Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causal relationships among categories in the China Quality Award (CQA) model based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award model. Design/methodology/approach - The paper identifies seven factors from CQA categories: leadership, strategic planning, human resource focus, process management, customer and market focus, information and analysis, and results. Extending the basic Baldrige theory "Leadership drives the system that creates results", this paper identifies driver (leadership), direction (strategic planning), foundation (information and analysis), system (human resource focus, process management, and customer and market focus), and results(business results). Structural equation model (SEM) is used to analyze the empirical data and estimate the path coefficients among CQA categories. Findings - First, driver has not only a direct influence on results, but also has an indirect influence on results through system. Leadership has a great influence on foundation and direction. Second, direction affects human resource focus and customer and market focus of system while it has no influence on process management. Third, human resource focus and customer and market focus both affect process management, and process management has a significant impact on results. Fourth, foundation affects direction and all of the categories of system. Originality/value - There are few studies which try to analyze the causal relationships among categories in the CQA model.