Professional Documents
Culture Documents
, Roger G. Schroeder
1
, Srilata Zaheer
2
, Adrian S. Choo
3
Curtis L. Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, 3-150 CarlSMgmt Building,
32-19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Received 18 April 2001; accepted 2 May 2002
Abstract
Six Sigma is a phenomenon that is gaining wide acceptance in industry, but lacks a theoretical underpinning and a basis for
researchother thanbest practice studies. Rigorous academic researchof SixSigma requires the formulationandidentication
of useful theories related to the phenomenon. Accordingly, this paper develops an understanding of the Six Sigma phenomena
from a goal theoretic perspective. After reviewing the goal theory literature, these concepts, when applied to Six Sigma,
suggest some propositions for future research. This paper can help serve as a foundation for developing scientic knowledge
about Six Sigma.
2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Quality; Theory; Interdisciplinary; Goals; Six Sigma
1. Introduction
The implications of Six Sigma in industry are
profound. For example, in 1999 General Electric
Company (GEC, 1999) spent over half a billion in
Six Sigma initiatives and received over two billion in
benets for the scal year (Pande et al., 2000). While
Six Sigma has made a big impact on industry, the
academic community lags behind in its understanding
of Six Sigma. In one of the few academic papers,
Schroeder (2000) provides a denition of Six Sigma
and discusses the importance of academic research
in this area. The question remains: what should aca-