How can the quality gap be bridged? Avoiding a future of specialist isolation through statistics education

Quality remains a critical issue, yet business schools de-emphasize one of the key aspects of quality and systems thinking: understanding through data and its statistical analysis. The ideas of modern quality are founded on the concept of variation and consequently statistical reasoning. The Japanese lead the world in applying the concepts of modern quality; their strategy is characterized by company-wide education of the statistical ideas of quality and the application of these in the workplace. Our study focuses on managerial education as a crucial component of the Western model for quality. Our longitudinal empirical findings in Australia and New Zealand, combined with comparable research in North America, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, indicate that business schools are not teaching the key concepts that underlie variation and quality. There is evidence of a move from quantitative to qualitative courses. These findings should be of concern to quality specialists, should they wish to retain a role in management education rather than being relegated to peripheral specialist courses, as has occurred with statistics and operations research.