Conditions for Effective Implementation of Quality Management Systems in Public Administration: A Literature Review

The circumstances of quality management systems (QMS) implementation are relevant to the success of QMS in public administrations. However, literature concerning relevant conditions for successful implementation is dispersed in qualitative case studies, country studies, or one specific type of QMS. Therefore, this article gathers and synthesises relevant variables through a thematic literature review, which was carried out in internal databases of 21 leading public administration journals and three leading quality management journals, as well as in Google Scholar. Five variable categories which are transversal to all analysed QMS were detected in an inductive way: "commitment and resources", "structure and culture", "attitude and skills", "time", "measurement and communication". Given the high level of requirements related to the implementation of QMS and the limited pressure to adhere to quality management labels in the public sector, it is suggested that managers of public administrations also examine alternative non-systemic quality management tools to improve their organizations' performance.