Quality Management Research and Evolution: A Bibliometric Analysis and Research Agenda

Résumé

Abstract
While quality management has been considered as an important means to achieve sustainable competition over the years, very few studies have been conducted to assess the current level of research on this topic. This study aims at bridging this knowledge gap in the literature by using a bibliometric approach. The search within the Web of Science database identified 20713 relevant documents has as main results issues associated with quality management. The paper reveals that since 1990, we observe an increase in the attention of scholars on quality management. It also identified the top twenty journals based on the number of articles and found that the first two were open access journals. In the same vein, the Journal of Total Quality Management & Business Excellence reported the highest growth in the number of publications. Moreover, the most influential authors were Day and Zuur, respectively with 2571, 2302 citations. Regarding the origin of countries of contributing papers, the USA was ranked first. On thematic trends, the themes on performance, impact, quality management, model and management were identified as the most pertinent. Consequently, proposing a cluster classification, we recommend that scholars should lay emphasis on the necessity to advance the 

understanding of quality management definitions and concepts in different countries. Regarding managers and practitioners, we recommend they improve their consciousness of Quality Management using frameworks and how this integrates with management to support the firm’s new operational business models.
Keywords: Quality management, bibliometric, bibliometrix, Research Agenda.