Business success through business excellence? Current status, concepts and perspectives

The research into explanation of business success is being performed since decades. Two different approaches can be identified which are wide spread. The one concept follows the quality movement and evolved into several comprehensive models which guide organisations on their way to excellence. The other concept tries to identify success factors which attribute to business success. In this paper these two concepts are addressed and a proposal to integrate both concepts within the framework of integrated management systems is being outlined.