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This study examined the process of third-party scoring of organizational self-assessments. An experiment was conducted to illustrate the magnitude of score consistency and accuracy among evaluators, estimate the impact of frame-of-reference (FOR) training on score consistency and accuracy, and explore the relationship between evaluator characteristics and score accuracy. The organizational self-assessment used was the 1995 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Colony Fasteners Case Study. The subjects were 81 graduate students enrolled in two televised graduate engineering courses with considerable quality management content. Subjects were randomly assigned to groups and randomly assigned to four of the seven categories of the Baldrige Award. Each subject evaluated the case study against two categories prior to the treatment. Subjects in the control group evaluated two additional categories and then a two and one-half hour FOR training intervention was provided to all subjects. Next, subjects in the treatment group evaluated their two additional categories. Finally, a questionnaire was administered regarding evaluator characteristics related to previous experience and education. Accuracy was assessed by comparing subjects’ scores to experts’ scores and calculating indices (elevation and dimensional accuracy) for each subject’s scores on each category. Prior to training, no statistical differences were found between groups, but a leniency effect was observed for all subjects. Category 6.0, Business Results, and Category 7.0, Customer Focus and Satisfaction, had statistically smaller score variances than the other five categories. After training, group x time ANOVAs found evidence of an interaction. Examination of simple effects found significant differences between the group mean scores for all three items from Category 6.0 and two of the four items from Category 5.0. Significant simple time effects were found for all three items from Category 6.0 for the treatment group. No meaningful differences were found between group score variances. A significant difference in category score variance was seen across categories for the untrained group. Training improved elevation accuracy, but no evidence was seen of effects on DA. Exploratory regression produced a prediction equation for DA with an adjusted R-square of 0.538. Predictors included work experience, QA/QC experience, employer’s industry and employer’s size. / Ph. D.

The business performance management (BPM) framework helps an organization continuously adjust and successfully execute its strategies. BPM helps increase flexibility by providing managers with an early alert about changes and, as a result, allows faster response to such changes. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework provides a basis for self-assessment and a systems perspective for managing an organization's key processes for achieving business results. The MBNQA framework is a more comprehensive framework and encapsulates the underlying constructs in the BPM framework. The objectives of this dissertation are fourfold: (1) to validate the underlying relationships presented in the 2008 MBNQA framework, (2) to explore the MBNQA framework at the dimension level, and develop and test constructs measured at that level in a causal model, (3) to validate and create a common general framework for the business performance model by integrating the practitioner literature with basic theory including existing MBNQA theory, and (4) to integrate the BPM framework and the MBNQA framework into a new framework (BPM-MBNQA framework) that can guide organizations in their journey toward achieving and sustaining competitive and strategic advantages. The purpose of this study is to achieve these objectives by means of a combination of methodologies including literature reviews, expert opinions, interviews, presentation feedbacks, content analysis, and latent semantic analysis. An initial BPM framework was developed based on the reviews of literature and expert opinions. There is a paucity of academic research on business performance management. Therefore, this study reviewed the practitioner literature on BPM and from the numerous organization-specific BPM models developed a generic, conceptual BPM framework. With the intent of obtaining valuable feedback, this initial BPM framework was presented to Baldrige Award recipients (BARs) and selected academicians from across the United States who participated in the Fall Summit 2007 held at Caterpillar Financial Headquarter in Nashville, TN on October 1 and 2, 2007. Incorporating the feedback from that group allowed refining and improving the proposed BPM framework. This study developed a variant of the traditional latent semantic analysis (LSA) called causal latent semantic analysis (cLSA) that enables us to test causal models using textual data. This method was used to validate the 2008 MBNQA framework based on article abstracts on the Baldrige Award and program published in both practitioner and academic journals from 1987 to 2009. The cLSA was also used to validate the BPM framework using the full body text data from all articles published in the practitioner journal entitled the Business Performance Management Magazine since its inception in 2003. The results provide the first cLSA study of these frameworks. This is also the first study to examine all the causal relationships within the MBNQA and BPM frameworks.

The Malcolm Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence outline effective practices and core values that have assisted businesses, health agencies, government institutions, and several school systems in the United States to improve performance within their organizations. Recent studies of school districts from across the nation have indicated some degree of success with implementation of the Malcolm Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. This phenomenological study of principals' experiences with implementation of Quality in Education (based on the Baldrige Education Criteria) within the Calcasieu Parish School System answers the question: What are principals' experiences with the implementation of Quality in Education? Data were collected through individual interviews and questionnaires. Participants included ten principals who had been engaged in this district implementation effort for at least three years, as well as their administrative directors. Transcription, coding, and analysis resulted in emerging themes and key findings, which were organized as benefits and barriers to implementation of this school reform initiative. Benefits were identified as data-based decision-making and use of student data binders, a narrow focus and working smarter, not harder, and increased student responsibility for learning, parent communication and faculty input. This was accomplished through district support with professional development and the work of Quality mentors. Barriers were identified as teacher turnover and continual training of new staff, implementation of other programs, lack of faculty buy-in, and time. This study informs the literature of implementation issues with school reform initiatives.

This thesis presents a study of systems of the quality s administration, with focus on the Malcolm Baldrige Program for the education, analyzing the recommendations of the criteria: 1) leadership, 2) strategic planning, 3) students,interested parts and focus on the market, 4) information, analysis and knowledge administration, 5) focus on people and 6) administration of processes. Considering a qualitative research at Colégio Agrícola de Santa Maria (CASM) RS, which offers technical teaching and high school, it was carried out a survey on the practices of the school s administration, relating them to the criteria of such a Program. After the profile s description, strong points and improvement opportunity in the practices of the school s administration were identified, highlighting the teachers' high qualification and their pedagogical project. As improvement opportunity, it is suggested the identification of the students' needs, of the interested parts and of the market, which are contemplated in an action proposal of the quality for CASM, accomplishing this work s main objective / Esta dissertação apresenta o estudo de sistemas de gestão da qualidade, com foco no Programa Malcolm Baldrige para a educação, analisando as recomendações dos seus critérios: 1) liderança, 2) planejamento estratégico, 3) estudantes, partes interessadas e foco no mercado, 4) informação, análise e gerenciamento do conhecimento, 5) enfoque nas pessoas e 6) gerenciamento de processos. Mediante uma pesquisa qualitativa no Colégio Agrícola de Santa Maria/RS que atua no ensino técnico e médio, realizou-se um levantamento das práticas de gestão da escola, relacionando-as com os critérios do Programa citado. Após a descrição do perfil, identificaram-se os pontos fortes e oportunidade de melhoria nas práticas de gestão da escola, salientando-se a alta qualificação dos docentes e o seu projeto pedagógico. Como oportunidades de melhoria sugere-se a identificação das necessidades dos estudantes, das partes interessadas e do mercado, que estão contempladas em uma proposta de ações da qualidade para o CASM, cumprindo o objetivo principal deste trabalho

Published Article / In today's highly competitive business environment service delivery has become a key issue. Providing quality service could enhance an organisation's competitive advantage with beneficial financial implications. Service delivery requires the full cooperation and commitment of all the employees in the organisation, including management. The culture of the organisation supports this by eliciting a unified response from employees that supports the quality of service rendered to customers. In this regard the paper provides a statistical analysis of the impact of organisational culture on service delivery in a major South African private security company. Due to its applicability the Competing Values Framework (CVF) was instrumental in measuring the culture of the organisation and the award winning Baldrige Award Criteria in ascertaining its levels of service delivery.

There are 1.4 million active nonprofit organizations in the United States; however, funding sustainability often forces nonprofit senior leaders into closure, which can lead to increased unemployment and decreased services provided to local communities. Nonprofit senior leaders seek help from scholars, at times, to identify strategies to secure sustainable funding sources, improve the sustainability of funding, or prevent or reverse losses of funding to their organizations. Through the conceptual lens of the general systems theory, the 2015-2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework and Criteria, and single- and double-loop learning, this single-case study explored strategies used to secure sustainable funding for nonprofit organizations from businesses, foundations, and individual donations. Through a purposeful sample of 3 senior leaders of a small nonprofit organization located in Baltimore, Maryland, data collection occurred through semistructured interviews, a review of public and internal documents, as well as performance outcomes. Through thematic analysis, 4 themes emerged: process strengths, process opportunities, results strengths, and results opportunities. Identifying strategies to secure sustainable funding may assist nonprofit senior leaders when struggling in an environment in which the supply of critical resources is low. The findings have implications for positive social change for nonprofit senior leaders and the community. Nonprofit senior leaders that secure sustainable funding may offer a positive influence in communities by reducing unemployment, creating new jobs, providing tax payments, promoting philanthropy, and improving lives.

There is a growing demand for accountability of nonprofit organizations, and nonprofit business leaders are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate operational effectiveness. The problem is that some business leaders of nonprofit organizations lack strategies for identifying and selecting actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using the plan-do-study-act conceptual framework, this single case study of a nonprofit organization located in the mid-Atlantic region of United States was conducted to explore strategies that 3 of its business leaders used to identify and select actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using thematic analysis of data collected from semistructured interviews, documents, and public sources, emergent themes included: (a) usefulness of measures, (b) customer experience, and (c) workforce education. The findings of this study may have implications for social change by helping nonprofit business leaders achieve consensus on measures of effectiveness beyond financial measures. Additionally, the findings could support the usefulness of transparency in reporting performance outcomes, encourage a shift in focus from program spending and ratios to effectiveness, and prompt external stakeholders to expect performance measures that demonstrate effectiveness in nonprofit program operations.

Many leaders of nonprofit organizations are challenged by limited and declining financial resources from government grants, while being asked by funders and their constituent base to provide better quality services to a larger population. Nonprofit leaders are exploring strategies to reduce their reliance on government grants by diversifying and growing alternative funding sources. The purpose of this single case study was to explore, through the conceptual lens of the balanced scorecard theory, strategies used by 4 leaders of a nonprofit organization in southern California who have experience managing and growing alternative revenue sources by creating a social enterprise. Semistructured interviews were used to collect data and organizational documents were reviewed. The data were manually coded, and mind mapping was used to identify common themes. Thematic data analysis showed 5 themes: lack of a systematic approach to processes, lack of defined SMART processes, lack of integrating results into the organization's key performance indicators (KPI), lack of defined measurable goals and objectives related to the KPIs in the business models of these organizations, and lack of defined sustainability plan. Nonprofit leaders may benefit from a systematic strategic approach to guide their organization. Nonprofit leaders need to understand how these systematic strategic approaches may impact their organization and how to integrate such opportunities into their organization. The implications for positive social change include the potential to fulfill the missions, strengthen the overall funding sources, and serve the local communities of nonprofit organizations by learning how to use the strategic planning processes.

Nonprofit organization leaders increasingly encounter social burdens and financial difficulties, jeopardizing ongoing success and organizational sustainability. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore revenue diversification strategies used by 3 leaders of a small nonprofit organization in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States through the conceptual lens of modern portfolio theory. Data were collected via in-depth semistructured interviews, and member checking was used to facilitate accuracy, consistency, and integrity. Methodological triangulation included a document review and analysis of financial statements, tax returns, strategy objectives, the organizational website, social media, and nonprofit data reports. Data from documents and interviews were manually coded, and themes were identified using thematic analysis. Six themes emerged related to process strengths and opportunities for improvement including capitalizing on a mission-driven workforce; using a systematic strategic planning process; building relationships with partners, suppliers, and collaborators; integrating performance measures to areas of importance; and developing and implanting systematic methods to assess customer satisfaction and workforce engagement. The findings from this study might contribute to positive social change by providing revenue diversification strategies and the supporting processes that leaders of small nonprofit organizations can use to enhance existing services, expand community programs, and create ongoing organizational success.