A management fad is a derisive term use to characterize a change in philosophy or

operations that sweeps through businesses and institutions, and then disappears when
enthusiasm for it wanes. According to some critics, a management fad is often launched
by business academics or management consultants, and adopted by managers who think
they can alter and improve human behavior, or who embrace the fad because they see it
as validating their roles as leaders and innovators, or who promote the fad as a means to
career advancement.

However, other less personal reasons why change initiatives end up as fads may be:

• poor implementation of change: insufficient supporting resources might raise

doubts with the majority of staff whether management commitment to the
proposed change is real. During the 1990s, when most of the fads mentioned
below originated, the trend to lean and mean organisations made resource
constraints a significant issue.
• management interest moving on: where the change initiative relied on
management figureheads taking personal ownership, it proved to be unsustainable
when their interest returned to normal daily operations.
• the new "best practice" becomes victim of an even better practice. During the
1990s, the speed of improvement and change accelerated and improvement
initiatives became superseded within a short time span. Reengineering principles
might even enhance such replacement further, with the objective to keep the
organisation flexible.

The appraisal that a management theory or practice is a "management fad" is subjective.

There is no consensus on the distinction between a management fad, and a valid
management practice. Some management theorists have criticized the "fad motif,"
warning that new management ideas should be critically analyzed rather than debunked.

1.Organizational performance comprises the actual output or results of an organization

as measured against its intended outputs (or goals and objectives).

Specialists in many fields are concerned with organizational performance including

strategic planners, operations, finance, legal, and organizational development.

In recent years, many organizations have attempted to manage organizational

performance using the balanced scorecard methodology where performance is tracked
and measured in multiple dimensions such as:

- financial performance (e.g. shareholder return) - customer service - social

responsibility (e.g. corporate citizenship, community outreach) - employee
stewardship

The following management practices and theories have been classified by some (see
references below) as management fads: management by objectives, the Deming System,
Total Quality Management, the customer service revolution, reengineering, and
knowledge management. Critics charge that although changes in the usual way of doing
business may persist as the result of one of these, the central characteristics of a
management fad are formal introduction of the change by management via
memorandums, workshops, and the formation of committees, the enthusiastic or cynical
adoption of the changes by staff, and the gradual disappearance of the change as both
management and staff lose interest, with a return to business as usual. Though a new
approach such as the Deming System may be valid and useful, if the name under which
that method was introduced vanishes from organizational communication and from
business and management magazines and journals, then it may be assumed to have been a
management fad.

1.Management by Objectives (MBO) is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an

organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand
what they are in the organization.

2.William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900–December 20, 1993) was an American
statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and consultant. Deming is widely credited with
improving production in the United States during World War II, although he is perhaps
best known for his work in Japan. There, from 1950 onward he taught top management
how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing and sales (the last
through global markets) through various methods, including the application of statistical
methods. Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's later renown for innovative
high-quality products and its economic power. He is regarded as having had more impact
upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese
heritage. Despite being considered something of a hero in Japan, he was only beginning
to win widespread recognition in the U.S. at the time of his death.

The philosophy of W. Edwards Deming has been summarized as follows:

"Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of

management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs
(by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer
loyalty). The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing
as a system, not as bits and pieces."

In the 1970s, Dr. Deming's philosophy was summarized by some of his Japanese
proponents with the following 'a'-versus-'b' comparison:

(a) When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the
following ratio,

Quality = results of work efforts

Total cost
quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.
(b) However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs (often
dominant/typical human behavior), costs (due to not minimizing waste, ignoring
 amount of rework occurring, taking staff for granted, not rapidly resolving
disputes, and failing to notice lack of product improvement—plus, over time, loss

of customer loyalty) tend to rise and quality declines over time.

3.Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at

embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely
used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as
well as NASA space and science programs.

A Comprehensive Definition

Total Quality Management is the organization wide management of quality. Management

consists of planning, organizing, directing, control, and assurance. Total quality is called
total because it consists of two qualities: quality of return to satisfy the needs of the
shareholders, and quality of products.[2] TQM is composed of three paradigms:

• Total: Involving the entire organization, supply chain, and/or product life cycle
• Quality: With its usual definitions, with all its complexities [1]
• Management: The system of managing with steps like Plan, Organize, Control,
Lead, Staff, provisioning and organizing[citation needed].

As defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO):

"TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based

on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through
customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to
society." ISO 8402:1994[citation needed]
One major aim is to reduce variation from every process so that greater consistency of
effort is obtained. (Royse, D., Thyer, B., Padgett D., & Logan T., 2006)

In Japan, TQM comprises four process steps, namely:

1. Kaizen – Focuses on "Continuous Process Improvement", to make processes

visible, repeatable and measurable.
2. Atarimae Hinshitsu – The idea that "things will work as they are supposed to" (for
example, a pen will write).
3. Kansei – Examining the way the user applies the product leads to improvement in
the product itself.
4. Miryokuteki Hinshitsu – The idea that "things should have an aesthetic quality"
(for example, a pen will write in a way that is pleasing to the writer)

TQM requires that the company maintain this quality standard in all aspects of its
business. This requires ensuring that things are done right the first time and that defects
and waste are eliminated from operations

5. Customer service (also known as Client Service) is the provision of service to

customers before, during and after a purchase.

According to Turban et al, 2002, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to

enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service
has met the customer expectation.”

Its importance varies by product, industry and customer. As an example, an expert

customer might require less pre-purchase service (i.e., advice) than a novice. In many
cases, customer service is more important if the purchase relates to a “service” as
opposed to a “product".

Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or
by automated means called self-service. Examples of self service are Internet sites.

Customer service is normally an integral part of a company’s customer value proposition.

Some argue that the quality and level of customer service has decreased in recent years,
which can be attributed to a lack of support or understanding at the executive and middle
management levels of a corporation.[1] and missing of a customer service policy.
Recently, many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow them to
capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, National Express, one of the
UK's leading coach companies invites passengers to send text messages whilst riding the
bus. This has been shown to be useful as it allows companies to improve their customer
service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will
return next time.[2]
 • Customer service is a group of related things, which are designed to provide a
good level of customer satisfaction, and there is the feeling has to met by product
or service to the customer expectation.

6. Reengineering is radical redesign of an organization's processes, especially its

business processes. Rather than organizing a firm into functional specialties (like
production, accounting, marketing, etc.) and looking at the tasks that each function
performs, we should, according to the reengineering theory, be looking at complete
processes from materials acquisition, to production, to marketing and distribution. The
firm should be re-engineered into a series of processes.

The main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James A. Champy. In
a series of books including Reengineering the Corporation, Reengineering Management,
and The Agenda, they argue that far much time is wasted passing-on tasks from one
department to another. They claim that it is far more efficient to appoint a team who are
responsible for all the tasks in the process. In The Agenda they extend the argument to
include suppliers, distributors, and other business partners.{| class="wikitable"
border="1" | |}

Re-engineering is the basis for many recent developments in management. The cross-
functional team, for example, has become popular because of the desire to re-engineer
separate functional tasks into complete cross-functional processes. Also, many recent
management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of
business functions. Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, knowledge
management systems, groupware and collaborative systems, Human Resource
Management Systems and customer relationship management systems all owe a debt to
re-engineering theory.

7. Knowledge Management ('KM') comprises a range of practices used by organisations

to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of what it knows, and how it
knows it. It has been an established discipline since 1995 [1] with a body of university
courses and both professional and academic journals dedicated to it. Many large
companies have resources dedicated to Knowledge Management, often as a part of
'Information Technology', 'Human Resource Management' or Business strategy
departments. Knowledge Management is a multi-billion dollar world-wide market[citation
needed]
.

Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives such as

improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, developmental processes,
lessons learnt transfer (for example between projects) and the general development of
collaborative practices. Knowledge Management is frequently linked and related to what
has become known as the learning organisation, lifelong learning and continuous
improvement. Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organisational
Learning by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as an asset and the
development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge, information and
signal flow.
There are a number of claims as to the "drivers", or motivations, leading organizations to
undertake a knowledge management program. Popular business objectives include
gaining competitive advantage within the industry and increasing organizational
effectiveness with improved or faster learning and new knowledge creation. As
knowledge management programs can often lead to greater innovation, better customer
experiences, consistency in good practices, knowledge access across a global
organization, and other organizational benefits, many knowledge management programs
will usually set some of these as end objectives as well. The government sector represents
a highly active area, for example DiploFoundation Conference on Knowledge and
Diplomacy (1999) outlines the range of specific KM tools and techniques applied in
diplomacy.

Some typical considerations driving a Knowledge Management program include:

• Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision

of products and services
• Achieving shorter new product development cycles
• Facilitating and managing organizational innovation and learning
• Leveraging the expertise of people across the organization
• Increasing network connectivity between employees and external groups with the
objective of improving information flow
• Managing the proliferation of data and information in complex business
environments and allowing employees to access appropriate information sources
• Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the
expertise and know-how possessed by key individuals) as individuals retire and
new workers are hired

Knowledge Management activities can be a discrete function or a part of an existing

departmental function, such as Information Technology, Human Resources, Quality,
Library functions or Strategy. Organisations can also be project based, using cross-
functional teams incorporating specialist skills. There is a broad range of thought on
Knowledge Management with no unanimous definition. The approaches vary by author
and school. Knowledge Management may be viewed from each of the following
perspectives:

• Techno-centric: A focus on technology, ideally those that enhance knowledge

sharing/growth.
• Organisational: How does the organisation need to be designed to facilitate
knowledge processes? Which organisations work best with what processes?
• Ecological: Seeing the interaction of people, identity, knowledge and
environmental factors as a complex adaptive system.

In addition, as the discipline is maturing, there is an increasing presence of academic

debates within epistemology emerging in both the theory and practice of knowledge
management. British and Australian standards bodies both have produced documents that
attempt to bound and scope the field, but these have received limited acceptance or
awareness.

Knowledge Management has always existed in one form or another. Examples include
on-the-job peer discussions, formal apprenticeship, discussion forums, corporate libraries,
professional training and mentoring programs. However, with computers becoming more
widespread in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations of technology such
as knowledge bases, expert systems, and knowledge repositories have been introduced to
further enhance the process.

The emergence of Knowledge Management has also generated new roles and
responsibilities in organisations, an early example of which was the Chief Knowledge
Officer. In recent years, Personal knowledge management (PKM) practice has arisen in
which individuals apply KM practice to themselves, their roles and their career
development.

Benchmarking improves performance by identifying and applying best demonstrated practices to

operations and sales. Managers compare the performance of their products or processes externally with
those of competitors and best-in-class companies and internally with other operations within their own
firms that perform similar activities. The objective of Benchmarking is to find examples of superior
performance and to understand the processes and practices driving that performance. Companies then
improve their performance by tailoring and incorporating these best practices into their own operations—
not by imitating, but by innovating. Benchmarking involves the following steps:

• Select a product, service or process to benchmark;

• Identify the key performance metrics;
• Choose companies or internal areas to benchmark;
• Collect data on performance and practices;
• Analyze the data and identify opportunities for improvement;
• Adapt and implement the best practices, setting reasonable goals and ensuring company-wide
acceptance.

Common uses

Companies use Benchmarking to:

• Improve performance. Benchmarking identifies methods of improving operational efficiency and

product design;
• Understand relative cost position. Benchmarking reveals a company’s relative cost position and
identifies opportunities for improvement;
• Gain strategic advantage. Benchmarking helps companies focus on capabilities critical to building
strategic advantage;
• Increase the rate of organizational learning. Benchmarking brings new ideas into the company
and facilitates experience sharing.

Knowledge Management develops systems and processes to acquire and share intellectual assets. It
increases the generation of useful, actionable and meaningful information and seeks to increase both
individual and team learning. In addition, it can maximize the value of an organization's intellectual base
across diverse functions and disparate locations. Knowledge Management maintains that successful
businesses are a collection not of products but of distinctive knowledge bases. This intellectual capital is
the key that will give the company a competitive advantage with its targeted customers. Knowledge
Management seeks to accumulate intellectual capital that will create unique core competencies and lead to
superior results.

Methodology

Knowledge Management requires managers to:

• Catalog and evaluate the organization's current knowledge base;

• Determine which competencies will be key to future success and what base of knowledge is
needed to build a sustainable leadership position therein;
• Invest in systems and processes to accelerate the accumulation of knowledge;
• Assess the impact of such systems on leadership, culture, and hiring practices;
• Codify new knowledge and turn it into tools and information that will improve both product
innovation and overall profitability.

Common uses

Companies use Knowledge Management to:

• Improve the cost and quality of existing products or services;

• Strengthen and extend current competencies through intellectual asset management;
• Improve and accelerate the dissemination of knowledge throughout the organization;
• Apply new knowledge to improve behaviors;
• Encourage faster and even more profitable innovation of new products.