The term management fad is used to characterize a change in philosophy or operations that sweeps through businesses and institutions. Some fads may become established aspects of business, sustaining themselves over several years. Others may disappear when initial enthusiasm wanes.

The appraisal that a management theory or practice is a "management fad" is subjective, and the term is usually used in a pejorative sense. Several authors have argued that new management ideas should be subject to greater critical analysis, and for the need for greater conceptual awareness of new ideas by managers.

Examples

The following theories and practices appeared on a list of management fashions and fads compiled by Adrian Furnham, who arranged them in rough chronological order by their date of appearance, 1950s to 1990s:

• Management by objectives
  Management by objectives
  Management by Objectives is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization....
  
  
• Matrix management
  Matrix management
  Matrix management is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments. For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an engineering manager, but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and...
  
  
• Theory Z
  Theory Z
  Theory Z is a name applied to three distinctly different psychological theories. One was developed by Abraham H. Maslow in his paper Theory Z and the other is Dr. William Ouchi's so-called "Japanese Management" style popularized during the Asian economic boom of the 1980s. The third was developed...
  
  
• One-minute management
  The One Minute Manager
  The One Minute Manager, a book by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. According to Blanchard's website, it has sold more than 13 million copies and has been translated into 37 languages....
  
  
• Management by walking around
  Genchi Genbutsu
  means "go and see" and it is a key principle of the Toyota Production System. It suggests that in order to truly understand a situation one needs to go to 'gemba' or, the 'real place' - where work is done.-Application:...
  
  
• Total quality management
  Total Quality Management
  Total quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
  
  
• Reengineering
  Business process reengineering
  Business process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.According to Davenport a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome....
  
  
• Delayering
• Empowerment
  Empowerment
  Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
  
  
• 360-degree feedback
  360-degree feedback
  In human resources or industrial/organizational psychology, 360-degree feedback, also known as multi-rater feedback, multisource feedback, or multisource assessment, is feedback that comes from all around an employee. "360" refers to the 360 degrees in a circle, with an individual figuratively in...
  
  

Other theories and practices which have been tagged by some observers as fads include:

• Deming system
  W. Edwards Deming
  William Edwards Deming was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is perhaps best known for his work in Japan...
  
  
• The customer service
  Customer service
  Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “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...
  
   revolution
• Knowledge management
  Knowledge management
  Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
  
  
• Six Sigma
  Six Sigma
  Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...
  
  
• 5S (methodology)

See also

• Business philosophies and popular management theories
• Organizational performance
  Organizational performance
  Organizational performance comprises the actual output or results of an organization as measured against its intended outputs .According to Richard et al...
  
  
• Dilbert
  Dilbert
  Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
  
  

Related reading

• Crainer, Stuart and Des Dearlove, “Whatever Happened to Yesterday's Bright Ideas?,” Across the Board, Vol. 43, No. 3, May/June 2006, pp. 34-40.
• Malone, Michael S., “A Way Too Short History of Fads,” Forbes
  Forbes
  Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
  
  , Vol. 159, No. 7, April 7, 1997 (ASAP supplement).
• Paul, Annie Murphy, “I Feel Your Pain,” Forbes, Vol. 174, No. 13, Dec. 27, 2004, p. 38.
• Strang, David and Michael W. Macy, "In Search of Excellence: Fads, Success Stories, and Adaptive Emulation," American Journal of Sociology, July 2001, Vol. 107, No. 1, pp. 147-182.
• Wilson, T.D., "The Nonsense of 'Knowledge Management
  Knowledge management
  Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
  
  '," Information Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, Oct. 2002, paper no. 144. [Available at http://Informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html]
• Ponzi, Leonard J. and Michael Koenig, "Knowledge Management: Another Management Fad?," Information Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, Oct. 2002, paper no. 145. [Available at http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper145.html]

For a critique of the practice of branding new management ideas as fads, see

• Collins, David, "The Branding of Management Knowledge: Rethinking Management 'Fads’," Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2003, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 186-204.
• Collins, David, "The Fad Motif in Management Scholarship," Employee Relations, Vol. 23, No. 1, Feb. 2001, pp. 26-37.