The Baldrige quality competition in New Zealand: a critical assessment

Abstract

of practical implicationsAround the industrial world, government development agencies and private industry groups have recently promoted models of best practice in business organization and strategy. Across these initiatives there is a remarkable unanimity in the version of best practice being advocated, reflecting the influence of Japanese "lean production" methods. This consensus has partly been arrived at through independent, national investigations but perhaps more influential have been the Baldrige Award criteria. This article examines these criteria and their use in New Zealand. The type of workplace organization and quality management emphasis advocated by the Baldrige criteria are contrasted with other systems of work organization -sociotechnical systems, German diversified quality production, flexible specialization -which, it is argued, offer alternative routes to best practice depending on the market and business environment operated in. Case studies of workplace reorganization in two primary sector industries in New Zealand are used to suggest limitations in the Baldrige assessment criteria.The discussion in the paper offers answers to the following sorts of practical issues faced by industry promotion agencies and business managers seeking to determine the relevance of the Baldrige quality competition criteria and the extent to which they delineate a model of "best practice":• Is the concept of "best practice" meaningful as a basis for the promotion of business development?• What type of quality is emphasized in the Baldrige criteria and how does this interpretation differ from that emphasized in other business systems?• Are the Baldrige criteria relevant to all localities or is it a system that only has relevance to certain industries or places? Can the Baldrige criteria be modified to suit the needs of particular business contexts, if so, what changes might be justified?• How should smaller industrial countries, such as New Zealand, react to the diffusion of the Baldrige model? Should they seek to incorporate it in its entirety, modify the weight given to the individual components in the Baldrige system or look to other interpretations of quality?