Total Quality Management & Business Excellence

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctqm20

Topic analysis of studies on total quality

management and business excellence: an update
on research from 2010 to 2019

Sheng-Hsun Hsu, Yu-Fan Chen & Ying-Chyi Chou

To cite this article: Sheng-Hsun Hsu, Yu-Fan Chen & Ying-Chyi Chou (2021): Topic analysis of
studies on total quality management and business excellence: an update on research from 2010 to
2019, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, DOI: 10.1080/14783363.2021.1916392

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2021.1916392

Published online: 22 Apr 2021.

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Total Quality Management, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2021.1916392

Topic analysis of studies on total quality management and business

excellence: an update on research from 2010 to 2019
Sheng-Hsun Hsua*, Yu-Fan Chena and Ying-Chyi Choub
a
Department of Business Administration, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan; bDepartment
of Business Administration, Center for Healing Environment Administration and Research
(HEAR), Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan

The research reviews conducted by Lo and Chai ([2012]. Quantitative analysis of

quality management literature published in total quality management and business
excellence (1996–2010). Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23(5-6),
629–651. doi:10.1080/14783363.2012.669553) and Dereli et al. ([2011]. An analysis
of the papers published in total quality management & business excellence from
1995 through 2008. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 22(3), 373–
386. doi:10.1080/14783363.2010.532337) were based on TQM&BE, and together
they covered the period between 1995 and 2010. The limitation of these two studies
is that the study period ended in 2010. Accordingly, this study extends those
previous studies by reviewing papers published between 2010 and 2019. TQM&BE
is a suitable object for analysis because it is one of the top journals cited in the
quality management field and plays a key role in the quality and scientific
knowledge of TQM.
This study demonstrated the feasibility of using the (self-organizing map) SOM
algorithm to build a topic map. The SOM technique is one of the most popular
artificial neural networks (ANNs). Based on this map, six topic areas were identified.
In addition, the new identified themes after 2010 include the BE framework, and
innovation, learning, team, and design. The results also showed that research on
TQM&BE has undergone a shift in focus from a dominance of TQM to service
quality, (International Organization for Standardization) ISO, and innovation and
learning. Finally, the results showed that the SOM can be considered as a technique
for developing topic maps for academic research reviews.
Keywords: text mining; topic modeling; self-organizing map; research review

1. Introduction
Total quality management (TQM) has received a lot of attention in the service industry
(Dereli et al., 2011). Although the initial implementation of TQM was mainly concentrated
in the manufacturing industry, TQM has spread to all industries, including healthcare, edu-
cation, public administration, and tourism and hospitality (Dahlgaard-Park et al., 2013).
Why has TQM received so much attention? One of the answers is that TQM is dedi-
cated to fulfilling customer needs and expectations through the production of better
quality goods and services (Mehra et al., 2001). If customers are satisfied, they become
loyal, which brings profitability. However, TQM involves more than satisfied customers.
This relentless customer-oriented mindset further drives the integration of entire organis-
ational processes to achieve this goal. Accordingly, TQM represents the efforts and com-
mitment of an entire organisation to continuously improve to meet customer needs (Talib

*Corresponding author. Email: spolo@chu.edu.tw, spolohsu@gmail.com

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2 S.-H. Hsu et al.

et al., 2012). Therefore, the final result is not just satisfied customers, but organisational
commitment and efforts to achieve excellence.
As in practice, the principles and theories of TQM are not static but constantly evol-
ving. The scope of TQM has been redefined from the degree of conformance to specifica-
tions to the fitness for use, zero defects, and exceeding customer needs (Dahlgaard-Park
et al., 2013). Dahlgaard-Park et al. (2013) further suggested that TQM is now at a more
mature stage in which priorities have shifted from TQM to the tools, techniques, and
core values needed to implement TQM and build a culture of quality and business excel-
lence (BE). Although TQM and BE share many similarities, researchers have suggested
that the BE model tends to overemphasise measurements and neglect the foundation of
TQM: organisational culture (Dahlgaard et al., 2019).
As the concept of TQM is constantly evolving, it is critical to understand its research
conditions. So far, systematic research reviews have been conducted to understand the
content and evolution of TQM. Basically, there are two ways to conduct a research
review. In the first way, scholars can use academic databases (e.g. Scopus) and collect rel-
evant articles using a keyword search. The advantage of this method is that scholars can
quickly collect data and analyze the domain knowledge that interests them. For
example, Dahlgaard et al. (2019) used several keywords to analyze the evolution and
future of TQM. The other way involves the use of a single journal as the research
object. The advantage of this method is that scholars can analyze the domain knowledge
embedded in a journal and gain insight into the state of the journal (Dereli et al., 2011).
For example, Lo and Chai (2012) conducted a quantitative analysis of articles published
in Total Quality Management and Business Excellence (TQM&BE).
So far, TQM&BE has been the research subject of two published papers. Dereli et al.
(2011) conducted a literature review of TQM&BE from 1995 to 2008, and Lo and Chai
(2012) conducted another review from 1996 to 2010. The limitation of these two studies
is that the study period ended in 2010, and so far, there has been no updated literature
review of TQM&BE. Accordingly, this study extends those previous studies by selecting
TQM&BE for an analysis and reviewing papers published between 2010 and 2019.
TQM&BE is a suitable object for analysis because it is one of the top journals cited in
the quality management (QM) field (Lo & Chai, 2012) and plays a key role in the
quality and scientific knowledge of TQM (Dereli et al., 2011).
Although papers can be reviewed qualitatively by reading the articles in depth, it
becomes difficult when the text volume is large. Considerable time and effort is required
to understand the contents of articles, as the process involves reviewing text and extracting
and updating data manually. Fortunately, over the years, there have been some advances in
data mining, natural language processing, and text mining techniques. Researchers can
now use different text mining techniques to explore the patterns of texts. Although prom-
ising, these quantitative techniques cannot fully replace qualitative human judgement.
Therefore, Lo and Chai (2012) concluded that a quantitative analysis coupled with quali-
tative evaluations can generate noteworthy perspectives relevant to the concepts investi-
gated. Accordingly, although this study aims to use text mining techniques to
investigate the knowledge hidden in TQM&BE, some qualitative reasoning and judge-
ments are needed.
In terms of analysing papers, two main attributes are commonly used: keywords and
abstracts (e.g. Carnerud & Bäckström, 2019). Keywords can be interpreted as the focus
of a study. However, keywords can sometimes be too broad and vague to represent the
content of the article. In terms of abstract analysis, several new techniques have been
developed to analyze the contents and automatically cluster documents into different
 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 3

topics. This process is called topic modeling. One technique is called Latent
Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and has been used by most researchers to analyze paper
abstracts (e.g. Kee et al., 2019; Tiba et al., 2019). LDA can infer topics by allowing
words with similar meanings to be grouped together (Blei et al., 2003, January).
Another promising technique for topic modeling is Kohonen’s (1990) self-organizing
map (SOM). The SOM technique is one of the most popular artificial neural networks
(ANNs). It was initially used in the field of image processing (Vesanto & Alhoniemi,
2000) and later applied to the large-scale organisation of textual information (Yang
et al., 2003). One of the main features of the SOM is its effectiveness in clustering
objects with high dimensional data into two-dimensional maps; the latter are referred to
as topic maps in this study. To the best of our knowledge, the SOM technique has not
been used to build topic maps in a research review. This study uses both LDA and the
SOM technique to conduct topic modeling. The research questions addressed in this
study can be summarised as follows:
RQ1. Research updates and theme identification: Compared with previous studies, can we
identify new themes?
RQ2. Topic trend analysis: What are the annual trends of the identified themes?
RQ3. The SOM application: Can the SOM be applied as a technique to develop topic maps for
review research?

2. Literature review on TQM-related research reviews

So far, research reviews have been conducted to understand the content and evolution of
TQM. A research review is crucial for academic research because it creates a solid foun-
dation for advancing knowledge (Webster & Watson, 2002). Why TQM? Dahlgaard-Park
et al. (2013) argued that TQM has become a comprehensive management approach and
that so many topics are included under the TQM umbrella that it has become difficult to
understand. In addition, TQM is an important area of research that attracts the interest
of academicians and managers from different sectors (Carnerud & Bäckström, 2019; Dahl-
gaard et al., 2019).
Dereli et al. (2011) used a content analysis to explore articles published in TQM&BE
from 1995 to 2008. They analysed 1132 papers according to several criteria, including
country of origin, keywords, and association mining. Through manual keyword categoris-
ation, they derived 10 research topics. Their main findings were as follows: 1. The term
‘TQM’ was a common keyword among the papers analysed. 2. Keywords related to the
customer were the second most common keywords, followed by keywords related to
service. 3. The most common research methods were ‘case studies,’ with 48% of the
papers, followed by conceptual/theoretical work. 4. They recognised that TQM has
started to generate increasing interest in the service industry.
Lo and Chai (2012) investigated the core themes of research papers published in
TQM&BE from 1996 to 2010. They used bibliometrics and social network techniques
to analyze the abstracts of 1,165 papers. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were
used to analyze the data. The core themes included service quality, customer satisfac-
tion, and TQM frameworks. In addition, they identified emerging themes, including cus-
tomer relations, quality cost, and comparative studies and empirical studies of the
effects of TQM.
Dahlgaard-Park et al. (2013) reviewed 25 years of research articles on the quality lit-
erature. They collected data through the ABI/INFORM periodical database, using several
keywords related to TQM. They found that the total number of articles under the subject of
4 S.-H. Hsu et al.

TQM declined after reaching a peak in 1995. However, the number of papers focusing on
techniques and tools in terms of Lean, the Just-in-Time/Toyota Production System, Bench-
marking, and Six Sigma increased. In addition, papers focusing on core values/key prin-
ciples regarding the need to build a quality culture in terms of leadership, people-based
management, continuous improvement, facts-based management, and focus on the custo-
mer increased slightly. They concluded that TQM is now at a more mature stage where
focuses shifted from initially on TQM to tools, techniques and core values needed for
the pursuit of BE.
Dahlgaard et al. (2019) extended their 2013 study on TQM-related publications to
2017. They used keywords related to TQM to acquire 6,002 articles from multiple data-
bases. They used quantitative methods to derive their preliminary results and refined
these results using qualitative methods. Based on a content analysis, they found the
following. 1. Previous studies focused on promoting the importance of learning in a
TQM organisation. They also highlighted that the successful implementation of TQM in
different industries is based on values such as total participation based on proper education
and training. 2. The challenges of TQM are related to adjusting and modifying the QM fra-
mework while continuously developing better tools and techniques to meet the needs of
new services and knowledge-intensive organisations. 3. There are strong indications of
a disconnection between the three levels of management – the strategic, tactical, and oper-
ational levels.
Carnerud and Bäckström (2019) selected six journals as objects of analysis and col-
lected 4,741 articles published from 1980 to 2017. Their study used an LDA analysis
and identified key areas of quality research over the past 37 years. They identified seven
central topics: 1. service quality and customer satisfaction; 2. process design and
control; 3. (International Organization for Standardization) ISO certification and standards;
4. TQM implementation, performance, and culture; 5. QM practices and performance;
6. reliability, costs, failure, and problems; and 7. excellence, quality awards, and excel-
lence in higher education.
Metaxas and Koulouriotis (2019) conducted a literature review on BE measurement
from 1990 to 2016. They used keywords related to excellence and collected 139 articles
for their qualitative study. Their main findings were as follows. 1. BE studies now focus
more on measuring BE. 2. Their sample indicated that statistical methods were used in
the vast majority for BE models.

3. Methodology
3.1. Data collection
TQM&BE is a journal that disseminates and stimulates thinking and research related to all
aspects of TQM. It was established in 1990 under the editorial leadership of Gopal Kanji.
Initially, TQM&BE was published under the name TQM. In 2003, BE was added to the
title, signalling its main domain of interest. Since then, many BE models have been pro-
posed in TQM&BE (Carvalho et al., 2019). The aim of the journal shows that TQM
refers to an organisational culture that is committed to customer satisfaction through con-
tinuous improvement. The scope of the journal states that to foster the development of BE,
no topics related to TQM are excluded from consideration Accordingly, TQM&BE has
become a unique journal that incorporates all types of research topics related to BE and
has itself become a rich knowledge repository.
Despite the research limitation involved in using a single journal, TQM&BE was used
because it is one of the top journals cited in the QM field (Lo & Chai, 2012) and plays a key
 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 5

role in the quality and scientific knowledge of TQM (Dereli et al., 2011). TQM&BE also
represents an unbiased global perspective (Lo & Chai, 2012).
So far, TQM&BE has been the research subject of two published papers. The limitation
of these two studies is that the study period ended in 2010. Accordingly, this study extends
those previous studies by selecting TQM&BE for an analysis and reviewing papers pub-
lished between 2010 and 2019. The data were collected from the official TQM&BE
website using the Python Requests package. The available data fields from the journal
were the year of publication, author(s), title, abstract, and keywords. Eight hundred and
eighty-three abstracts were collected. The data collection, data cleaning, and data analysis
were all conducted using different Python packages.

3.2. Data cleaning

Unlike numerical or structured data, textual data are unstructured (Carnerud & Bäckström,
2019). This means that preparation or transformation is necessary. First, the data were
manually checked to identify incomplete or erroneous entries. Second, uppercase words
were converted into lowercase words. Third, blank spaces, conjunctions (i.e. ‘and,’
‘but,’ and ‘or’), and punctuation marks were removed. Finally, some terms with no
special meaning in the abstracts were omitted, such as ‘paper,’ ‘study,’ ‘analysis,’
‘result,’ ‘data,’ ‘based,’ and ‘research.’

3.3. Text vectorisation

The simplest representation of each abstract was the bag-of-words (BoW) scheme. In
BoW, each abstract is converted into a term frequency vector, such as (3, 2, 0, … 0, 7,
5, … 0, 0, 1). In each vector, the numbers represent the frequency of certain terms (Car-
nerud, 2017). This method is relatively common and effective, but the semantics and
meaning of sentences can sometimes be lost in the conversion process. Two main
schemes are used to represent word vectors: term frequency and term frequency-inverse
document frequency (tf-idf). Tf-idf is a well-known method of representing words accord-
ing to their relative importance in a data set. However, the tf-idf formula is incompatible
with LDA. Accordingly, term frequency was selected as the principal method for generat-
ing word vectors.

3.4. Data modelling

The modelling phase concerns the choice of data analysis methods. In this study, the mod-
elling phase involved k-means clustering, LDA, and the SOM technique. K-means was
used to determine the number of topics for LDA. LDA topic modeling was used to
cluster the knowledge domain into topics. Both k-means and LDA were implemented
using the scikit-learn package in Python, which was especially designed for machine learn-
ing. The SOM technique was implemented using Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing
Map (GHSOM) software (Rauber et al., 2002). Other SOM analysis programmes, includ-
ing labelling, bubble map, and trend analysis, were implemented by the authors.

4. Data analysis
Figure 1 presents the evolution of the number of papers published in TQM&BE. It shows
that research on TQM and BE has been conducted quite actively over the years.
6 S.-H. Hsu et al.

Figure 1. Number of papers published from 2010 to 2019.

4.1. Keyword analysis

As mentioned earlier, keywords represent the main focus of a paper. Figure 2 presents a bar
chart of the top 15 keywords from all research papers published in TQM&BE between
2010 and 2019. The combination of keywords and their frequency represent the main
research focus of TQM&BE over the past 10 years. The top 15 keywords were ‘total

Figure 2. Top 15 keywords and their distribution.

 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 7

quality management,’ ‘quality management,’ ‘service quality,’ ‘customer satisfaction,’

‘quality,’ ‘six sigma,’ ‘business excellence,’ ‘continuous improvement,’ ‘structural
equation modeling,’ ‘higher education,’ ‘innovation,’ ‘knowledge management,’ ‘kano
model,’ and ‘ISO 9001.’
Figure 3 presents the word cloud of the keywords. It provides an alternative represen-
tation of the results. The size of each word represents its frequency.
To identify changing patterns over time, this study broke the keyword analysis down
by year. Figure 4 presents the evolution of the keywords over 10 years. It shows that over
the past 10 years, the keywords adopted each year did not change much, leading to no new
emerging themes.

4.2. Topic analysis: LDA method

LDA, one of the most popular topic modeling algorithms, is generally considered to be a
fast and effective way to identify probable themes and topics (Asmussen & Møller, 2019).
The LDA technique is a type of Bayesian probability model. It assumes that each document
has a distribution of topics and that each topic is associated with a distribution of words.
The model can thus use different documents and words to infer the hidden topic structure.
To determine the appropriate number of topics, the k-means clustering algorithm was
first used. To examine the number of clusters, the elbow method was applied. In this study,
the number of clusters (k) was set from 1 to 8. For each value of k, the sum of the squared
errors was calculated. After testing, it was decided that a topic model containing seven
topics was suitable given the elbow angle in the curve (see Figure 5).
After determining the number of topics, the next step was to run the LDA method on
the full set of abstracts. In Python, LDA analysis can generate both document-topic and
topic-word matrices. The document-topic matrix can be used to inspect the main docu-
ments in each topic and the topic-word matrix can be used to identify the main words
that represent a topic. In this study, 10 most probable words were displayed for each
topic (see Figure 6). After inspection, it was found that Topic 1 was related to attributes,
improvement, performance, and kano; Topic 2 was related to TQM performance, practice,

Figure 3. Word cloud of the keywords.

8 S.-H. Hsu et al.

Figure 4. Keyword distribution over the past 10 years.

 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 9

Figure 5. Elbow method in k-means.

Figure 6. LDA results.

and employee; Topic 3 was related to the BE model; Topic 4 was related to customer
service and satisfaction; Topic 5 was related to the ISO 9001 standard and certification;
Topic 6 was related to customer service and lean production; and Topic 7 was related to
innovation, knowledge, and performance.
By inspecting all words, the main themes can be determined. However, sometimes the
main theme of a topic cannot be determined by only inspecting the words. For example,
different topics might lump together in Topic 2. In this case, the document-topic matrix
can be used by inspecting the title of the most probable papers. Figure 7 shows the 10
most probable titles in Topic 2. The main ideas of these papers could be organisational
culture, organisational commitment, and TQM implementation, among others. Topic 2
had more than one topic under its umbrella, so its subtopics could be further investigated.

4.3. Topic analysis: SOM method

First introduced by Kohonen (1990), the SOM algorithm has attracted significant research
attention in a wide range of applications. The design of the SOM technique was inspired by
the associative neural properties of the brain, wherein regions of neurons operate both cen-
trally and collaboratively to perform pattern recognition (Smith & Gupta, 2000). To
10 S.-H. Hsu et al.

Figure 7. Research titles in Topic 2.

replicate the SOM process, the learning process of the algorithm has three main steps. The
first step is competition. The output nodes in the SOM compete with each other to best rep-
resent the input sample. The node with the most similar weight to the input sample is
declared as the winning node. The second step is neighbourhood adjustment. As the aim
of the SOM is to organise similar inputs on the neighbouring area of the map, the adjust-
ment procedure includes not only the winning node but also its adjacent nodes, constituting
the winning area. All of the nodes in the winning area are strengthened, so they are more
likely to fire the next time a similar input pattern is presented. The third step is collabor-
ation. When the learning process is complete, the neighbouring areas of the SOM can
better capture similar input samples. Thus, inputs with similar properties are likely to be
grouped together in adjacent areas. This study used GHSOM (Rauber et al., 2002). The
SOM consisted of 5×5 nodes with a learning rate of 0.4.

Figure 8. Bubble map based on the SOM results.

 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 11

First, the SOM map is presented with a bubble map (see Figure 8), in which the size of
a circle represents the number of papers grouped in a node. The bigger the circle is, the
more papers there are in the node. For example, the top left node in row 1 – column 1
is numbered 37 because it includes 37 papers sharing similar patterns.
Figure 9 shows the final SOM with labels. For each node, the labels represent the most
common terms in that node. For example, the top right node in row 1 – column 5 represents
a group of papers with the labels ‘model,’ ‘excellence,’ ‘(the European Foundation for
Quality Management) EFQM,’ ‘organisations,’ and ‘framework.’ All of the papers
located in neighbouring nodes are more similar than those located in distant nodes. For
example, the papers located in row 1 – column 5 and in row 2 – column 5 are more
similar than those located in row 1 – column 5 and in row 5 – column 5. The physical dis-
tance of the map represents the textual similarities of the abstracts.
To determine whether the distance between the nodes reflected the relationship
between the abstracts, the neighbours of the node in row 1 – column 5 were examined.
First, the titles of the 10 papers located in row 1 – column 5 were shown. After inspection,
the titles mostly included the EFQM excellence model (see Figure 10). Second, the titles of
the 10 papers located in row 2 – column 5 were shown. The titles mainly included BE (see
Figure 11). All of the papers with similar titles were grouped together in the neighbouring
region on the map, indicating the effectiveness of the SOM results.
With confidence in the SOM results, the map was further divided into six areas based
on the similarities of the labels (see Figure 9). The A1 area was related to TQM practice,
performance, and implementation. The A2 area was related to ISO, standard, cost, leader-
ship, lean, and manufacturing. The A3 area was related to innovation, knowledge, learning,
team, improvement, design, and product development. The A4 area was related to market-
ing, brand, relationship, and strategy. The A5 area was related to customer service, recov-
ery, satisfaction, value, and loyalty in different sectors. The A6 area was related to BE.

4.4. Trend analysis: SOM method

To further analyze the trend in the SOM topics, this study broke the topics down by year.
Figure 12 presents the evolution of the topics over 10 years.

Figure 9. SOM results with labels.

12 S.-H. Hsu et al.

Figure 10. Research titles in row 1 – column 5.

5. Discussion
5.1. Interpretation of the SOM map
The SOM map provided visual cues for interpreting the results, thus facilitating the identi-
fication of the hidden relationships between certain research topics. For example, as the
goal of TQM is to achieve BE (located in the A6 area), it was interesting to identify the
topics closely related to BE. Figure 9 shows that the areas adjacent to A6 were A1, A4,
and A5. First, the research papers included in A1 focused on TQM practice, performance,
and implementation, suggesting that BE is a practice closely related to TQM activities.
Second, the research papers included in A4 were related to marketing, brand, relationship,
and strategy, suggesting that BE is related to customer relationship and business strategy.
Finally, the research papers included in A5 focused on customer value and satisfaction. A5
and A4 together suggest that BE is closely related the customer-oriented mindset. This
result coincides with the concept of BE.

Figure 11. Research titles in row 2 – column 5.

 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 13

Figure 12. Trends of the topic analysis.

The second interesting observation was related to the identification of the core themes
of TQM&BE, represented by A3 and A4 located in the centre of the map. Given their
location in the centre of the map, they were linked to more topics. That is, they could
be interpreted as the core activities that drive other activities. The A4 area was related
to customer relationship and business strategy. Customer relationships represent the
value of a company and business strategy determines its direction. As a result, customer
relationships and business strategies determine the success or failure of an organisation.
They are undoubtedly central to TQM practices. The A3 area was related to innovation,
learning, team and design. This result also makes sense. Indeed, first, TQM is an evolving
concept, and knowledge and innovation can be key factors in its evolution. Second, con-
tinuous improvement has always been the main theme of TQM practices.

5.2. Comparative analysis

In terms of the keyword analysis, our results showed that the top five keywords were TQM,
quality management, service quality, customer satisfaction, and quality, which is consist-
ent with the findings of Dereli et al. (2011). They showed that the most frequent keywords
in TQM&BE were TQM and keywords related to customer and service.
In terms of the topic analysis, the SOM technique identified six topics. The A1 area was
related to TQM practice, performance, and implementation. The A2 area was related to
ISO, standard, cost, leadership, lean, and manufacturing. The A3 area was related to inno-
vation, knowledge, learning, team, improvement, design, and product development. The
A4 area was related to marketing, brand, relationship, and strategy. The A5 area was
related to customer service, recovery, satisfaction, value, and loyalty in different sectors.
The A6 area was related to BE. These results are consistent with the findings of Lo and
Chai (2012). They investigated the main themes of research papers published from 1996
to 2010 in TQM&BE. They showed that the core themes in TQM&BE included service
quality (A5 in the SOM map), customer satisfaction (A5), and TQM frameworks (A1),
and that emerging themes included customer relations (A4), quality cost (A2), and com-
parative studies and empirical studies of the effects of TQM (A1). As Lo and Chai’s
research ended in 2010, our results identify new themes after 2010: the BE framework
14 S.-H. Hsu et al.

(A6) and innovation, learning, team, and design (A3). Carnerud (2017) also suggested that
innovation, practice, and learning can be seen as a newly identified central theme in QM
research, which was overlooked in prior studies.
As discussed earlier, Carnerud and Bäckström (2019) selected six journals as suitable
objects and collected 4,741 articles from 1980 to 2017, using keywords related to BE. They
used LDA analysis and identified seven central topics of quality research over the past 37
years, including 1. service quality and customer satisfaction (A5); 2. process design and
control; 3. ISO certification and standards (A2); 4. TQM – implementation, performance,
and culture (A1); 5. QM – practices and performance (A1); 6. reliability, costs, failure, and
problems (A2 and A5); and 7. excellence, quality awards, and excellence in higher edu-
cation (A6). Although they focused on BE research, we can still see that their results
and ours share many similarities. This suggests that TQM and BE have many similarities
and that TQM&BE is a comprehensive journal. In addition, this study identified new
themes, A3 and A4, that were not mentioned in the earlier study.

5.3. Topic trend analysis

In terms of the trend analysis (see Figure 12), we observed that the number of papers in A1
(related to TQM) decreased from 2010 to 2012. This corresponds to the observation of Dahl-
gaard-Park et al. (2013) that TQM was entering a mature stage at the time, leading to a
decrease in the number of related papers. The number of papers in A6 (related to BE)
increased and then decreased from 2010 to 2012. That is, BE is not a new fad that replaced
TQM (Dahlgaard-Park et al., 2013). In particular, after 2011, both lines of research shared
roughly the same direction. That is, TQM and BE are more like similar ideas.
During the same period (2010–2012), the number of papers in A5 (related to service
and customer satisfaction) showed a significant increase. The number of papers in A3
(related to innovation and learning) also increased until 2014 when it reached a peak.
This may be because research studies focused on promoting the importance of learning
in TQM (Dahlgaard et al., 2019).
The number of papers in A2 (related to ISO, lean, and cost) increased after 2011. The
number of papers in A4 (related to marketing and customer relationships) started to
increase significantly after 2015. This may be because TQM is at a more mature stage
where focuses shifted from initially on TQM to tools, techniques and core values
needed for the pursuit of BE (Dahlgaard-Park et al., 2013). One interesting observation
is that the number of papers in A3 and A4 decreased significantly in 2018.
As shown in Figure 12, some topics (i.e. A1, A2, A3, and A5) showed a higher number
of articles, indicating that they can be considered as more active topics in TQM&BE.

5.4. LDA and SOM comparison

LDA and the SOM technique yielded similar results. The A1 area was similar to Topic 2 in
LDA; the A2 area was similar to Topics 5 and 6 in LDA; the A3 area was similar to Topic 7
in LDA; the A4 area was not similar to any topic in LDA; the A5 area was similar to Topic
4 in LDA; and the A6 area was similar to Topic 3 in LDA.

6. Conclusion
The research reviews conducted by Lo and Chai (2012) and Dereli et al. (2011) were based
on TQM&BE, and together they covered the period between 1995 and 2010. So far, there
 Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 15

have been no updated research reviews. This study aimed to expand previous research by
answering the following three research questions:
RQ1: Compared with previous research, can we identify new themes?
We applied the SOM technique to the abstracts of articles published in TQM&BE
between 2010 and 2019 and identified six main topics. Our results also identified
new themes after 2010: the BE framework (A6) and innovation, learning, team, and
design (A3).
RQ2: What are the annual trends of the identified topics?
During the analysis, the SOM topics were further broken down by year to better see
the changes. The results showed that research on TQM&BE has undergone a shift
in focus from a dominance of TQM to service quality, ISO, and innovation and
learning. In addition, some topics (i.e. A1, A2, A3, and A5) showed a higher
number of articles, indicating that they can be considered as more active topics
in TQM&BE.
RQ3: Can the SOM technique be applied to develop topic maps?
First, LDA and the SOM technique yielded similar results, indicating that the SOM results
are valid and effective. Thus, the SOM can be considered as a technique for developing
topic maps for academic research reviews. In addition, the SOM can help to identify
relationships between topics and suggest interesting findings. Accordingly, the SOM tech-
nique can be applied to academic research reviews.

6.1. Theoretical implications

First, the research reviews conducted by Lo and Chai (2012) and Dereli et al. (2011) were
based on TQM&BE, and together they covered the period between 1995 and 2010. The
limitation of these two studies is that the study period ended in 2010. Accordingly, this
study extends those previous studies by reviewing papers published between 2010 and
2019 and identifies new themes after 2010, which include the BE framework, and inno-
vation, learning, team, and design.
Second, the results showed that research on TQM&BE has undergone a shift in focus
from a dominance of TQM to service quality, ISO, and innovation and learning. Third, the
results showed that BE is not a new fad that replaced TQM. TQM and BE are more like
similar ideas.
Finally, this study contributes to the text mining literature by illustrating the possible
application of the SOM to research reviews. The SOM technique helps to build a topic
map. The SOM can further help to identify relationships between topics and suggest inter-
esting findings. For example, the results identified A3 and A4 as the core themes of
TQM&BE.

6.2. Limitations
First, this study was limited to TQM&BE. Focusing exclusively on a single journal can
lead to overgeneralisation of the findings. Accordingly, our findings should be understood
in this context and not be overgeneralised. Second, the SOM generated results without an
awareness of the meaning. Thus, a subjective interpretation by the authors was still necess-
ary to understand the topics. Therefore, quantitative methods are not intended to replace
humans but to complement their abilities.
16 S.-H. Hsu et al.

6.3. Directions for future research

First, our results identified A3 and A4 as the core themes of TQM&BE. A3 has been
actively examined as a theme, but A4 has received relatively less attention so far.
Future research could focus more on the topics identified in the A4 area.
Second, this study demonstrated the feasibility of using the SOM technique to explore
the knowledge embedded in TQM&BE. Future research may explore the possibility of
using other text mining techniques.
Finally, although the SOM identified the topics of the papers published in TQM&BE,
there is room to further investigate the subtopics embedded in each topic. For example, it
would be interesting to explore the subtopics of BE to further break down this topic. That
is, the map result is not just a static map, but a dynamic map that can help researchers
quickly build a domain knowledge tree. This is a promising avenue because with the
help of text mining tools, researchers can quickly build and acquire the knowledge struc-
ture of domain knowledge.

Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous reviewers for their many insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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