Knowledge management and total quality management: foundations, intellectual structures, insights regarding evolution of the literature

More and more, Knowledge Management (KM) appears as a key issue in developing a quality culture, and well-known quality frameworks have been emphasising the importance of KM for quality management systems. Through a systematic and comprehensive literature review, this study identifies, describes and characterises the origins, evolution and intellectual structures of the scientific knowledge associating KM and Total Quality Management (TQM). Literature has been reporting that KM may coexist with TQM, because there are several communalities between both, and both share key success factors. However, there is still no consensus on the nature of the relationship. While some researchers focus on a reciprocal relationship, others perceive KM as a key enabler for TQM, or TQM as a supporter for KM. Overall, this review underlines a lack of systematic efforts to develop a sound theoretical framework, and thus, literature still lacks evidences concerning reference models and key factors which could contribute to an effective and efficient integration of TQM and KM. The application of three different complementary advanced bibliometric techniques allowed a broad range of relevant insights that can inspire new streams of further research.