Achieving sustainable excellence: A theoretical comparison of established quality awards

Abstract

This research scrutinizes and synthesizes three well-known quality awards in the world including the Baldrige Award, Deming Prize, and European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Award with a longitudinal examination. The study generates insights for improving the award frameworks and producing a greater impact on sustainable excellence for organizations. The evolution of the frameworks spanning about the past decade exemplifies quality as the core competency of organizations globally and its solid role in supporting sustainable excellence. While differences exist among the three award frameworks, a trending convergence was observed in their evolution toward sustainability and the inclusion of agility and stakeholders. For organizations, there is the potential to view the awards as complementary, especially for organizations with a global footprint. For the administration bodies of the three awards, learning opportunities emerge from the comparison provided because revisions were suggested that would encourage organizations to sustain the benefits of winning the awards. Adopting the structure of the Deming Grand Prize would allow the Baldrige Award and EFQM Award to establish a mechanism to reevaluate the winners for their continuous and ongoing improvements. This reevaluation would encourage maximizing and sustaining the benefits of the quality initiatives.