In this paper, we apply two purely irrotational theories of the motion of a viscous fluid, namely, viscous potential flow (VPF) and the dissipation method to the problem of the decay of waves on the surface of a sphere. We treat the problem of the decay of small disturbances on a viscous drop surrounded by gas of negligible density and viscosity and a bubble immersed in a viscous liquid. The instantaneous velocity field in the viscous liquid is assumed to be irrotational. In VPF, viscosity enters the problem through the viscous normal stress at the free surface. In the dissipation method, viscosity appears in the dissipation integral included in the mechanical energy equation. Comparisons of the eigenvalues from VPF and the dissipation approximation with those from the exact solution of the linearized governing equations are presented. The results show that the viscous irrotational theories exhibit most of the features of the wave dynamics described by the exact solution. In particular, VPF and DM give rise to a viscous correction for the frequency that determines the crossover from oscillatory to monotonically decaying waves. Good to reasonable quantitative agreement with the exact solution is also shown for certain ranges of modes and dimensionless viscosity: For large viscosity and short waves, VPF is a very good approximation to the exact solution. For 'small' viscosity and long waves, the dissipation method furnishes the best approximation. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.