Self-assessment of excellence: An application of the evidential reasoning approach

Self-assessment of performance using the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model for Excellence is widespread amongst European organizations. The paper reports the development of a model, based on the evidential reasoning approach from multiple attribute decision-making (MADM), which it is argued helps to reduce the subjectivity of the scoring of an organization's performance against the criteria of the EFQM Model and brings a degree of science into the self-assessment process. The development of the MADM model is based on the people management criteria of the 1998 version of the EFQM Model and tests have been undertaken using two self-assessment submission documents from a major multi-utility organization.