How The TQM Journal has addressed “quality”: a literature review using bibliometric analysis

PurposeThis study investigates the overall publications of The TQM Journal since its inception with an aim to identify the trending topics and emerging trends.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative bibliometric and social network analysis techniques composed of keywords, co-occurrence network and keyword cluster detection are employed to conduct the investigation. A total of 968 papers published in The TQM Journal till August 2022 were sourced from the SCOPUS database to conduct the analysis.FindingsThe research identifies five themes from the published articles namely, customer service experience and satisfaction; quality management and organizational performance; quality measurement tools and models; quality and sustainable development; and quality and competitive advantage. The study also identifies the most significant articles, authors and countries published in the journal and shows that Industry 4.0 is the trending topic and quality 4.0 the new emerging trend in the journal.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is carried out only for papers published in The TQM Journal till August 2022; those after this month are not included in the analysis. The outcome of this study is dynamic in nature and subject to change over time as more papers, citations and collaborations are added to the list.Originality/valueThis is the first article of its kind to explore The TQM Journal publications with an aim to identify trending and emerging topics and also the most valuable authors based on the number of publications and citations through the bibliometric analysis.