addresses some of the limitations of since the Reimann and Hertz article appeared, ISO
previous control chart approaches. 9000:2000 was issued and has narrowed some of these
Although the technical aspects of quality manage- differences.
ment have been well studied, Production and Opera- In volume 8, Anderson, Daly and Johnson (1999)
tions Management has helped advance this important analyze why firms seek ISO 9000 certification: regula-
area of quality. More in-depth analysis of quality tools tory compliance or competitive advantage? Their re-
(e.g., SPC) has helped us understand the implications sults support the proponents of ISO 9000 who claim
of implementing these techniques. In addition, deci- that it is a low-cost signal of a firm’s commitment to
sion-making tools for inspection, maintenance, adjust- quality. After controlling for regulatory and customer
ment, and equipment replacement were developed pressures to obtain ISO 9000, other factors related to
aimed at improving coordination and taking into ac- quality management and quality-based competition
count economic information. explain the adoption decision.
Many published works from other journals have In volume 10, Angell (2001) compares the environ-
also contributed to the advancement of technical tools mental and quality initiatives of Baldrige Award win-
in quality management where research on technical ners. While the literature suggests that quality and
tools is extensive and well developed. The following environmental programs are closely related, this study
articles give an overview of technical tools in quality finds that drivers of environmental initiatives are not
and suggest future research directions. Box (1996) the same as those for successful quality initiatives. For
gives an overview of the role of statistics and the example, while top management support seems nec-
scientific method in quality improvement. Woodall essary for quality initiatives, it is neither necessary nor
and Montgomery (1999) discuss future research direc- sufficient for environmental programs.
tions for Statistical Process Control. Some fruitful ar- Pil and Rothenberg (2003) study environmental per-
eas for research are control charts for short production formance as a driver of superior quality. They high-
runs, multivariate control charts and control charts for light the synergistic and reciprocal nature of environ-
auto-correlated production processes. Carlyle and mental and broader manufacturing improvement
Montgomery (2000) discuss the use of optimization programs. Firms that have attained superior perfor-
methods and statistics to aid in quality improvement. mance regarding the environment are able to leverage
Software reliability also offers another future research those efforts to enhance their quality.
opportunity to apply technical tools of quality. In ad- The first 50 issues of the journal made significant
dition, homeland security issues present new oppor- contributions to quality frameworks and standards,
tunities to study advanced sampling and inspection which include: differentiating between them, identify-
procedures. This could include investigating Bayesian ing the motives for adoption, and determining the
approaches to inspection and considering the role of performance implications. In addition, scholars found
inspection errors. synergies between quality management practices and
environmental concerns. As we can see, the relation-
2.3 Baldrige, ISO 9000, and ISO 14000 ship between programs such as Baldrige, ISO 9000,
At the same time that interest in TQM was emerging, and ISO 14000 continue to be a source of fruitful
Baldrige and ISO 9000 were receiving considerable research. There is still much work to be done to un-
research attention, along with the environmental stan- derstand the many connections that are present.
dard ISO 14000. Singhal (1994), the editor of the first Besides these papers in Production and Operations
special issue on Quality Management, noted that TQM Management, several publications in other journals
had emerged in response to Japanese competition and have contributed to our understanding of quality
introduced several articles aimed at responding to management frameworks and standards. Flynn and
these competitive issues. One of these articles by Saladin (2002) investigate how the Baldrige frame-
 Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
472 Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

work has been adapted over the years using path problems, especially in the service environment. As
analysis. They found empirical support that major we shall note later, research in human resources pre-
updates in the Baldrige framework tended to show sents a great opportunity for further insights, and
improvements. Meyer and Collier (2001) find empiri- draws on the vast literature in organizational behav-
cal support for the applicability of the Baldrige frame- ior. This literature can be used to develop interesting
work to the healthcare setting. Guler, Guillen, and insights into implementation, change management,
Macpherson (2002) used panel data to study the dif- goals, culture, and other issues that affect quality.
fusion of ISO 9000. Drawing on institutional theory Important contributions to quality and human is-
and social network theory, they find patterns of adop- sues in other journals occurred around the same time.
tion of ISO 9000 based on competition, regulatory Dean and Snell (1992) found that selective staffing,
environment, and cohesive social networks. equitable awards, comprehensive training, and devel-
opmental appraisals all contribute to the efficacy of
2.4 Human Issues quality management programs. Detert, Schroeder, and
Production and Operations Management has published Mauriel (2000) identified dimensions of organizational
some leading edge articles on human issues starting culture that correspond to the values and beliefs in
with an article by Gupta and Ash (1994) on “Excel- quality management. This was followed by the devel-
lence at Rohm and Haas Kentucky: A case study of opment of a survey instrument of quality and culture
work-team introduction in manufacturing.” Their in an educational setting (Detert, Schroeder, Cudeck
study documents the use of self-regulating teams that 2003). Victor, Boynton, and Stephens-Jahng (2000) in-
make most of their own decisions about the work they vestigated the role conflict that workers experience in
do and the interface with customers. The results have TQM. Line employees’ work requires both standard-
been increases in productivity, a decline in worker ized production and continuous improvement, which
grievances and turnover and an improvement in the can result in increased role conflict and stress. How-
safety record. ever, designing work that can facilitate switching be-
Stewart and Chase (1999) make an important con- tween roles can mitigate the negative consequences of
tribution to the understanding of the impact of human having dual roles. Rungtusanatham (2001) found that
error on delivering service quality. Contrary to popu- effective implementation of SPC creates more en-
lar opinion, they take the position that a substantial riched jobs that lead to higher levels of worker mo-
portion of service failures is the result of human error tivation and job satisfaction. Finally, Linderman,
in the delivery process. The paper identifies the most Schroeder, Zaheer, and Choo (2003) argued that effec-
prevalent cognitive error mechanisms in services and tive use of project goals results in higher motivation
reveals that the types of errors leading to service fail- that leads to higher levels of performance in Six Sigma
ure tend to be generally predictable. teams.
In a closely related article, Stewart and Grout (2001)
address the human side of mistake-proofing. They 2.5 Service Quality
utilize the poka-yoke (mistake-proofing) approach There have been a number of articles on quality that
that uses relatively simple devices to achieve marked have appeared in special issues on managing service
improvements. Their paper provides an academic un- operations. For example, in volume 8, Soteriou and
derpinning to the largely anecdotal mistake-proofing Hadjinicola (1999) discuss resource allocation to im-
literature. prove service quality perceptions in multistage service
Kathuria and Davis (2001) round out this collection systems. They combine marketing and operations
of articles by addressing the managerial performance viewpoints in a model that provides optimal resource
implications of work force management practices. allocation. In the same volume, Dube, Johnson, and
They show that work force management practices (e.g. Renaghan (1999) adapt the QFD approach to extended
mentoring, inspiring, supporting, and rewarding) en- service transactions. They show how to incorporate
hance managerial performance particularly when an higher-level customer needs (consequences, experi-
emphasis is placed on quality in meeting customer ences and personal values) into the process and illus-
needs through accurate, consistent, and reliable prod- trate their approach for the luxury hotel business.
ucts. The special issue on quality in volume 10 contains a
Several significant contributions have been made to longitudinal study of the effect of a service guarantee
quality management and human issues in the first 50 on service quality by Hays and Hill (2001a). While the
issues. The appropriate allocation of decision author- service guarantee did not have a direct effect on learn-
ity to quality teams can lead to higher levels of per- ing, it did have a positive effect on service quality
formance. In addition, the use of several human re- primarily through its positive effect on employee mo-
source practices enhances performance. However, tivation and vision.
human error can also be the source of several quality The special issue on service in volume 12 contains
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 473

an article by Stewart (2003) on designing the service organization, training, employment security, labor-
encounter for improved quality. He provides a frame- management relations, employee-involvement pro-
work supported by case evidence for organizing the grams, and the like. They also argue that scholars need
growing body of service quality literature related to to develop industry specific knowledge by intensive
service encounter design. industry focused research studies.
Several contributions were made to service quality In the same issue, Benson, Cunningham, and Leach-
in the first fifty issues of the journal. Specifically de- man (1995) benchmark manufacturing performance in
signing and implementing policies and procedures to the semiconductor industry. They describe the devel-
improve service operations have been investigated. opment of seven metrics designed to measure the
Service quality should continue to be a fruitful and quality and productivity of semiconductor manufac-
emerging area of research for operations management turing. Multivariate statistical analysis of these metrics
scholars. shows that they measure independent aspects of per-
Other journals made several other important contri- formance and expose significant differences.
butions to service quality around the same time. Dow, Samson, and Ford (1999) write on “Exploding
Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1996) investigate the myth: do all quality management practices con-
customers’ behavioral responses to service quality. tribute to superior quality performance.” In a large-
They find that improving service quality can increase scale empirical study they show that practices such as
favorable behavioral intentions (loyalty) and decrease employee commitment, shared vision and customer
unfavorable intentions (defection). Hays and Hill focus contribute to superior quality outcomes. Con-
(2001b) find that higher levels of motivation/vision versely, other quality practices such as benchmarking,
and organizational learning positively affect service cellular work teams, advanced manufacturing tech-
quality. Several scholars have investigated measure- nologies and close supplier relations do not contribute
ment issues related to service quality. Fornell, John- to superior quality outcomes.
son, Anderson, Jaesung, and Bryant (1996) describe In the third special issue on quality management,
the nature and purpose of the American Customer four articles appear on quality and performance. In
Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and find that customer sat- the introduction to this issue, the editors Flynn and
isfaction is more quality-driven than price-driven. Schroeder (2001) point out the changing nature of
Several scholars have also been working to refine research in quality and new initiatives in the quality
SERVQUAL, a measurement instrument for service field. This is reinforced in a letter by Starr (2001) who
quality (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988; 1994; reflects on safety and security after September 11,
Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml 1993). 2001, and the resulting effect on quality goals for both
product and process.
2.6 Quality and Performance The first of the four articles on performance in this
More articles have appeared in Production and Opera- special issue by Devaraj, Matta, and Conlon (2001)
tions Management on Quality and Performance than investigates the antecedents of customer loyalty in the
any other category. In the first special issue on quality automotive industry. They show how product quality,
in volume 3, Ittner (1994) published an examination of service satisfaction, and customer beliefs all contribute
the indirect productivity gains from quality improve- to customer loyalty. This is the first study that has
ment. He showed that the indirect effects through examined both product quality and service quality as
process improvements and reduced factory conges- antecedents to customer loyalty.
tion provided at least two to three times the direct In a qualitative study, Dostaler (2001) investigates
benefits attributable to lower scrap, rework, and in- the cumulative and tradeoff theories of manufacturing
ventory holding costs. Therefore, managers should be performance. This paper compares the cases of two
aware of the full impact of quality improvements. British contract electronics assemblers. She argues that
In the second special issue on quality in volume 4, while performance measures are related to each other
Lester (1995) provided information on industry stud- a sequential relationship may not be necessary.
ies and American industrial performance sponsored Fynes and Voss (2001) develop a path analytic model
by the Sloan Foundation. This is a particularly aggres- of quality practices, quality performance, and business
sive research program including 10 universities, performance. This study shows how both design quality
scores of faculty, and more than 100 graduate students and conformance quality, along with external quality-in-
focused on the study of performance and practices in use and cost, are related to customer satisfaction and
10 different industries. Their findings about industry- then business performance based on a sample of 200
based performance are far reaching including empir- electronics suppliers in Ireland.
ical evidence that firms should adopt not only one or In the last article in this special issue, Narasimhan
two innovative human resource practices, but a full and Mendez (2001) provide a theoretical analysis of
range of practices such as incentive schemes, work the strategic aspects of quality. The paper first deter-
 Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
474 Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

mines whether a stable relationship among price, as- the papers according to the research methodology
pects of quality, and the sales rate exists by examining employed along with the topic addressed. Three of
equilibrium properties of their model. They comment these articles are letters (Robinson et al. 1992; Singhal
on quality-based strategic options a firm must con- and Hayes 1992; Starr 2001). Our classification ex-
sider to ensure long run growth and profitability. cluded these three letters and focused on the remain-
Several contributions were made in the first fifty ing 35 articles. Our analysis showed that these articles
issues of Production and Operations Management. Qual- were written with one of the following methods: over-
ity management has several indirect benefits not pre- view, theory, case study, empirical, analytical, or lit-
viously identified in the literature. In addition, various erature review. We classified an article as overview if
quality management practices affect performance dif- the article addresses general aspects of quality in a
ferently. Finally, the relationship between quality man- holistic manner. For example, we classified “The Qual-
agement and performance is complex and needs to be ity Revolution” (Cole 1992) as an overview article. We
considered within the strategic context of the firm. also classified the three introduction articles on the
Other journals also contributed important works on special issues as overview articles (Singhal 1994; Sin-
quality and performance during this time. Hendricks ghal 1995; Flynn and Schroeder 2001). If the articles
and Singhal (2001a; 2001b; 1997; 1996) produced a include topics such as a theoretical underpinning to
series of articles that addressed effective implementa- practical phenomenon or prescriptive models, we clas-
tion of quality management and firm performance. sified them as theory articles. One example of an arti-
They found significant improvement in firm perfor- cle with a theoretic orientation is Stewart and Grout
mance occurred about five years after effectively im- (2001). In their research on mistake-proofing, they
plementing TQM. However, they did not observe draw upon theory from psychology and cognitive sci-
much improvement in firm performance in the short- ence to explain human error. Articles with a case
run, suggesting that TQM requires a long-term com- study orientation present detailed studies on only a
mitment. Flynn, Schroeder, and Sakakibara (1995) dis- few organizations. An empirical article is based on a
criminate between quality management infrastructure study of a large number of organizations, or units of
and core practices. They found that quality manage- observation, and uses statistical analysis. While case
ment core practices mediate the relationship between studies are generally aimed at theory generation, em-
quality infrastructure practices and quality perfor- pirical research is aimed at theory testing (Eisenhardt
mance. Powell (1995) argues that the technical tools 1989). We classified articles as analytical if they use
and techniques of TQM do not produce a competitive analytical techniques. There are also a few literature
advantage, but that tacit aspects of TQM such as em- review articles on quality in the first fifty issues. The
ployee empowerment, executive commitment, and an result of this classification is summarized in Table 1.
open culture do contribute to a competitive advan- From the table, it can be seen that empirical articles
tage. Kaynak (2003) reviews the literature on quality have provided the major emphasis in published qual-
management and firm performance and notes several ity research in the first fifty issues (11 out of 35). Also
inconsistencies between different scholars. the analytical method is a major technique that has
been used in many articles (8 out of 35). The heavy
3. Research Methods in Quality emphasis on empirical articles shows that empirical
Management testing has been widely used in quality research which
Since various research methods have been employed is different from that used for research 10 years ago
to study quality over the first fifty issues, we classify (Ahire et al. 1995).

Table 1 Quality Management Topic and Research Method

Topic
Research method
Technical Baldrige, Human Service Quality and
Frequency TQM Tools ISO9000 Issues Quality Performance Total

Overview 5 1 1 7
Theory 1 1
Case study 1 1 1 1 2 6
Empirical 1 2 2 2 4 11
Analytical 6 1 1 8
Literature review 2 2
Experimental 0
Total 9 6 4 4 4 8 35
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 475

Table 1 indicates that a number of studies have 2002). Requiring organizations to get ISO 9000 certifi-
employed either analytical or empirical methods. cation creates coercive forces that makes quality man-
However, none of the studies in the last fifty issues agement systems isomorphic to one another. This per-
have empirically tested analytical models. Future re- spective contrasts with the resource-based view of a
search in quality management can empirically test the firm that emphasizes unique approaches. These con-
analytical models that have been developed over the trasting theories lead to the question of whether qual-
years. One opportunity might be to empirically test ity is a source of competitive advantage, and if so, how
the Taguchi Loss function. Anecdotal evidence sup- and why?
ports the Taguchi Loss function (Taguchi and Claus-
ing 1990), but is has never been tested using rigorous
4. New Directions for Research
empirical research methods.
Looking at the published research in the first fifty
Another finding of this analysis is that there are no
issues, there are some topics that are diminishing and
quality articles using an experimental method in the
others are likely to be increasing. TQM, for example, is
first fifty issues. Although the experimental method is
no longer an active research area. Baldrige and ISO are
relatively new to quality management, some Opera-
tions Management scholars have begun to employ also likely to diminish in their research importance,
experiments (e.g., Croson and Donohue 2003; Schultz, since they have been extensively studied in Production
Juran, and Boudreau 1999; Schultz and Juran 1998). and Operations Management and other journals. Even
Quality, as an interdisciplinary field, also draws though there has been much written on the connection
heavily from other fields such as organizational be- between quality and performance, there will still be
havior, knowledge management, human resource some interest in researching this connection from dif-
management, and marketing. Thus, conducting qual- ferent perspectives and with different methods. We
ity research from an inter-disciplinary perspective has can also expect research on technical aspects of quality
fruitful potential. For example, one promising future to continue, and perhaps there will be increasing in-
research direction could be incorporating behavioral terest in both human issues and service quality.
theory in the quality field, since the interaction be- It may be insightful to review the categories in the
tween human motivation and quality management Baldrige Award and compare them to the past re-
practices might better explain performance. As we search in quality. The Baldrige Criteria for Perfor-
mentioned above, there are no quality articles in the mance Excellence (NIST 2005) lists the following cat-
first fifty issues using the experimental method. This is egories for the Award.
a potential technique that can be used when incorpo- 1. Leadership
rating behavioral theory in quality research. 2. Strategic Planning
Another finding is the lack of theory development 3. Customer and Market Focus
underlying quality management. Theory is fundamen- 4. Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Man-
tal to developing scientific knowledge and the basis agement
for developing empirically testable hypotheses. A sci- 5. Human Resource Focus
entific body of knowledge on quality management 6. Process Management
will not emerge without adequate theory develop- 7. Business Results
ment. Several theories from the management literature
As we can see, the predominance of research has
can help develop a theoretical basis for quality man-
been done in category 6 (process management) and
agement. For example, the Resource Based View
category 7 (business results) with some research also
(RBV) of the firm maintains that the goal of firms is
done in category 5 (human resources). But, categories
sustained competitive advantage, which is based on
1 to 4 are almost devoid of research that connects these
the possession of resources by the firm that are rare,
valuable, inimitable, and non-substitutable (Barney topics to the quality field. The area of leadership, for
1991; Peteraf 1993). The inimitability and non-substi- example, has been widely studied in the management
tutability of these resources helps the firm earn higher literature, but little of that research has been brought
profits, sustained over time, as the firm resists at- to bear in the quality field. A similar claim can be
tempts by competitors to duplicate these resources. made about Strategic Planning, Customer and Market
Successful implementation of quality practices could Focus and Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge
be viewed as a valuable and a rare resource that is Management. While much research has been done on
inimitable. Institutional theory (Scott 1995) could be these topics in the general management field, the the-
seen as a contrasting theory, which notes that over ory and results have not been linked to quality man-
time organizations begin to look the same. Implement- agement specifically. We will develop some possible
ing ISO 9000 can be understood from an institutional research directions for these four Baldrige areas start-
theory perspective (Guler, Guillén, and Macpherson ing with leadership.
 Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
476 Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

4.1 Leadership related to the size of the organization, environmental

Some academic research has supported the notion that uncertainty, and dynamism could all be expected to
top management leadership is necessary for quality affect the process and content of quality strategy. Fur-
improvement (Benson et al. 1991; Flynn et al. 1995). thermore, the quality practices themselves are contin-
But, what kind of leadership is most effective and how gent on the strategy adopted, so there is a chain of
can leadership not only initiate quality efforts but also contingencies.
sustain them once started? Another fruitful area of research is to view quality
The Baldrige criterion supports the concept of vi- strategy as a valuable resource that cannot be easily
sionary leadership as part of its core values, where copied or imitated. Studies could draw on the Re-
senior leaders provide inspiration to the work force source Based View (RBV) to identify what aspects of a
(NIST 2005). Visionary leadership is similar to trans- quality strategy might provide a sustainable compet-
formational leadership and opposed to transactional itive advantage (Barney 1991). For example, it might be
leadership (Bass 1985; Kuhnert and Lewis 1987). Most important to embed the strategy deeply into the organi-
of the research in quality management and leadership zation in order for it to be relatively safe from duplica-
has focused on transformational leadership (Anderson tion. Also, quality strategies that are never static and
et al. 1994). constantly being updated not only respond to a chang-
However, other emerging themes in leadership also ing environment, but also are difficult to imitate.
provide research opportunities for quality. For exam- More in-depth research cases are needed to provide
ple, Emotional Intelligence (EI) theory is an emergent examples of both the content and process for devel-
theory relevant to quality management (Evan and oping quality strategy. The cases should be aimed at
Lindsay 2005; p. 213). This theory argues that success- defining in detail typologies and taxonomies of qual-
ful leaders have five key components: self-awareness, ity strategy content that can be used by researchers.
self-management, self-motivation, empathy, and so- They could also develop hypotheses for testing the
cial skills (Goleman 1998; George 2003). Trust is content of quality strategy and the process. One ex-
another emergent issue in leadership. Trust is the ample of this kind of case research developed nine
positive expectation that another will not act oppor- cases of quality strategy and structural configurations
tunistically (Robbins 2003; p. 336). Leaders can help (Shani and Rogberg 1994).
create a climate of trust that promotes cross-functional
collaboration (Webber 2002). Research in quality man- 4.3 Customer and Market Focus
agement can investigate how emotional intelligence Customer and market focus is a topic that has been
and trust engendered by leaders can affect quality heavily researched from a marketing perspective. Re-
performance. search in the marketing field focuses on identifying
Another important area of research is leadership customer needs and measuring customer satisfaction.
development and succession planning. General Elec- The link between customer needs and internal oper-
tric uses Six Sigma as a vehicle to develop the future ating processes is only tangentially considered in the
leaders of the organization (Welch and Byrne 2001). marketing literature. However, today’s market envi-
Black Belts develop important change management ronment, which is characterized by diverse customer
skills, which help them prepare for more senior lead- needs and rapid market changes, presents major chal-
ership positions. Related to leadership development is lenges to operations. Research that links customer
succession planning. During the Juran Summit in needs and internal operating processes is now emerg-
2002, Don Peterson, former CEO of Ford, argued that ing in the Operations Management field, such as re-
Ford lost its quality advantage because he did not search on agility, responsiveness, and mass customi-
properly educate the board of directors on quality. As zation (e.g., Gunasekaran and Yusuf 2002; Tu et al.
a result, quality was not given enough consideration 2001). This provides a fruitful area for quality man-
when selecting the next leaders. Future research could agement research, since these topics have not been
examine the role of leadership development and suc- linked to quality management specifically. Sousa
cession planning in quality management. (2003) makes an effort to establish the link and iden-
tifies several customer focus practices. The main find-
4.2 Strategic Planning ing of his research is that customer focus practices are
Promising research in the quality strategy area is the contingent on a plant’s manufacturing strategy. How-
application of configuration and contingency theory. ever, more studies are needed to address the role and
While quality strategy has been proposed as largely new challenges of quality management when firms are
universal in nature, there are some preliminary stud- trying to create a high degree of flexibility and respon-
ies of contingencies that show that the content of siveness to changing customer/market requirements.
quality strategy is contingent on the environment and Potential theories that can be used in this area could be
other factors (Sousa 2003; Neil 1996). Contingencies contingency theory and the Resource Based View.
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 477

4.4 Measurement appeared in the practitioner literature (Linderman et

Some research has been done in the area of measure- al. 2003). Working papers, proceedings, and national
ment and analysis for quality management, but there conference presentations are beginning to appear and
are still opportunities for further work. For example, we can expect many research publications on Six
two topics that could be pursued are the balanced Sigma in the coming years, perhaps similar to the
score card and process dashboards. surge in research on TQM that occurred in the 1990’s.
The balanced score card (BSC) has gained much The area of quality management is ripe for applica-
currency in accounting and management research tion of theories from general management, as well as
(Kaplan and Norton 1996). Emergent research has development of new theories. We have already seen
been done on the relationship of the BSC to quality some articles that utilize contingency theory, human
management (Bell and Elkins 2004; Hoque 2003), but resource theories, economic theories, and statistical
the precise connection with quality practices and prin- process control theory. We can expect to see more
ciples needs more study. A configuration or contin- theory-based research in the future as researchers not
gency approach could be used to show what kind of only describe quality management practices, but also
balanced score cards are appropriate for what types seek to explain how and why they occur. Existing
and sizes of organizations. management theories that could be applied, for exam-
Another research area for measurement of quality is ple, are institutional theory (Scott 1995; Meyer and
through the use of process dashboards. An interesting Rowan 1977), the resource-based view (Barney 1991;
study by Debusk, Brown, and Killough (2003) demon- Peteraf 1993), resource dependency theory (Pfeffer
strated through an experimental design that dash- and Salancik 1978; Ulrich and Barney 1984), and the
boards are most useful in providing operational infor- transaction cost theory (Williamson 1993; 1996), to
mation that depends heavily on the situation. Bottom name only a few.
line financial measures such as profit and return on
Quality management is a field that requires a con-
investment, while perceived more important than
tinuity of research over time. While fads come and go
their non-financial counterparts, were viewed as out-
in industry (Abrahamson 1996), the quality field needs
comes to be achieved by controlling operational mea-
to maintain a base of research beyond the hot practice
sures. Since process dashboards are connected to Six
of the day (Zbaracki 1998). For example, quality circles
Sigma applications and the Baldrige Award, dash-
and TQM have come and gone, and now the latest fad
boards are an area of research of interest to both
is Six Sigma. Maintaining a base of research requires
researchers and industry (Dover 2004).
an infrastructure of academic inquiry and theory
4.5 General Topics for Research building that transcends, but yet illuminates current
As can be seen, the research opportunities in the qual- connections with industry fads. It is the hope of the
ity field are abundant. But, one emerging topic that authors that Production and Operations Management will
has intense interest in industry is Six Sigma. While continue to lead the way in publishing cutting edge
very little research has appeared on this topic in any of research in the quality field that maintains the mo-
the research journals, many books and articles have mentum and base that has been established.

Appendix A A Listing of Articles on Quality in the first 50 Issues of POM

Start Research
Year Volume Issue Page Authors Title Topic Method

1992 1 1 118 Robert E. Cole The Quality Revolution TQM Overview

1 1 121 James D. Robinson III, Harold A. Poling, An Open Letter: TQM on Campus (reprinted from *
John F. Akers, Robert W. Galving, Harvard Business Review, November/December 1991,
Edwin L. Artzt, and Paul A. Allaire pp. 94–95.)
1 1 124 Kalyan Singhal and Robert Hayes An Open Response to “TQM on the Campus”; We Need *
TQM . . . and More (reprinted from Harvard Business
Review, January/February 1992, p. 148.
1993 2 4 242 Izzet Sahin Conformance Quality and Replacement Costs Under Technical Analytical
Warranty
1994 3 3 149 Kalyan Singhal Implementing Initiatives on Quality: An Introduction to TQM Overview
the Special Issue on Total Quality Management
3 3 153 Christopher D. Ittner An Examination of the Indirect Productivity Gains from Performance Case study
Quality Improvement
3 3 171 Curt W. Reimann and Harry S. Hertz Understanding the Important Differences Between the Baldrige, Overview
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and ISO ISO9000
9000 Registration
 Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
478 Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society

Appendix A (cont’d)

Start Research
Year Volume Issue Page Authors Title Topic Method

3 3 186 Yash P. Gupta and Daniel Ash Excellence at Rohm and Haas Kentucky: A Case Study Human Case study
of Work-Team Introduction in Manufacturing Issues
3 3 217 Herbert Moskowitz, Robert D. Plante, Using Run-Length Distributions of Control Charts to Technical Analytical
and Don G. Wardell Detect False Alarms
1995 4 3 183 Kalyan Singhal Developing Sophisticated Quality Improvement TQM Overview
Approaches through Business-Academe
Collaborations: Introduction to the Special Issue
4 3 187 Richard K. Lester Industry Studies and American Industrial Performance Performance Overview
4 3 195 Peter Kolesar Partial Quality Management: An Essay TQM Overview
4 3 201 Robert F. Benson, Sean P. Cunningham, Benchmarking Manufacturing Performance in the Performance Empirical
and Robert C. Leachman Semiconductor Industry
4 3 217 Tony Cox, George Bell, and Fred Glover A New Learning Approach to Process Improvement in a Technical Analytical
Telecommunications Company
4 3 228 Richard T. Symons and Raymond A. A Total Quality Management-Based Incentive System TQM Case study
Jacobs Supporting Total Quality Management Implementation
4 3 242 Wen-Hsien Chen and Devanath Tirupati On-Line Quality Management: Integration of Product Technical Analytical
Inspection and Process Control
4 3 263 Layth C. Alwan and Darrell Radson Implementation Issues of Time-Series Based Statistical Technical Analytical
Process Control
4 3 277 Sanjay L. Ahire, Robert Landeros, and Total Quality Management: A Literature Review and an TQM Literature review
Damodar Y. Golhar Agenda for Future Research
1999 8 1 1 Douglas Dow, Danny Samson, and Exploding the Myth: Do All Quality Management Performance Empirical
Steve Ford Practices Contribute to Superior Quality Performance?
8 1 28 Shannon W. Anderson, J. Daniel Daly, Why Firms Seek ISO 9000 Certification: Regulatory Baldrige, Empirical
and Marilyn F. Johnson Compliance or Competitive Advantage? ISO9000
8 3 240 Andreas C. Soteriou and George C. Resource Allocation to Improve Service Quality Service Analytical
Hadjinicola Perceptions in Multistage Service Systems quality
8 3 264 Douglas M. Stewart and Richard B. The Impact of Human Error on Delivering Service Quality Human Empirical
Chase issues
8 3 318 Laurette Dube, Michael D. Johnson, Adapting the QFD Approach to Extended Service Service Empirical
and Leo Mark Renaghan Transactions Service Typologies: A State of the Art quality
Survey
2000 9 2 184 Felicien Kanyamibwa and J. Keith Ord Economic Process Control Under Uncertainty Technical Analytical
2001 10 3 306 Linda C. Angell Comparing the Environmental and Quality Initiatives of Baldrige, Case study
Baldrige Award Winners ISO9000
10 4 359 Barbara B. Flynn and Roger G. Schroeder Introduction to the Special Issue on Quality TQM Overview
10 4 361 Martin K. Starr Safety and Security: Critical Qualities Call for Refocusing *
POM
10 4 363 Erick P. Jack, Paul R. Stephens, and An Integrative Summary of Doctoral Dissertation TQM Literature review
James R. Evans Research in Quality Management
10 4 383 Rui Sousa and Christopher A. Voss Quality Management: Universal of Context Dependent: TQM Empirical
An Empirical Investigation Across the Manufacturing
Strategy Spectrum
10 4 405 Julie M. Hays and Arthur V. Hill A Longitudinal Study of the Effect of a Service Service Empirical
Guarantee on Service Quality quality
10 4 424 Sarv Devaraj, Khalil Matta, and Edward Product and Service Quality: The Antecedents of Performance Empirical
Conlon Customer Loyalty in the Automotive Industry
10 4 440 Douglas M. Stewart and John R. Grout The Human Side of Mistake-proofing Human Theory
issue
10 4 460 Ravi Kathuria and Elizabeth B. Davis Quality and Work Force Management Practices: The Human Empirical
Managerial Performance Implication issue
10 4 478 Isabelle Dostaler Beyond Practices: A Qualitative Inquiry into High Performance Case study
Performance Electronics Assembly
10 4 494 Brian Fynes and Christopher Voss A Path Analytic Model of Quality Practices, Quality Performance Empirical
Performance and Business Performance
10 4 514 Ram Narasimhan and David Mendez Strategic Aspects of Quality: A Theoretical Analysis Performance Analytical
2003 12 2 246 Douglas M. Stewart Piecing Together Service Quality: A Framework for Service Case study
Robust Service quality
12 3 404 Frits K. Pil and Sandra Rothenberg Environmental Performance as a Driver of Superior Baldrige, Empirical
Quality ISO9000

*denotes a letter.
Schroeder, Linderman, and Zhang: Evolution of Quality: First Fifty Issues of Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 14(4), pp. 468 – 481, © 2005 Production and Operations Management Society 479

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