Summary
In the present day competitive business environment, all types of companies need to take measures for enforcing their reputation and creating a competitive edge in their market sector. Through market research, it has been discovered that the quality parameter can be recognized as the most important of the existing competitive weapons. The application of the criteria of such world-known quality awards as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the European Quality Award, the Deming Application Prize and others for assessing the total quality of the companies’ current performance is helpful for sharing valuable information on the most effective strategies, facilitating communication and improving the organizational practices and results.
The early attempts of constructing lists and frameworks for guiding the assessment of the companies’ performance are dated back to the early 1980s when the American gurus of the quality management domain, namely Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby started systematizing the related issues through researching the success of Japan’s manufacturing industry (Oakland, 2000, p. 21). Their mission was to condense the pillars of the total quality system into a set of concrete criteria (Conti, 1993, p. 2). The Deming Prize which was established by Edward Deming in 1950 was intended to identify and reward the outstanding advances of Japanese companies in the4 sphere of quality improvement. The growing recognition of the total quality management approach as an important cultural shift has fostered the development of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award in the late 1980s. The establishment of the Baldrige Award was a significant event in the history of total quality management which increased the interest in the quality award frameworks among the world’s organizations. It was followed by the launch of the European Quality Award in the early 1990s. The latter was the first framework containing the parameter of business results and thus showing a strong resemblance to the complete business model in its modern interpretation.
The benefits of the quality award models have never been limited to receiving prestigious prizes, but rather were extended to the application of these frameworks as a tool for the company’s self-assessment and a descriptive model of the generally accepted criteria of business performance. The main principles of the total quality philosophy were summed up by Hutchins (1992) who condensed them into the concepts of customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. Moreover, with the evolution of these frameworks, the current assessment criteria allow not only defining the company’s core competencies but also planning the initiatives for preserving the focus on these advantages (Brown, 2000, p. 11). Oakland (2001) noted that an important advantage of modern business models is the recognition of the mutual dependence of the business objectives, environmental considerations and customer outcomes (p. 96). Thus, within the current competitive environment, the application of the quality award frameworks can have a positive impact on the companies’ performance through the detection of possible drawbacks in the organizational structure along with facilitating the communication and information exchange and improving the current business practices.
This paper will discuss the historical development of the quality award frameworks, the main criteria included in the discussed models, the possible ways of applying the frameworks in business practice and assess the impact of applying the quality awards frameworks as the tools of self-assessment upon the companies’ performance.
Methodology
Taking into account the peculiarities of the research question, namely the impact of quality awards on total quality management and business performance and the related issues, it can be stated that secondary research is preferable to the primary study design.
Apart from convenience, the secondary research design presupposes a number of significant advantages in the context of this study. To begin with, secondary research is the only way for analyzing the historical evolution of the quality award frameworks in the studies of outstanding theoreticians. Taking into account that a great number of primary researches have been conducted since the early 1980s in order to explore the major criteria of the quality award frameworks, the possible ways of their application and their impact on the companies’ business performance, this paper will summarize the findings of the previous studies. Using a retrospective approach for defining the main precursors of the growing interest in the quality award frameworks, and the evolutional changes in the assessment criteria, this research will focus on the practical implications of using these frameworks as the self-assessment tools for improving the companies’ business performance.
Along with collating and synthesizing the existing theoretical studies on the main principles embodied in the quality award frameworks, this study will collect data from the empirical research for investigating the possible ways of applying the sets of assessment criteria from the quality award frameworks in real-life companies. Another significant reason for selecting the secondary research design is the large-scale trend of applying the quality award frameworks within the world’s companies. Thus, conducting primary research within a particular company would provide insight into the results retrieved from only a small sample. In that regard, the analysis of the wide range of the available empirical studies would allow overcoming the limitations of small sampling and making generalizations. Evaluating the importance of the self-assessment measures for detecting the organizational drawbacks which need to be eliminated and the companies’ core competencies that need to be fostered, this paper will define the place of the quality award frameworks in total quality management (Cole 1999).
The aim of this research is to establish the links between the implementation of the quality award frameworks and total quality management and evaluate the impact of the practical application of these frameworks on the companies’ business performance. A secondary research design would allow exploring the studies of outstanding scholars working in this domain, comparing their views and systematizing them within a single comprehensive framework.
The main objectives of this study include the analysis of the main preconditions for the development of the quality awards and the main criteria which were included in their frameworks in relation to the concept of total quality management. Another important objective is defining the main ways in which the companies can use the quality award frameworks under consideration, not limiting their application to the goal of receiving the prestigious award itself, give serious consideration to the related business processes within the organizational structure of the companies conducting the self-assessment procedures, analyzing the achieved results and developing the strategies for improving the existing situation.
The secondary research of the available theoretical and empirical studies is the most appropriate for exploring the chosen research problem. The study will combine the retrospective approach for evaluating the main stages in the history of the quality award frameworks and the analysis of the latest sources concerning the impact of the frameworks on the companies’ business performance in the current competitive environment.
References
Brown, MG, 2000, Baldrige award-winning quality – How to Interpret the Baldrige criteria for performance excellence, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, London.
Cole, RE, 1999, Managing quality fads – How American business learned to play the quality game, ASQ, New York.
Conti, T, 1993, Building total quality – A guide for management, Chapman & Hall, London
Hutchins, D, 1992, Achieve total quality, Director Books, Cambridge, UK.
Oakland, JS, 2000, Total quality management – Text with cases, Butterworth – Heinemann, Oxford.
Oakland, JS, 2001 Total organizational excellence – Achieving world-class performance, Butterworth – Heinemann, Oxford.