A Critical Analysis of Service Quality and Performance Through Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Healthcare Criteria: Benefits and Research Directions

Abstract

Quality is one of the important competitive strategies for survival of an organization in the globalized economy. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was established in 1987 to encourage organizations to deploy quality as a competitive strategy. The research review identifies that the MBNQA has taken a paradigm shift from quality to organizational excellence. This paper focuses on the changing role of quality in the MBNQA criteria from 1988 to 2009 in approximately 5-year intervals that is 1988, 1992, 1997, 2003 and 2009. In the recent years there is an increasing emphasis on corporate culture and globalization and therefore it is necessary for healthcare organizations to improve their organizational effectiveness, especially in the area of service quality. The concept of service quality in healthcare organizations is critically discussed in the context of changing environmental factors. An attempt is made in this paper to identify the scope of service quality research and it emphasizes the need for a holistic framework for measuring performance in healthcare organizations. This issue is significant because of concurrent view amongst various researchers in service management that there are both hard and soft issues reflecting, the lack of strategic thinking and goal clarity, necessitating a measurement system that focuses on application of a comprehensive measurement system in service organizations especially in healthcare. The paper concludes by highlighting the dearth in services marketing research regarding focus on service quality and performance through an integrated perspective.