Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) Quality Tool in Education. A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) quality tool in education. Identifying the main themes of these effects is an additional aim of the present study. Understanding these issues can enable higher and secondary education centres to direct their management towards achieving outstanding results. A systematic literature review was conducted based on data from two academic publishers, Emerald, Taylor and Francis. The 41 peer-reviewed journals articles were published between 1990 and 2023 and presented the results of the MBNQA quality tool in education. According to this research, several implications of the MBNQA quality tool in education are presented. The review of the literature reveals that there are many results found about the application of the quality tool in Tertiary and Secondary education, the challenges they face in terms of innovation, human resources and operations, as well as the achievement of excellent results from the application of the methodology. The main topics supported in the literature are human resources, knowledge management and the quality of services offered for the satisfaction of teachers and students. An important limitation is that data were drawn from only two major journals (Emerald, Taylor and Francis), as implementation of the MBNQA quality tool is mainly found in the private sector. In addition, many keywords such as Quality Assurance and Business Excellence, led to application of the quality tool in businesses and organisation and little is its application in the public sector and education as a result the findings of articles were limited. An equally important limitation is that the authors did not always have got access to all databases and peer-reviewed journals, as well as in any review articles in languages ​​other than English. This research is of interest to academic researchers, scholars and key decision makers in the field of education. The advantages recorded from the implementation of the MBNQA quality tool and the limitations from the study and presentation of the 41 articles motivate academic researchers to further study service quality in order to create a climate focused on learning for the satisfaction of students and teachers so as to fill the gap of limited publications in the field of education. Many models have been adapted to higher education including the MBNQA quality tool. The MBNQA appears to have the largest number of historical applications in higher education, with its focus on customer satisfaction and improvement information. However, the systematic literature review reveals the increasing trend of using quality tools in the field of education in recent years. Moreover, literature reviews on the use of models in this field are limited. Therefore, more research is needed to determine the benefits, as well as limitations and outcomes of applying qualitative tools in Education in the future.