Maturity models: identifying the state-of-the-art and the scientific gaps from a bibliometric study

Maturity model has been increasingly approached by several researchers from various research areas in order to develop models that could assess the strengths and weaknesses of a system and/or a process, and to develop scripts for improvement. Additionally, they pursue the development of a process with desirable goals, such as a set of resources or practices, resulting in a more mature organization or system. This study provides an overview of the maturity models' literature and their main features while employing bibliometric analyses of publications from 2004 through 2014 aiming to identify scientific gaps that would serve as guides for future research. The analyses' results reveal that maturity models are highly applied in project management seeking for processes and/or systems improvement, and they can also be described as adaptable models which could be used in various research areas, as can be seen in the scientific gaps section. Therefore, the main contribution of this paper is to make the evolution of this subject and its importance better known, thus encouraging the use of maturity model in future researches, seeking the improvement of the current model.