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AN INTEGRATIVE SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH IN QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Author(s) -
JACK ERIC P.,
STEPHENS PAUL R.,
EVANS JAMES R.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2001.tb00082.x
Subject(s) - field (mathematics) , quality (philosophy) , engineering ethics , discipline , sociology , work (physics) , doctoral dissertation , management science , political science , social science , epistemology , higher education , engineering , law , philosophy , mathematics , pure mathematics , mechanical engineering
Since 1980, practitioner interest in the field of quality management (qm) has grown significantly, resulting in academic researchers embracing QM as a legitimate discipline of study. One approach to evaluating the intellectual health of a discipline is an examination of doctoral dissertation research. This work both complements and extends other published reviews of the quality management discipline by analyzing doctoral dissertation research since 1981, categorizing this research, examining shifts in major research themes, evaluating data collection and analysis methodologies, and discussing general trends in this research area. Our findings suggest that the challenges in QM have become more interdisciplinary and integrated, and reveal an encouraging trend toward more rigorous research methodologies and the increased use of theories from other disciplines, leading to a more mature body of research in this field.