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This study has the main aim of analyzing the influence of six factors on ISO 9001 implementation: Economic Development, Exporting to Europe, Reputation, Competitiveness, Innovation and Business Sophistication. As a complement, a new factor relating to quality by country has been added: the World Quality Scoreboard.

Hypotheses are proposed that establish a (positive or negative) linear relationship between the diffusion of ISO 9001 and the indicators of the different factors analyzed in each country. The SPSS program was used to evaluate the hypotheses using data from 2009 to 2018.

The results indicate strong positive relationship for the country's economic development only when countries with low levels of income are considered. For the rest of the variables, the results indicate that their behavior varies according to the degree of development of the countries. When only developed countries are considered, significant and negative correlations are obtained for reputation, competitiveness, innovation and business sophistication, while considering the group of less developed countries, the results are reversed. The new World Quality Scoreboard has the same behavior whereas regarding exports; we did not obtain conclusive results.

This study adds important information on the studying of ISO 9000 phenomenon diffusion/evolution by analyzing the effect of six variables on the degree of implementation of the ISO 9001 standard in different countries. This information is interesting for companies and certification bodies across the world because it allows a better understanding of the reasons and conditions of implementing a quality management system.

Business innovation, that is, the adaptation of management systems to the changing conditions of the environment, is a key factor for organisations if they wish to survive and grow. Total quality management (TQM) has demonstrated its potential to be a successful way for organisations to elimintate costs, improve productivity and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. However, are TQM and business innovation compatible? The advantages and disadvantages to TQM as a means of developing and facilitating business innovations are discussed in this paper. It is argued that TQM does not hinder business innovation and some of its dimensions can assist an organsation to be more innovative. The compatibility of reengineering, which is a form of business innovation, with TQM is also considered in the paper, along with the effects of TQM on the successful implementation of information technologies.

This paper explores the application of total quality management (TQM) to public sector organisations. The examination of the operating characteristics of these organisations has been made against ten dimensions of TQM (e.g. supplier relationships and workforce management) identified and defined by the authors using the academic literature. From the examination TQM is found to be of benefit to public sector organisations but particular characteristics of their operation, in particular, the lack of understanding of customer satisfaction issues, the contentment of managers and staff to work to rules and regulations and observe precedent, and the lack of internal drive and motivation to improve processes, make the TQM intervention more difficult. It is also observed that regulatory bodies can provide the incentive to improve, acting in the same role as demanding customers in a competitive situation.

ISO 9000 certification has a growing importance for companies, mainly in Europe but also in other countries. Several papers have analysed the effects of ISO 9000 certification on company results, with contradictory conclusions. The purpose of this work is to clarify these possible effects.

This paper reports new findings on the topic following a study using data from 713 companies and using the two methodologies that have been applied in the scientific literature: the comparison of certified and non‐certified companies and a longitudinal study of the results of certification.

The data suggest that not only is ISO 9000 positive for companies but also it can actually reduce benefits and profitability.

Several reasons for these results can be suggested and constitute a critique of the almost compulsory character of ISO 9000 as a norm for performance in some markets. Companies should be aware that implementing ISO 9000 just for compliance does not constitute a competitive advantage.

This research uses objective measures of performance and combines two methodologies: the comparison between certified and non‐certified companies and a longitudinal analysis.

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model is widely used as a management tool in companies. Consequently, it is of great importance to understand the relationships within it, and inform managers about appropriate ways to manage events in order to get the desired results in general, and for specific interest groups (stakeholders). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper analyzes the internal relationships of the EFQM model using empirical data from a sample of 199 Spanish companies. Four managers in each company were interviewed, to eliminate single respondent bias. Structural equation modeling is used for the analysis.

The results obtained from the empirical analysis provide evidence of an underlying logic in the EFQM model that does not match the official model. New significant relationships between the enablers and results not considered in the official model have been found.

The study focusses on Spanish industrial companies with 50-500 workers and uses a cross-sectional design.

Managers should look at the EFQM model as a tool for finding their own way to excellence, but it is not a precise map, because the model may have some problems of definition. Managers should introduce its elements only after deep reflection on its benefit for their company.

Despite the previous research on this issue, there is still no clear consensus. Relationships that are not reflected in the theoretical model have been identified.

Multinational corporations face a more intense competence and a higher number of changes in the different countries they operate. In this regard, organizational learning and quality management are key elements that could help them to survive in the market. Convinced by the numerous benefits and competitive potential of total quality management (TQM) programmes, corporations have promoted its implementation. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interaction between these programmes and organizational learning, more precisely with exploitation and exploration capabilities, in order to understand the way in which quality management programmes could help to develop learning in the companies.

Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed model. The sample comprised 111 medium-sized Spanish companies, with four different responses each. Constructs are measured with Likert scales previously tested in the literature.

The results show that TQM is positively and strongly related to both exploitation and exploration and that the relationship between TQM and exploitation is higher. Concerning the effects of exploitation and exploration on firm performance; results of the analysis show that only exploration capability positively affects organizational performance. It is also confirmed a positive effect of a TQM system in performance.

This research covers a gap in the literature regarding the relationship between organizational learning and TQM, particularly with the concepts of exploitation and exploration in the context of multinational companies.

After analysing a sample of 442 of the Spanish biggest manufacturing companies, some evidence about the influence of total quality management (TQM) on the companies’ operating performance has been obtained. However, companies applying TQM together with the ISO 9000 standards did not show positive results. This fact leads to the consideration that, despite the beliefs about ISO 9000 as a good first step in the way of implementing TQM, once implemented, some of the ISO 9000 principles are contradictory with TQM philosophy. These not congruent systems applied together would drive the company to obtain less benefits than the use of only one of them. The study concludes that when ISO 9000 and TQM are applied simultaneously, the resultant benefits to the company are not better than those experienced if either system were applied in isolation.

As with the ISO 9000 standard, some doubts arise from the scientific literature about the impact of the EFQM model in companies' success. This paper aims to present an analysis of the relationships in the 2003 version of the EFQM model using data from the actual self‐evaluations of 68 organizations. It also analyzes if there are possible differences in the EFQM implementation between public and private organizations.

The Partial Least Squares (PLS) method is used to test hypotheses.

Results show that the model does not behave in the way that the designers of the EFQM expected. Two of the results variables are not sufficiently correlated with the others to be part of the complete model. When the model is tested without these two variables, the connection between enablers fails, since policy and strategy, people, and partnership and resources do not have statistically significant effects on the process. There is a slightly higher achievement in the group of manufacturing/private companies compared with the group of public/educational institutions.

This paper is an exploratory study. A deeper analysis of the agency criteria might produce improved results. It would also be possible to examine sub‐criterion levels. Each enabler in the model is composed of different sub‐criteria and the relationships among them have not been explored in the literature. The question that needs to be addressed is whether the inclusion of enablers in the EFQM Excellence Model can be justified on empirical grounds.

Previous research has been conducted using secondary data. The study has been made using the real self‐evaluations of organizations, evaluations that have been validated by official staff of the EFQM organization. In addition, whereas much of the previous research analysed the 1999 version of the model, this paper focuses on the latest version of 2003.

The topic of this research focuses on firm's perceived implementation of quality management practices in the purchasing function. More specifically, this paper describes an exploratory research effort to analyze and classify quality management practices in purchasing and assesses the relationships of these practices with measurements of a firm purchasing's operational performance (POP), internal customer satisfaction and business performance. The results reported in this study are based on a field survey consisting of responses gathered from 306 purchasing managers within the Spanish manufacturing industry. The assessment of the relationships among quality management practices in purchasing, POP, internal customer satisfaction and business performance is carried out using bivariate correlation analysis.

Quality costs have been discussed widely in the literature. This discussion has not always agreed and it is possible to identify two basic schools of thought; one asserts the existence of a minimal level of quality cost for a given level of prevention and appraisal activities, and the other asserts that through prevention quality improvement is constant. This paper summarises these positions and outlines a behaviour model of quality costs that unifies and clarifies them. The behaviour model is based on the consideration of the cumulative effects of prevention. Ceteris paribus, continuous prevention activities should permit quality improvements whilst at the same time reducing the costs necessary to obtain them. The behaviour model introduces the effect of external quality requirements in an attempt to explain how, over time, quality improvement efforts do not necessarily result in decreased quality costs as customers’ quality requirements rise over the same period.