The landscape of “quality circles for education” – a structured analysis

Purpose Quality circles (QCir) method is one tool of favorable effects on organisational change. However, usage of the QCir method for the development of education is still a perplexing, scattered and scarcely attended domain. This paper aims at defining boundaries of categories of topics that could be considered relevant discussions to this domain. Design/methodology/approach With the basis of Soft Systems Methodology theory and concept development research method, this paper structured a taxonomy of categories of topics. Additionally, this paper afterwards performed a structured analysis, based on the taxonomy, of the total literature relevant to the “quality circles for education” domain. Findings The results revealed that this line of interest, although limitedly researched, is still alive today, and not dead as was claimed in some studies. However, the core and amount of empirical evidence is yet insufficient for the necessary progress of knowledge of this domain due to the type of research methods used most of the time. Also, fortunately, because of the tabulated structure, the analysis clearly showed the niche topics under this area that are ripe ground for new research. Furthermore, this paper has shed light on another possible future line of research that plugs this domain into a set of synonym circles used in the pedagogy realm. Originality/value This paper introduced land marks and border for a subject that was left limitedly visited and scattered for some time, although it was positively praised in several studies. This paper developed a taxonomy as well as drawn the landscape of the subject via performing a comprehensive structured analysis of the relevant literature.