Best practices of selected Greek organizations on their road to business excellence : The contribution of the new ISO 9000:2000 series of standards

Purpose – To theoretically investigate and empirically test the current status of best practices in selected Greek industrial organizations on the road to business excellence through the European Quality Award (EQA). Also to examine the extent to which Greek organizations link their efforts towards business excellence with the existing quality assurance systems and particularly with the new ISO 9000:2000 series of standards. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from ten selected Greek organizations that were judged as representative. They are all recipients of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) award for commitment to excellence and they are all either certified, or under certification, by the new ISO 9001:2000 quality standard. The data gathering was carried out through extensive and in‐depth interviews with multiple informants. Findings – Besides the “good stories” of the EQA model implementation, the study also revealed a number of problematic areas such as: increased bureaucracy; lack of flexibility in the design and implementation of the model; low utilization of employees’ skills and knowledge; and low utilization of the award as a marketing tool and as a means of penetrating new markets. Research limitations/implications – This is the first step towards an understanding of the current status of best practices in selected Greek industrial organizations on the road to business excellence through the EQA. There is a need to evaluate these organizations by measuring their business performance and the degree of EQA implementation in the future. Practical implications – The approach used by Greek organizations to EQA poses a great challenge to the authors since, in recent years, the move towards a more strategic approach to total quality through the EFQM model has been questioned in the literature. Originality/value – Provides a reliable and objective depiction of the current level of best practices in Greece, through examination and analysis of other relevant studies, and includes the various approaches, practices and perceptions recorded so far in the literature – some of them based on empirical data and some deriving from rhetoric and a “good stories” or “how things ought to be” perspective.