Quality management research in Arab countries: current status and future directions

Purpose This study aims to review the current status of quality management (QM) research in Arab countries between 2001 and 2020. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted the content analysis methodology, searching through various databases and search engines for relevant publications using several keywords. The selected publications were classified according to several criteria and the obtained results were presented in the form of frequencies and percentages. Findings Most research publications regarding QM were journal articles. The number of publications has steadily increased between 2001 and 2020. Moreover, QM research largely uses the quantitative research design. Questionnaire surveys are widely used as a data collection method; basic statistical analysis techniques are commonly employed to analyze the data. There is a tendency toward empirical research versus conceptual research. A few journal articles were published in reputed peer-reviewed international journals with low citation. Overall, Arab scholars research on QM and related topics over the past two decades is not significant for the field considering the number of published papers, citations and the papers published in reputed peer-reviewed international journals. Research limitations/implications This study has several limitations. First, it does not cover non-English information sources due to the overall lack of Arabic publication databases. Second, it uses a limited number of criteria to classify the selected publications. Third, it adopts the content analysis methodology to classify the selected publications. This method has several limitations, which may negatively affect the results. Nevertheless, the study offers several implications for research scholars, educators and practitioners. Originality/value This is the first study to attempt a comprehensive overview of the state of research on QM in Arab countries between 2001 and 2020 using the content analysis methodology.