The “Soft” obstacles to quality excellence practices: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates industries

Achieving an excellence level of quality through a national quality award model is a challenging task, maintaining it is even much harder. This paper attempts to investigate the prevalent and main obstacles related to the quality excellence practices with particular focus on United Arab Emirates industries. Data for this research study were collected using structured questionnaires that were distributed to 132 Dubai Quality Award (DQA) recipient companies. Descriptive statistics was used to assess and rank the level of prevalent obstacles collected from the sample companies. The results indicate the lack of time, high expectations for quick results and lack of sufficient resources, as three potential and common obstacles of quality excellence practices within the UAE industries. The outcomes presented in this paper help organizations in the region to enhance understanding of significant problems that they are facing in their ongoing quest towards higher quality levels.