A Review of Maturity Models Engaging Quality Culture in Higher Education

Maturity models are widely used to guide institutional development in higher education. However, applying maturity models to quality culture, a relational, contested, and contextually embedded construct, raises unresolved conceptual and methodological concerns, notably how well a staged, standardizing logic can capture a construct of this kind. This paper critically reviews how maturity models conceptualize, operationalize, and apply quality culture in higher education. Seven distinct maturity models, documented across eight sources, including one doctoral thesis, were identified through searches in five major databases and analyzed against four dimensions: architectural structure, theoretical foundations, treatment of quality culture, and reported applications and limitations. The analysis distinguishes models that position quality culture as a central construct from those that incorporate it as a dimension, mediating factor, or supporting component within broader institutional, technological, or managerial frameworks, and shows that this positional difference governs what institutional inquiry each model can support. Recurring themes across the models include leadership, stakeholder engagement, continuous improvement, and feedback mechanisms. Recurring limitations include reliance on linear stage-based progressions, limited grounding in organizational and cultural theory, and insufficient sensitivity to institutional context.