Capability Maturity Models Across Industries: A Global Bibliometric Analysis of Intellectual Evolution, Thematic Clusters, and Emerging Frontiers (1992–2025)

The Study contains a bibliometric analysis of the global research on Capability Maturity Model (CMM) (1992-2025) conducted to map the intellectual development, topical organisation and research frontiers of the field across industries. A systematic bibliometric analysis of 500 journal articles indexed by Scopus, extracted from a sample of 4,474 records, based on specific inclusion criteria (article type, keyword match, English language). Keywords co-occurrence mapping and visualisation, as well as cluster analysis, were performed using VOSviewer, and Kleinberg’s burst detection was used to identify research bursts. Silhouette scores were used to assess cluster validity and thematic coherence. Other performance indicators, including citations, h-index, and citation density were calculated to assess intellectual performance, while geographic and source mapping assessed the worldwide spread of research. The dataset covers 13,675 citations, an h-index of 58, and an average citation density of 27.35, indicating a mature and impactful field. The US is the main source, with Norway, Portugal and Turkey showing strong citation density through digital transformation research. Keyword burst activity shows four major areas of focus; digital transformation, Industry 4.0, cybersecurity and cross-domain maturity modelling - with significant activity from 2020 to 2025, indicating a transition to digital capability models. This is a cross-industry bibliometric analysis of CMM research, showing its evolution into a generalised digital capability assessment