Excellence models beyond total quality management: inception, thematic structure and forthcoming paths

AbstractThis article aims to uncover the inception, thematic structure, and forthcoming paths of excellence models (EMs) research and to shed light on the relationship between EMs and total quality management (TQM). We analysed 950 empirical articles from 1989 to 2022, published in 396 scientific journals indexed on Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection™ and Scopus, from all subject categories. We used content analysis, regression, citation, co-citation, and co-occurrence of research topics. The results unveiled the foundational clusters, current thematic streams, and forthcoming paths constituting EMs’ autonomous research structure. They also show that most researchers look to EMs as independent management instruments beyond TQM. This article helps researchers of different fields to investigate EMs efficiently and reliably since it identifies research trends and forthcoming paths, along with the most relevant authors, journals, and articles on EMs subjects. It enables managers to utilise EMs more effectively and evolve towards innovative training approaches to meet sustainable development challenges. This article is the most comprehensive bibliometric analysis and integrated systematic literature review of EMs research. It is also the first study to investigate EMs as a stand-alone research subject adding knowledge to its relationship with TQM and discovering latent and emerging research topics.Keywords: excellence modelsTQMsystematic literature reviewEFQMMBNQAbibliometric analysis Data availability statementThe data that support the findings of this study are available from Scopus and from Clarivates Web of Science.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplemental dataSupplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2023.2276821.Notes1 It should be noted that while Sustainability publishes 24 issues per year, with all articles in Open Source, TQBE only publishes 14 issues per year and only a few articles in Open Source.Additional informationFundingThis work has been funded by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., Project UIDB/05037/2020 and Research Grant 2022.12634.BD.