while an anecdotal rather than a rigorous study, the GAO found that these elite quality firms had the benefited in terms of market share, sales per employee, return on sales and return on assets(ROA).
on the basis of responses from 22 companies who won or were finalists in 1988 and 1989,the GAO found that for 34 or 40 financial variables measures in the years the companies won (or were finalist for), the award showed positive performance improvement, while only six measurements were negative or neutral (U.S. General Accounting Office 1991)