Strategy adaptation for sustainable quality management in universities: A systematic literature review

Despite its roots in environmental discussions, sustainability has become a critical term
infuencing every aspect of organisations. As human-oriented institutions, universities have
also embraced the ‘sustainable development’ concept on the quality of their internal and
external services. Two overarching questions are most important for university managers
to strategically guide sustainable quality development in their institutions: Which strategies
do university managers adapt to construct a “sustainable quality management” structure in
their universities? and how are these adapted strategies related to different aspects/components of universities? In response, we employed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) protocol to analyse the existing studies in the related literature. During the systematic
review, we followed fve steps sequentially: i) defning the research question(s), ii) setting
inclusion–exclusion criteria, iii) recording eligible studies, iv) quality overview of selected
studies, and v) discussing prominent results. To integrate the results, we beneftted from
fve enablers in the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model and the
sub-sections given in the European University Association’s (EUA) institutional evaluation
reports. The results revealed that the initial steps for university leadership to establish a
‘Sustainable Quality Management’ system are integrating a sustainable quality approach to
the main strategy document, and then motivating their staf to participate in and enrich the
reform-level cultural changes in their universities. This study also discusses the strategies
adapted to sustain quality development in universities’ teaching, research, societal services,
and internationalisation practices