An empirical investigation of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award framework using causal Latent Semantic Analysis

Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the linkages implied in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework. Those studies posited that the MBNQA quality experts defaulted to the premise that each construct is related to all others in the MBNQA framework because of the lack of specific knowledge about the causative relationships. Therefore, there is a need for both academicians and managers to explore the MBNQA framework as a non-recursive causal model as it was originally developed. This study uses a causal latent semantic analysis methodology to test the MBNQA as a non-recursive causal model using textual data obtained from scholarly MBNQA publications. Though the MBNQA framework is yet to be fully explored by both academicians and practitioners, this is the first study to show that the cumulative finding of prior research supports the contention that the constructs in the framework have substantial influence on each other.