Exploring Six Sigma and CI capability development: preliminary case study findings on management role Arto Haikonen Taina Savolainen and Pekka Ja ¨rvinen The authors Arto Haikonen is Researcher, Helsinki University of Technology Lahti Center, Saimaankatu, Finland. Taina Savolainen is Professor, Department of Business and Economics, University of Joensuu, Joensuu, Finland. Pekka Ja ¨ rvinen is Professor, Helsinki University of Technology Lahti Center, Saimaankatu, Finland. Keywords Change management, Leadership, Continuous improvement, Process analysis, Learning, Finland Abstract Aims to explore the Six Sigma methodology as a method for developing CI capability. More specifically, the focus is on the role of management in the improvement of processes. Any type of organizational improvement process requires visible leadership and effective management to be successful. In high-performance organizations, in particular, in which the Six Sigma methodology is currently gaining ground, managers allocate resources to the improvement activities they regard as crucial for the organization’s success. Six Sigma is an improvement methodology that aims to increase business performance through a solid and accurate business focus. As the adoption of the Six Sigma methodology is still at an early stage in Finnish business life, presents preliminary case study findings. The findings imply that managers should adopt and internalize the Six Sigma philosophy first to give sufficient support to the implementation process. Furthermore, additional attention should be paid to the development of measurement systems and real time reporting systems, which is initially a managerial responsibility. Electronic access The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-038X.htm Introduction Rapid change has become imperative in business life driven by a number of external and internal forces. Product life cycles have become shorter. Freeing markets and globalization have increased competition. The reliability, timeliness, accuracy, and perceived value of the products or services have become the keys to company success. The business environment has become turbulent, complex, and even chaotic. At the same time business processes have evolved towards non- routine operations making project-type working increasingly common in every business (Shenhar et al., 1997; Gieskes and Ten Broeke, 2000). To meet these challenges organizations concentrate on their core competencies, outsourcing of less strategic activities, developing partnerships, and building networks (Porter, 1986, 1990). New methods for developing internal process capabilities and effectiveness are emerging and being applied. This seems to become increasingly important in operational level processes. However, the dynamics of continuous improvement (CI), and learning mechanisms are not yet well known, and further research is needed (see Mitki et al., 1997). As a recent methodology of process improvement, Six Sigma has permeated business life. It is worth exploring as a method of CI capability development because it has the potential to reveal the kinds of learning mechanisms for which researchers currently tend to search. This paper aims to explore the Six Sigma methodology as a mechanism of CI capability development and learning building on ideas of Bessant and Francis (1999) and other research work done. The focus is on the role of managerial leadership in the improvement of processes in Six Sigma implementation. Some empirical evidence is presented on a Finnish company. The findings are based on a preliminary case study. Although Six Sigma focuses on the operational level process improvements, it affects the entire organization’s performance. The Six Sigma approach starts with business strategy and ends with top-down implementation, having profit impacts if successfully deployed (see, for example, Salzman et al., 2002; Watson, 2002). This approach is a combination of both “soft” and “hard” (Savolainen, 1997), in other words, leadership and the use of statistical techniques. CI capability, change, and learning In this paper, the definition of CI is adopted from Bessant et al. (1994):“an organization-wide Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management Volume 15 · Number 4 · 2004 · pp. 369-378 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 1741-038X DOI 10.1108/17410380410535071 Received: February 2003 Revised: November 2003 369