Improvement in Organizational Performance and Self-Assessment Practices by Selected American Firms

Quality award models, such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, hare stimulated considerable interest in quality management and provided guidelines for organizations seeking to introduce quality management. The notion of self-assessment has been adopted by companies throughout the world as a mechanism for guiding the development of such quality activities. This involves regular and systematic reviews of an organization's activities and performance against a quality model, usually based on an award, culminating in planned improvement actions.In this paper the authors discuss the self-assessment practices of U.S. companies based on a questionnaire survey. A range of issues is discussed including why self-assessment was introduced, how it is used, and outcomes—including the impact on organizational performance.The survey data suggest that self-assessment is linked to better-performing companies. The data also highlight some of the self-assessment practices that are used by organizations in their quest to put meaning to quality.