An exploratory study of common issues and key differences between the European Foundation for Quality Management and the United Arab Emirates Public Sector Excellence Model: public sector organisation results

Abstract

Public sector organisations are increasingly implementing excellence models (EM) to improve their processes and services efficiently and to obtain the competitive advantage globally in terms of cost and quality. This paper seeks to present a comparative analysis of frameworks of European Foundation for Quality Management excellence model and a new government excellence model; namely, 4th G developed in United Arab Emirates. It also identifies their common issues and differences in terms of core values, criteria, weights’ distribution, assessment methodologies and achievement of perceived benefits to propose suggestions for proper implementation of the government excellence model. Moreover, a comprehensive literature review formed the basis of a survey questionnaire and responses from about 42 specialists, in both models, have been used for empirical analyses. The data was analysed using a sign test to test the stated hypothesis. The results suggested that there is no significant difference between the core values of both models while the analysis signifies that a difference exists between the overall criteria of both models, the weights’ distribution and the assessment methods. Overall, the present work concludes that, the perceived benefits expected from the new model have been tangible. Findings of the research are valuable for public sector organisations currently adopting the 4th G, elucidating that excellence models must not be static and must evolve as organisations grow.