How effective are national quality strategies for business – empirical evidence from Switzerland

Abstract

PurposeOver the last decades, Swiss core actors in the administration, the parliament and the food chain, have developed a national quality strategy for the agri-food sector. The effectiveness of such symbolic actions is unclear.Design/methodology/approachBy dividing the average export prices by the average import prices of commodities on a four-digit tariff-line level, the study tests how price ratios have evolved between 1997 and 2017.FindingsBased on examples where these ratios turn systematically upward or downward, the study shows that the export–import price ratio generally follows a decreasing trend over time. The author concludes that the national quality strategy for business suffers from a weak level of operationalisation.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, the indicator used in the study is new.