Receiving a national quality award three times: Recognition of excellence in quality and performance

In recent decades, a framework for management performance has proven to be an important management practice for achieving organisational performance excellence. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to analyse how a specific company manages to achieve performance excellence through the attainment of the Brazilian National Quality Award.

The study adopts a case-based approach using a single unit of analysis that might be considered a revealing case. The company studied is one of the largest companies in the information and financial analysis sector in Latin America and is part of a major worldwide corporation. Semi-structured interviews with senior managers and document analysis were used for data collection, with content and inductive analysis performed a posteriori.

The main results outline the approach adopted by the company for each performance excellence award criterion and highlight some of the relevant organisational practices, especially those related to the nature of the company’s businesses. The findings show that the top management has been an essential driving force in transforming the managers at all levels into agents of improvement at the studied company. Additional key points are the deployment of the company’s “shared values” throughout the company and the implementation of a medium- and long-term comprehensive strategic plan focused on the award criteria. The company’s strategic system has been a driving force of its success.

For a more extensive empirical validation, further replications using other samples are needed to ensure the external validity of these findings.

This paper is one of the few published studies discussing business excellence in emerging economies, which is not observed very often in developing markets. In addition, the paper focuses on promoting a culture of quality, a less common phenomenon in the economies of developing countries than in those of developed nations. Finally, this paper may be useful for practitioners and academics interested in the subject of quality and performance excellence.