The effectiveness of quality awards on the company's performance – the case of Iran's national quality awards

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between getting quality awards by companies and their financial performance in Iran's business.

Design/methodology/approach

In the first step, the relationship between awards scores and financial performance by canonical correlation analysis was examined. Then, binary and multinomial logistic regression was used to determine the degree of impact of each financial performance measure on getting quality awards. Finally, two forecasting functions were explored: the probability of achieving quality awards and the probability of achieving different levels of these awards.

Findings

Based on the analyzed data of 112 companies through canonical correlation analysis, there was a weak relationship between financial performance and getting quality awards. Also, by using logistic regression, no result was found to prove the impact of financial performance measures on getting Iran's national quality awards. It can be concluded that conceptually, deployment of excellence organizational models will not result in favorable outcomes, especially in the financial scope. Also, practically, excellence models have not been well deployed in Iranian companies, or these models do not fit to Iran's business environment. Organizational culture may not be consistent with quality.

Originality/value

Quality awards are given to qualified companies following the establishment of models of excellence such as the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The main novelty of this research is to clarify the relationship between getting quality awards by companies and their financial performance in Iran's business.

Citation

Safari, H., Razghandi, E., Fathi, M.R., Cruz-Machado, V. and Cabrita, M.d.R. (2020), "The effectiveness of quality awards on the company's performance – the case of Iran's national quality awards", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 1319-1340. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-12-2018-0409