TQM to business excellence: a research journey (1985-2018)

Abstract

This study aims at providing a comprehensive research guide from total quality management (TQM) to business excellence for future researchers. A total of 371 research papers are selected ranging from 1985 to 2018 and are exhaustively reviewed to provide the major insights. It can be safely concluded that over the years, focus areas have shifted from total quality management to performance management and finally to business excellence. Another interesting trend observed is that there has been a significant increase in the awareness and deployment of business excellence practices specially in context of developing countries. The outcome of this research work in terms of providing literature classification, definitions of business excellence, prominent global and national business excellence models and success factors will be of utmost help for the academia as well as practitioners. Limitations of this research work lies in its scope in terms of review of selected list of studies.