Rationality, participation and results: the case of the European excellence model in a Spanish services context

The study of the simultaneous effect of employee participation and rationality on organisational results by companies applying the EFQM Excellence Model has been scarcely developed in the literature. Trying to fill this gap, this paper empirically studies the relationship between participation and rationality with organisational results in a sample of Spanish firms applying this model. The case of service firms has been of utmost importance in this study. The study findings reveal that both rationality and participation are indirectly related to key organisational results, though this indirect effect is not present in the case of service firms. This paper encourages the use of the EFQM model as a driver of participation and rationality, which leads to an improvement in firm performance.