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This monograph presents some findings, based on four pieces of work funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, on the influence of the National Quality Campaign on UK industry. Amongst the main conclusions are that the campaign material has been relatively successful in reaching its prime target of senior management, the majority of respondents have found the material to be useful and believe that the campaign has benefited their organisation in terms of increased awareness of the importance of total quality management and that few chief executives are actively involved in the process of quality improvement. It is also pointed out that respondents have been selective in their choice of material and chief executives were more discriminating than their subordinates. The selection of material appears to be dependent upon brochure content, respondents′ position in the organisational hierarchy and respondents′ perception of the relevance of material. There is little doubt that people have high expectations of Government in continuing to promote national awareness of quality management and disseminating quality‐related information. The monograph goes on to explore possible future initiatives along the lines of a Pan‐European dimension.

Describes how the European Foundation for Quality Management believes quality must become part of every organisation′s strategic business plan. Discusses how the organisation plans to develop specific quality awareness, management education and motivational programmes in close co‐operation with other European organisations and institutions of higher education. Discusses how the EFQM plans to strengthen the role of quality management in Europe. Concludes by looking at the EFQM plan to establish a European Quality Award which is to be content oriented and based on customer satisfaction.

Different approaches to improve quality are used in organizations delivering health care. Donabedian introduced structure, process and outcome, from which other approaches like self‐assessment, accreditation, visitation, International Standards Organisation (ISO) and European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) can be aligned. The EFQM model is one such approach that has been adopted and adapted by the Dutch Institute for Quality Management. This article describes the background and progress relating to the use of the EFQM business excellence model within Dutch health care organizations. In addition the process for applying for the European Quality Award and the Dutch Quality Award are described in detail. Finally, the reader is enlightened regarding the work of the European ExPeRT research group who are promoting the use of quality models within health care.

This work analyses quality management (through the European Foundation for Quality Management-EFQM-model) and transformational leadership in hotels in Spain.

The study analyses 102 5-star and 5-star large luxury hotels that answer a questionnaire on transformational leadership and the EFQM model. It analyses the degree of importance of quality and transformational leadership in hotels, the significant differences between groups of hotels (according to stars, size, modality and type of product) and the association between transformational leadership and quality.

The results show the levels of quality and transformational leadership, minor significant differences between groups and an association between the two variables. In general, chain-affiliated hotels have a higher level of leadership and a more advanced employee and process management than independent hotels. Also, those hotels that focus on a vacational product show a lower attention to the strategy dimension in the EFQM model. The number of employees is not an important factor to adopt quality. Finally, transformational leadership allows hotels to advance in the development of quality management.

Although there are studies on quality management that show the importance of leadership for quality, there are few studies that examine transformational leadership and quality in the same study, mainly in the tourism industry, and especially in the case of the hotel industry.

Describes the important contributions of quality gurus like Deming, Juran, Crosby, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa and Garvin which led to the evolutionary development of Strategic Quality Management (SQM). In addition, the core concepts of SQM, namely, customer focus, leadership, strategic quality planning, design quality, speed and prevention, people participation and partnership, fact‐based management and continuous improvement are identified and are compared with Malcolm Baldrige and European Quality Award criteria and ISO 9001 certification requirements. Also a framework for implementing strategies based on these seven core concepts is recommended. Develops a comparative analysis of Malcolm Baldridge and European Quality Awards, and ISO 9001 requirements.

Through the analysis of a crucial period of the history of quality in Europe – the creation of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the development of the European Quality Award – the author, who was a protagonist of the narrated events, aims to reveal some historical aspects that are generally ignored and that should explain some of the peculiarities of the award model. Taking stock of the present situation, some directions taken in the TQM/Excellence Model's development and use are questioned, and the author reasserts his views on the whole matter.

For the historical part the author has based his research on public documents, EFQM Newsletters and internal documentation and personal correspondence with the protagonists of the events that are mentioned. The author will be glad to share with students who want to conduct research in this area his personal records. The following discussion is mostly based on the author's findings and experiences, compared with the most common practices.

Since the purpose of the paper is to tell a story which the author was a protagonist of, to derive from it some lessons that are important for the future, the first part of the paper is dedicated to narrating those aspect of the European Quality Award Model's development that are crucial to understanding why such a model, initially developed following the Malcolm Baldrige Award scheme, suddenly changed dramatically. In this part the author relates some personal anecdotes to make the story more alive and complete. The second part of the paper presents the author's views on organisational improvement models and self‐assessment and explains why he believes that the present course should be changed, if the risk of negative impacts on quality development is to be avoided.

The paper tells a story of an out of the box approach that strongly affected the development of the European Quality Award Model, now the EFQM Excellence Model; and explains why, in the author's view, further innovation is needed in quality management, if we really want to pursue continuous organisational improvement.

This paper seeks to shift the focus to the implications of various quality management systems, as a pervasive feature of modern organisational life, for business excellence.

A mail‐based survey is conducted among a total of 150 UK‐based European Foundation for Quality Management‐affiliated organisations. This quantitative methodology sounds appropriate, given that there is a relative dearth of evidence regarding the nature of quality management systems as quality‐driven organisations pursue continuous improvement through such systems.

Together, International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) series and other total quality management (TQM) models were seen as helping organisations in the journey towards business excellence. Despite the apparently high level of interest in various forms of quality management systems, however, a major discrepancy was found between the rhetoric of these systems and the reality of their practice. For example, little evidence was found that the surveyed organisations were developing a more strategic approach to managing soft aspects of quality management. The results also highlighted the fact that the approach emerging in many organisations seems to be relatively the antithesis of that of the TQM‐driven organisations.

A fundamental limitation of this study relates to its research method and the fact that it draws its data from only a mail‐based survey. Therefore, additional follow‐up research in the form of case studies – qualitative methodology – should be conducted in order to examine more deeply and validate the survey results.

Specifically, despite being viewed as potentially a threat to quality management initiatives, indeed, the paper is in many respects a spirited defence of the distinctive contribution and value of ISO 9000 as a basis and stepping‐stone for TQM success.

This paper updates the earlier work and significantly highlights the move to broaden the aims and process of quality management systems by using international‐wide quality management frameworks.

Society now expects more from its doctors and dentists, and these increasing demands can be summed up in one relatively new term for the medical profession: “quality management” (QM). Doctors and dentists formerly took the view that their performance could be assessed solely on the basis of their technical skills, ethics and expertise, but are now confronted with a new social imperative, from outside the profession – quality management. The author, prizewinner of the European Quality Award 2000 describes his approach to introduce the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model in his dental practice. He shows that the EFQM model is well suited as a basis for a quality management system in healthcare.

Assesses current views on the validity of benchmarking. Outlines the creation of the European Foundation for Quality Management and the European Quality Award. Finds that there is a growing realization that the promotion of successful companies and the sharing of information is mutually beneficial.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the field of risk management in relation to the connection to quality management. It poses and attempts to answer three questions. What can quality teach risk management? What can risk management teach quality? What must both risk and quality management still learn? This is an area which has so far not been explored by the quality management fraternity.

The examination is built on more than 20 years' experience in the area of quality management and extensive involvement in recent developments around risk management (e.g. the Australian/New Zealand standard for risk management – AS/NZ4360, the development of a risk management model by the European Foundation for Quality Management, and the launch of risk‐based instruments by a number of private companies).

Amongst the major findings are that there are three types of risks: predictable risks that organisations know they face; the risks which an organisation knows it might run but which are caused by chance; and the risks which organisations do not know they are running.

It is pointed out that in the past the challenge for quality management professionals was to support process and design improvements, but the challenge of the future is to improve relationships in order to reduce and manage the most important risks.

The paper outlines how the quality management discipline can help with the management of these types of risks.