Responsibility
for corporate stewardship and ethical business practices starts
at the top with an organization's chief executive and governing
body, says the 2003 Baldrige Award performance excellence
criteria released today by the Commerce
Department's National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST).
"For
America to have a strong economy, we need sound businesses
with ethical, responsible leaders," said Commerce Secretary
Don Evans. "Great authority is vested in the men and
women who run our public corporations, and with such power
comes responsibility. Corporate leaders aren't simply stewards
of their individual companies. They are stewards of American
capitalism itself."
The Baldrige
performance excellence criteria can help any organization
form the foundation for sound management and ethical business
practices. They long have stressed that senior leaders should
be ethical role models and that organizations have a responsibility
to practice good citizenship. But, this latest version clearly
states that the responsibility for legal and ethical behavior
starts with the organization's senior leaders and governing
body.
"Senior
leaders should serve as role models through their ethical
behavior
," according to the 2003 criteria. In
addition, it states, "Senior leaders should be responsible
to your organization's governance body for their actions and
performance. The governance body should be responsible ultimately
to all your stakeholders for the ethics, vision, actions,
and performance of your organization and its senior leaders."
This
emphasis is woven throughout all of the Baldrige criteria's
seven categories: leadership, strategic planning, customer
and market focus, information and analysis, human resource
focus, process management, and business results. But, it is
most visible in the leadership category, which asks how the
organization's governance system ensures management and fiscal
accountability and independence in audits while protecting
stockholder and stakeholder interests. Also, the results category
in the 2003 criteria asks organizations to provide evidence
of fiscal accountability, ethical behavior, legal compliance
and organizational citizenship.
The renewed
emphasis on governance and ethics is a result of national
needs for management reform and recommendations from many
of the Baldrige National Quality Program's private-sector
partners.
Other
areas receiving greater attention in the 2003 performance
excellence criteria include the need to capitalize on knowledge
assets, the need to create value for customers and the organization,
and the alignment of all aspects of an organization's performance
management system with the results measurements.
In addition
to being the basis for a Baldrige Award application, the Baldrige
performance excellence criteria are used by thousands of organizations
to assess and improve their performance on a wide range of
key indicators. The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence
is available in editions for business, education and health
care at www.baldrige.nist.gov
or by calling (301) 975-2036.
Named
after the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award was established by Congress in 1987
to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. businesses. The award
promotes quality awareness, recognizes the quality and performance
achievements of U.S. organizations, and publicizes successful
performance strategies. It has five categories: manufacturing,
service, small business, education and health care. The award
is not given for specific products or services. Since 1988,
46 organizations have received the Baldrige Award.
As a
non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce's
Technology Administration, NIST develops and promotes measurement,
standards and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate
trade and improve the quality of life.
Go
back to NIST News Page
|