Like quality management in general, Six Sigma has penetrated into most sectors of today’s business world. Although Six Sigma originated in industry, it has inspired a considerable amount of academic literature. This paper reviews this literature describing the trends, sources, and findings. The paper also seeks to synthesize the literature, with an emphasis on establishing its relationship to quality management theory and topics for future research. In doing so, there is an attempt to answer the following fundamental questions. (i) What is Six Sigma? (ii) What are its impacts on operational performance? (iii) What roles can academics usefully play in relation to Six Sigma?