The effect of aggregating multivariate performance parameters in a quality award process

Purpose – Quality awards, commonly, have basic criteria and sub-criteria to evaluate applicants based on the quality management principles and philosophies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the method of selecting award winners and its consequences. Design/methodology/approach – Award winners’ and non-award winners’ performances of the Ethiopian Quality Award are the study groups. The criteria and sub-criteria evaluation results of the award were collected and analysed by the Mahalanobis-Taguchi System. Findings – The research assumed that award winners’ performances are exceptionally outstanding. However, the result does not justify the assumption. Hence, the drawback of aggregating multivariate performance measures in a quality award is proven. Mahalanobis distance is proposed as alternative approach to evaluate and select organizations. Practical implications – The outcome of this research will help award givers, evaluators and participants to understand the real difficulty to select very few organizations among applicants. Furthermore, it helps to consider the possible error when aggregating individual performance. Originality/value – Aggregating performances is a common practice in quality awards evaluation process but this paper proved its drawback.