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From its inception, the field of quality management (QM) has been characterised by practice-driven development. Although QM has reached maturity as a field of research based on empirical enquiry, its practitioners still struggle to adapt QM implementations to reap their benefits. This study aims to identify their challenges to better understand how contemporary QM research addresses them. We propose approaches to bridge the potential relevance gaps between research and practice. A Delphi study of QM practitioners in Swedish private and public organisations, several of which operate globally, generated 49 challenges. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to cluster these challenges into themes, and the literature was reviewed to investigate how each theme has been addressed in QM research. The empirical investigation identified three themes related to future QM challenges—organisations' …