Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review to identify new avenues of research in line with the ongoing changes in quality and management required to firms, especially regarding customers.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a systematic review of the literature contained in the three databases Ebsco, JSTOR, and Springerlink and on the search engine Google Scholar.Findings: An analysis of the literature identifies three different clusters of papers: “identification” papers, which show that customer focus has gained importance in recent times; “implementation” papers, which highlight that a general or shared model or scale to successfully implement total quality management (TQM) does not yet exist; and “impact-on-performance” papers, which show that few studies have considered the relationship between TQM and the issues of both marketing and performance, underlining the most significant gap in the TQM literature.Research limitations/implications: This study is limited by the small number of databases and search engines used and by the restricted number of keywords used in searching these sources.Practical implications: This work highlights a gap in the existing research and thus an incomplete consideration of the interplay between management, marketing, and quality issues, all centered on customers and other stakeholders. Researchers and firms are thus advised to adopt a wider view that considers the role of the quality process to support the firm’s engagement of customers in activities that enhance both the customer role and customer satisfaction.Originality/value: This study uses a systematic literature review to review all critical factors of TQM and identifies new research avenues and different approaches to implementing TQM, focusing on the central role that customers play in achieving firm success.

The transition to a circular economy bodes well for a future of environmentally sustainable growth and economic development. The implications and advantages of a shift to a circular economy have been extensively demonstrated by the literature on the subject. What has not been sufficiently investigated is how this paradigm can be enabled through the inter-organisational cooperation among different business enterprises. In order to illustrate this point, in this paper we aim to contribute to the circular economy debate by describing and discussing such a meta-model of inter-organisational cooperation. The present study is therefore based on the analysis of three cases from an equal number of industries, from which we identified factors of potential impact for the stimulation of cooperation in a circular economy perspective. Last, but not least, we discuss the relations between the case studies and try to formulate all possible implications for both managers and research.

Sustainability views firm success and the welfare-wellbeing of societies in which they develop as closely inter-related. Value co-creation assumes that firms create value not only for themselves, but also for all actors willing to participate in co-creation processes, as well as for the whole ecosystem in which they operate. Thus, co-creation can sustain social development and sustainability. However, to ensure sustainability through value co-creation processes, TQM principles must be followed and Critical Success Factors (CSFs) reinterpreted following this perspective. In this important, but understudied context, the aim of the paper is to focus on value co-creation processes fostering sustainability, identifying which CSFs are most suitable to best support each phase of these processes. The paper is based on a review of the literature and bridges sustainability, value co-creation, TQM, EM and IMS literature for the first time, proposing a new model of value co-creation processes, which considers it a never ending cycle. The proposed model presents and discusses, for the first time, the most important CSFs to foster sustainability and opens the discussion on how to re-interpret quality principles, which must also be followed in value co-creation processes.

Purpose: Satisfaction in the tourism sector is a highly sensitive subject, and customer satisfaction (CS) has a significant impact on the choice of destinations made by tourists and on the decision to recommend them to friends or acquaintances. The purpose of this paper is to give empirical evidence of the dimensions of service quality (technical, functional and company image (CI)) and their connections in the sector of thermal tourism. It also aims at investigating the CI, seeking to understand whether some of the technical and functional service quality variables play a role in determining it. Design/methodology/approach: An empirical survey was conducted by administering a structured research questionnaire in order to collect all necessary data, which was then elaborated to test the hypotheses using factor and multiple regression analyses. Findings: The results of the survey confirm the direct impact of service quality dimensions (technical, functional and CI) on CS also in the thermal sector when considered individually. Moreover, when the CI was analyzed further, relational quality was found to be dependent on thermal employees’ capabilities, abilities, trustworthiness, availability, etc. Finally, when considered together, functional service quality and CI have a stronger effect on CS than technical service quality. Originality/value: The originality of the present research relies on the following: a further contribution to the so-called “European perspective” of service quality; the study of service quality dimensions (technical, functional and CI) in the thermal sector; and evidencing the link between thermal employee characteristics and the relational quality factor of the CI, demonstrating that many aspects of this construct need further empirical investigation, in the wellness sector.