Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the implementation of a total quality management (TQM) approach positively affects the financial performance of European companies. This paper tests whether North American results showing the relative out‐performance of companies that...

The ISO 9000 standard has been revised as of December 2000. It has been thought that the implications of addressing the changes may be particularly acute for small businesses, for which the impact of requirements and relative commercial costs of compliance can be greatest. In view of this, the...