Excellence Awards in the UAE Government Sector – An Evaluative Framework for the Government Excellence Model Implementation

Most countries use business excellence models on a local and global scale to improve organizational performance in the public and private sectors. Although the effective implementation of excellence models was studied in the global context, little research exists on excellence models adopted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), specifically in the government sector. This study thoroughly evaluates the implementation of the government excellence model (GEM)—with respect to the benefits, motivations, critical success factors, barriers, and obstacles—in the government of the UAE. The study proposes frameworks that help organizations implement the new excellence model and recommends changes to the implementation approaches to more effectively deploy the excellence model in the government sector. This study applies a qualitative approach and uses semi-structured interviews to propose an evaluative framework for implementation. The key findings that emerged in this study are: (1) the motivations for applying the GEM can be classified into five themes: ‘pioneering’, ‘happiness’, ‘core business-oriented model’, ‘national agenda/government plan’, and ‘recognition’; (2) the critical success factors of the GEM implementation can be classified into six themes: ‘culture of pioneering’, ‘commitment’, ‘resources’, ‘capability building’ ‘one government’, and ‘award custodians’; and (3) the barriers/obstacles for the GEM implementation can be classified into three themes: ‘assessment process’, ‘size and work nature of the organization’, and ‘benchmarking’.