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In an independent view of the evolution of ISO 9000 and the quality award models, Tito Conti, one of the chief architects of the European model for business excellence, warns of the the dangers of a developing hegemony.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to compare some major National Quality Award/Business Excellence Models (NQA/BEM) in terms of the criteria employed and their relative weights. It shows that these models vary both in terms of criteria and their weights. Whereas some of them are changing weights frequently, others are almost static. It employs the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to allocate scores to 12 criteria identified in the model by Agrawal et al. (1998) to propose a modified quality award model similar to that. The six quality award models used in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and India are compared with the proposed model using AHP and their relative rankings are obtained.

First, a literature review is done to identify various quality award models globally, with their features being compared. Furthermore, paired comparison technique is used to rationalize the relative weights of proposed 12 criteria, and then AHP is again used to rank this proposed model with six major award models.

This paper shows that the six NQA models vary substantially on parameter weights. They do not include some relevant criteria to evaluate the organizational performance holistically. It also reveals how some models have been revising criteria weights very frequently, whereas others are static. In some models, the results get much higher weightage than enablers, and hence the performance may not be sustainable. The modified Agrawal et al. (1998) model is taken as a base model, with weights rationalized in it using the AHP. The rankings obtained using AHP reveal that proposed model scores over the other six prominent quality award models. The result also reveals that for organizational excellence, the quality of people plays a major role in the successful implementation of quality processes. Hence, it is very important to focus on improving the quality of people before expecting improvement in the quality of products and services.

The paired comparison results are based on the researchers’ own perception and do not consider interdependence among the criteria, which is a limitation of AHP. Analytic network process can be further explored to overcome the limitation. The proposed model has not been tested in a variety of real-world situations, which can constitute a scope for further work in the direction.

The proposed model framework and weightages evolved using AHP can provide a universally acceptable quality award model framework. The companies can adopt it with or without modifications to address their contextual adaptation. It can possibly become a standard model framework globally. This model does not capture the measurement of the softer aspects that impact the people quality. As people play an important role in the success of the implementation of any practice, hence measurement of people quality is another important aspect that can be further studied and researched.

This comparative study & analysis of National Quality Award/Business Excellence Models using AHP is presented for the first time. The authors have not come across any such studies in their literature review. This paper is an original conceptualization of the application of the AHP on the various Quality Award model parameters, and it has been submitted exclusively to JAMR for publishing.

After the Second World War, important initiatives were taken to avoid the risk of mankind self-destruction. The creation of the United Nations generated high hopes. Unfortunately, after 70 years marked by the great technological progress, humanity seems to be ready to repeat the same mistakes; with the aggravating circumstance that the technological advances will greatly increase the risks of self-destruction. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to generate awareness and then contrast such risks, by going to the deep roots of the problems, which are cultural and ethics, and by analyzing them from the systems thinking and quality thinking perspectives.

The paper is the synthesis of many years of experience in managing as well as advising large, complex organizations and parallel research on the viability of – and conditions for – merging systems thinking and quality thinking. In front of the evidence that systems’ sustainable development can be reached only through internal cooperation, the above research expanded to the study of natural evolution, which apparently can give a lead to direct man-driven evolution toward a healthy worldwide system.

First, with the increase of the organizational size, analytical thinking must give way to systems thinking. Education in systems thinking is then becoming the main critical factor. Second, world sustainable development is challenged by an uncontrolled man-driven evolution, where technology is often used for violence and wars (win-lose relations). Ethics, which is part of quality since it aims at win-win relations, should be at the foundations of sustainable development, where cooperation should be one of the sustaining pillars.

What the author wrote in the last 12 years on the above subjects, culminating in this last paper, has broken new ground in the field of managing for quality, bringing it to the highest levels of human organizations. As far as value is concerned, what kind of value can be considered higher than taking care of the future of humanity – and the whole ecosystem?

Standards play an increasingly important role in the development of the “global village”, both from the economic and the quality of life perspective. However, development of standards should always be in tune with the needs of a free economy, whose main engine is differentiation. Standardization and differentiation can be complementary, but only to the extent that a correct balance between the two is kept. The balance becomes particularly delicate when standards move from product‐related issues to organization‐related issues, as is the case of quality system standards. Starting from a brief review of ISO 9000 and its role in the past decade, then moving to Vision 2000, the paper expresses reservations about the benefits and opportunity for standards to enter the organizational improvement area. In a situation of continuous change and global competition, differentiation seems to be the name of the game, more than standardization. Instead, a kind of “standards syndrome” seems to take place, where standards are expected to legitimize managers’ choices.

First of a two‐part series. Examines current schemes for self‐assessment and their limitations. Proposes a new method of measuring organisational excellence and continous improvement. Suggests what is needed is an “assessment model” of the company′s quality goals and results, created and analysed through surveys and measurement.

This paper aims at contributing to a better knowledge of organizations' nature, physiology and pathologies, in order to improve their fitness for purpose. The mechanistic view of organizations has in fact delayed that. Systems thinking is needed to bring average organizational fitness to the levels needed by a global and closely interconnected world.

The paper is a synthesis of the author's experience as manager, consultant and teacher. By thinking back to the last 30 years of history of managing for quality and excellence, failures and successes, the causes of delay and even regression are explored. Borrowing from the systems view of organizations, a parallel is made between history of human beings' and organizations' healthcare.

Knowledge of the factors that make organizations fit for their purpose is still scarce, absolutely unfit for the challenges of an uncertain future. That is particularly true for those large organizations that govern globalization. Risks for humanity increase. It is no longer time to fiddle with management fads or panaceas for all diseases. It is time to use the modern approaches to complexity that systems thinking offers, overcoming the resistance of traditional thinking. Analytical thinking alone, in fact, may lead to squeeze the planet resources dry, neglecting the risks of long‐term negative impacts.

Conformism in managing for quality is still high. Rare are the papers that discuss the evolution of TQM/excellence models towards systemic models, where the system is socio‐cultural and the model covers doing the right things, not just doing things right.

Second of a two‐part series. Suggests that external, third‐party assessment schemes no longer meet the needs of total quality organizations and that what is needed is a self‐assessment process, based on a new reference model, capable of unifying an organization′s diverse assessment criteria regarding total quality. Highlights the “quality sub‐system” as the most important component in self‐assessment and examines a possible model in detail, including its relationship to the organizational system model. Concludes by summarizing ways in which external assessment can be improved significantly through incorporating these self‐assessment methods.

The protagonists of the “quality revolution” of the 1980s had a dream: to permeate each and all organizational activities – the strategic included – with the new “total quality management (TQM) culture.” The name TQM was in fact conceived to express the pervasiveness of the concept. In reality, progress took mainly place in the area of “doing things right,” a mostly technical area, specifically concerned with defect reduction. The purpose of this paper is to explore TQM possible contributions to the eminently strategic area of “doing the right things”: that is, making the correct choices in a continuously changing, turbulent environment.

This paper claims that TQM, to be significant, should prove to be able to contribute to “doing the right things” in large organizations.

To face the challenges of world globalization a broader view of management, and within it of managing for quality (that is, managing for customer/stakeholder value) is needed. The cultural basis for such changes should be education in systems thinking.

This paper looks at the way in which quality-related concepts have evolved, will evolve and should evolve to face the challenges of globalization.