Towards a new model for SME self-assessment: a Brazilian empirical study

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify the business excellence status of a set of Brazilian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to propose a specific self-assessment model that they can use. The proposed self-assessment model is based on eight criteria/dimensions for Brazilian business excellence. The e-Meg self-assessment system, provided by the National Quality Foundation (FNQ), was applied to collect data from 76 Brazilian SMEs. The data were used for a factorial analysis to reduce the number of criteria for self-assessment in SMEs. This study identifies that SMEs are far from meeting the parameters of the current business excellence model. In all criteria, the surveyed organisations analysed show underperformance. Despite being far from the best practices, there is a realisation that companies are willing to begin a process of improvement towards business excellence. For this reason, a specific model for self-assessment is proposed. The model developed for business excellence self-assessment can be used by small and medium-sized enterprises to periodically evaluate their performance and excellence. The developed model can significantly contribute to the existing literature on business excellence. Further research can help refine the criteria of this self-assessment framework to make the model holistic.