Applying the EFQM model to golf course management

ABSTRACT

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model provides guidance and support for business organisations to improve their quality management. This goal is attained by examining the relations among the several criteria that are defined and included in the model – the Enablers and the Results – albeit without going deeply into their empirical correlations. Our research focuses on the sport industry and, more particularly, on golf-related services and facilities. We analyse their management and performance. The goal is to conduct an empirical study of golf courses making up the supply in a Spanish inland region. On the basis of data and assessments contributed by the participating sample – and by resorting to multivariate statistical analysis – we pinpoint the influence of all Enablers identified by the EFQM Model, as well as their impact on the Results criteria. Correlations designed and empirically quantified make it possible for us to confirm the theoretical interrelations that the EFQM Model proposes between the defined criteria. The structural model thus obtained allows us to design a map that plots the relationships across the several criteria defined by the EFQM Model, one which portrays present-day approaches to management put into practice by the golf courses under scrutiny.

KEYWORDS:

• Golf
• total quality management
• EFQM model
• structural equations model (SEM)
• golf management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Mª Ángeles Iglesias Madrigal http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4338-832X

José Ángel Sanz Lara http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7243-8325

Notes

1. While 39 golf courses have been computed in the region, two of these facilities remain closed to date (Valdorros Club de Golf in Burgos and Club La Valmuza Golf Resort in Salamanca).

2. Remember that the total number of golf courses currently operating in Castile and Leon is 37, of which 26 (70.27%) responded to the EFQM Model questionnaire that was sent to every one of them.

3. It was impossible to confirm the following relationships: 6→7, 7→9 and 8→9, on the basis of the collected data.

4. Regarding the coefficients of determination R², only one of them is lower than 0.5 (subcriterion 6b—0.409).