Use of ISO 9004:2000 and other business excellence tools in Canada

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of business excellence tools, particularly the extent of adoption of the ISO 9004:2000 guideline and respondents' perceptions of its usefulness.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper a large empirical study was undertaken to identify the use of business excellence frameworks in Canada. The survey was based on a series of in‐depth interviews with 15 standardization experts who are all members of the Canadian Advisory Committee on Quality Management CAC/ISO/TC176. It was mailed to a sample of small, medium, and large businesses that spanned a wide range of manufacturing and service sectors, resulting in 187 responses.

Findings

This paper finds that the application of business excellence tools by Canadian organizations seems to be a function of both the size and location of the organization. There may be differences in use between organizations within different industry sectors, and those with different organizational structures. ISO 9004:2000 is not widely used, and probably needs a complete overhaul.

Research limitations/implications

The survey in this paper had a relatively low response rate. The small number of respondents who were familiar with ISO 9004:2000 precluded any statistical analysis of the data. The results are of interest to a variety of quality management researchers, as there is a paucity of literature on ISO 9004, particularly with experimental data.

Practical implications

Contributions in the paper extend to practitioners, as the survey included manufacturing and service sectors, both publicly and privately owned, as well as executives, since the study was aimed at top management of the organizations surveyed.

Originality/value

The paper shows that, while the concept of business excellence has rarely been researched from a Canadian perspective, the focus on ISO 9004:2000 makes this study totally unique.

Citation

Wilcock, A., Karapetrovic, S., Boys, K. and Piche, P. (2006), "Use of ISO 9004:2000 and other business excellence tools in Canada", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 23 No. 7, pp. 828-846. https://doi.org/10.1108/02656710610679833