Special Report on gloal

ISO Management Systems – January-February 2003 31

Global perspectives onglobal standards

a 15-economy survey ofISO 9000 and ISO 14000

This article summarizes findings obtained from a survey of 5 398 ISO 9000 and ISO 14000certified firms in 15 economies in North America, Europe and Asia. It compares motivationsand benefits, and how these differ across countries and business sectors.

S P E C I A L R E P O R T

BY CHARLES J. CORBETT, ANASTASIA M. LUCA, AND JEH-NAN PAN

hat does it mean to be a“global” standard? Of course,

the requirements of the standardshould be the same in whatevercountry it is applied – which isthe case for ISO 9000 and ISO14000. But most people, inreferring to standards beingglobal, would also expect themto be adopted for similar rea-sons and in similar ways acrosscountries, hence leading to sim-ilar benefits. Are ISO 9000 andISO 14000 global in that sense ofthe word?

To investigate that question, weconducted a survey among certifiedfirms in 15 economies, asking themabout their motivations for seekingcertification, and about implemen-tation issues and benefits experi-enced. The survey was administeredduring 1999-2001. This article sum-marizes the principal findings. Thefull survey is available from theauthors.

In particular, we examinewhether motivations and benefitsdiffer across countries and/oracross business sectors. If we would

find that firms in France soughtISO 9000 certification for substan-tially different reasons than firms

in Taiwan, regardless of their sec-tor of activity, and experiencedsubstantially different benefits,we might infer that ISO 9000 inFrance does not mean thesame as ISO 9000 in Taiwan.

Conversely, if we wouldfind that chemical firms across

different countries report simi-lar motivations for certification

and comparable benefits, thoughperhaps different from thosereported by firms in the electronicsindustry, we would have more faithin the view of ISO 9000 as beingtruly global. Below, we present asummary of the survey sample, fol-lowed by an analysis of motiva-tions, implementation, and benefits,both by country and by sector.

Profile of survey sample

The survey was administered in15 economies by a network of localpartners who were responsible fortranslating the survey, obtaining

We examine whether

motivations and benefits

differ across countries

and/or across

business sectors

W

© ISO Management Systems, www.iso.org/ims

32 ISO Management Systems – January-February 2003


address lists of certified companies,administering the survey, and enter-ing the responses.

A total of 5 398 firms respondedto the survey. Responses for somecountries were grouped together forthe rest of the analysis presentedhere, as their samplesize was too small tobe treated separate-ly : Australia and NewZealand were com-bined and attributedthe abbreviation ofANZ; and Indonesia,Malaysia, the Philip-pines, Singapore, and Thailand werecombined into South-East Asia(SEA).

Apart from these two groupings,to which we have assigned “unoffi-cial” abbreviations of their names forthe purposes of this article, the othereconomies are identified in the graphcharts by the codes assigned in theInternational Standard for countrycodes, ISO 3166 1).

The economies surveyed were :Australia (ANZ), Canada (CA), France(FR), Hong Kong (HK), Indonesia(SEA), Japan (JP), Republic of Korea(KR), Malaysia (SEA), New Zealand(ANZ), Philippines (SEA), Singapore(SEA), Sweden (SE), Taiwan (TW),

Thailand (SEA), Unit-ed States (US).

The breakdown ofresponses by econo-my is shown in Table1.

The breakdown ofresponses by industrysector is displayed in Figure 1.

Motivations for seeking ISO 9000 orISO 14000 certification

Let us turn to the motivations forseeking ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 cer-tification. Respondents were asked torate, on a five-point scale, how impor-tant each of a set of 11 possible moti-vations was in their decision to seekcertification.

The food industry

reports the highest scores

for seeking

‘ quality improvements ’

Table 1 : Response ratesby economy

Total 21 427 5 398 25,19 % 5 264 1 400

US (US) 5 000 939 18,78% 906 178

Thailand (SEA) 200 15 7,50% 15 4

Taiwan (TW) 2142 456 21,29% 446 223

Sweden (SE) 268 135 50,37% 135 51

Singapore (SEA) 200 15 7,50% 13 10

Philippines (SEA) 200 53 26,50% 51 16

New Zealand (ANZ) 288 61 21,18% 57 13

Malaysia (SEA) 200 10 5,00% 10 4

Korea (KR) 1 361 120 8,82% 2 221 575

Japan (JP) 5 000 2 261 45,22% 114 72

Indonesia (SEA) 200 9 4,50% 7 3

Hong Kong (HK) 1 200 131 10,92% 124 20

France (FR) 2 000 445 22,25% 440 29

Canada (CA) 561 198 35,29% 185 110

Australia (ANZ) 2 607 550 21,10% 540 92

Country Number of formsmailed

Number ofusable

responsesreceived

Responserate

ISO 9000 ISO 14000

1) For more information on ISO 3166, see the following location on the ISO Web site :http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html




In some countries, respondentshave a tendency to report high scoresacross the board, while others tend tobe more modest. To correct for that,we compute “ relative motivations”,by dividing each respondent’s scorefor each motivation by the sum of thescores for all motivations for thatrespondent. That way, for eachrespondent, all motivations must addup to 1.

Figures 2 and 3 show how themotivations for ISO 9000 vary acrosscountries and sectors. Although thecharts contain too much informationto be easy to read, some trends areclear.

Overall, the main motivations forseeking ISO 9000 certification are“quality improvements” and “corpo-rate image”, and to a slightly lesserextent, “marketing advantage” and“ customer pressure ”. This patternreturns both when looking acrosscountries or across sectors.

The food industry reports thehighest scores for seeking “qualityimprovements ” and for “ capturingworkers’ knowledge”, suggesting thatfirms in this industry were the mostmotivated by process-related rea-sons.

The textile industry reports thehighest score for seeking “cost reduc-tions”. Firms in the semiconductorindustry reported the highest scoresfor “customer pressure” and “manycompetitors certified”, suggesting thatthe external pressure for ISO 9000certification is most strongly felt in

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40% Figure 1 : Breakdown bybusiness sector

0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

Figure 2 : Motivations forseeking ISO 9000

certification – by economy

Commun

icatio

ns

Compu

ter e

quipm

ent or

or p

erip

hera

ls

Electr

onics

Semico

nduc

tors

Mecha

nica

l

Autom

ation Fo

odPl

astic

Chem

ical

Text

ile

Metal

Phar

maceu

tical

Other

s

ANZ

CA

FR

HK

JP

KR

SEA

SE

TW

US

Cost reductions

Quality improvements

Marketing advantage

Customer pressure

Many competitorscertified

Benefits experi-enced by others

Avoid potentialexport barrier

Capturing workers’knowledge

Relations withauthorities

Corporate image

Relations withcommunities

ISO 9000

ISO 14000



that sector. Respondents in the foodsector gave the lowest score for “manycompetitors certified”. However, oneshould be careful not to read too muchinto these differences between indus-tries. Perhaps the most striking obser-vation is how similar the relative moti-vations are across such fundamentallydifferent activities.

Figures 4 and 5 show that theanalysis for ISO 14000 is similar tothat for ISO 9000.

The main motivations for seekingISO 14000 certification are “environ-mental improvements” and “corpo-rate image” and, to a lesser extent,“marketing advantage” and improved

“ relations with communities ”.“Customer pressure” scores lower forISO 14000 than for ISO 9000.

Firms in the industrial automationsector expect to achieve the highest“ marketing advantage ”, and experi-ence the most “ customer pressure ”to seek certification. The communi-cations and semiconductor sectorsgive the highest scores to “ manycompetitors certified ”. Respondentsin the pharmaceutical industry wereconsiderably more motivated byimproving “ relations with authori-ties ” for both ISO 9000 and ISO14000 ; they were also the least moti-vated by achieving “ cost reduc-tions ”. The same note applies here as

The categories in which

firms report receiving

the highest benefits from

ISO 9000 certification are

‘ quality improvements ’,

‘ customer satisfaction ’,

‘ improved procedures ’ and

‘ corporate image ’

Cost reductions

Quality improvements

Marketing advantage

Customer pressure

Many competitors

certified

Benefits experienced by

others




Corporate image

Pharmaceutical


Others

Textile

Metal

Plastic

Chemical

Automation

Food

Mechanical

Electronics

Semiconductors

Communications

Computer equipmentor peripherals

Figure 3 : Motivations for seeking ISO 9000 certification – by businesssector




0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

Pharm

aceu

tical

Other

s

Text

ile

Metal

Plasti

c

Chem

ical

Autom

atio

n

Food

Mechan

ical

Electr

onics

Com

munica

tions

Com

pute

r equ

ipm

ent

or p

erip

hera

ls

Sem

iconducto

rs

Figure 4 : Motivations for seeking ISO 14000 certification – by economy

Figure 5 : Motivations for seeking

ISO 14000 certification – by business activity

Cost reductions

Environmental improvements

Marketing advantage

Customer pressure

Many competitors certified

Benefits experienced byothers




Corporate image


Cost reductions

Environmental improvements

Marketing advantage

Customer pressure

Many competitorscertified

Benefits experi-enced by others



Relations with

authorities

Corporate image

Relations with

communities


ANZ CA FR HK JP KR SEA SE TW US



for ISO 9000 : the similarities in rela-tive motivations between sectors areperhaps the most striking observa-tion from Figure 5.

Proportion of employees trained

We asked the respondents whatpercentage of their employeesreceived training – again on a five-point scale ranging from one, indicat-ing 0-20% of employees, to five, indi-cating 81-100 %. Figures 6 and 7 showthe average responses to this ques-tion, by country and by sector.

The proportion of employeestrained was generally similar for ISO

9000 and ISO 14000 ; overall, in mostcountries, the proportion trained forISO 14000 was slightly higher. Thismay reflect the fact that ISO 14000more often covers an entire site orcompany, while ISO 9000 certifica-tions could have more limited scope.

More striking is the variationacross countries : firms in Canada,Sweden, and the US report trainingthe highest proportion of employees,with those in Japan and Koreareporting the lowest proportions. Asalways, one needs to be careful ininterpreting such findings as an indi-cation that implementation has beenmore or less thorough in certaincountries, as there is always a possi-bility of country-level differences insurvey response behaviour. Forinstance, respondents in Japan maysimply be more likely to provide acautious estimate of the proportionof employees trained, while those inCanada might apply a looser defini-tion of “ training”. However, thesedifferences are striking enough towarrant further investigation.

There is more consistency in theproportion of employees trainedacross sectors than there is acrosscountries. Again, most firms reportslightly higher degrees of training forISO 14000 than for ISO 9000.

Benefits of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000certification

We asked the respondents howmuch benefit they had received fromcertification for 13 categories, on afive-point scale, ranging from one for“no benefits” to five for “very sub-stantial benefits”. The results for ISO9000 are shown in Figures 8 and 9, bycountry and by sector ; Figures 10 and11 (page 38) show the analogousresults for ISO 14000.

Overall, the categories in whichfirms report receiving the highestbenefits from ISO 9000 certificationare “ quality improvements ”, “ cus-tomer satisfaction ”, “ improved pro-cedures ” and “ corporate image ”.

ISO 9000

ISO 14000

Figure 6 : Proportion of employees trained –

by economy

Figure 7 : Proportion of employees trained –

by business sector

Commun

icatio

ns

Compu

ter e

quipm

ent or

or p

erip

hera

ls

Electr

onics

Semico

nduc

tors

Mecha

nica

l

Autom

ation Fo

od

Plas

tic

Chem

ical

Text

ileMet

al

Phar

maceu

tical

Other

s




0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

Figure 8 : Benefits from ISO 9000 certification – by economy

Figure 9 : Benefits from ISO 9000 certification – by business sector

Phar

mac

euti

cal

Oth

ers

Text

ileM

etal

Plas

tic

Chem

ical

Aut

omat

ion

Food

Mec

hani

cal

Elec

tron

ics

Com

mun

icat

ion

sCo

mpu

ter

equi

pmen

t or

per

iphe

rals

Sem

icon

duct

ors

ANZ

CA

FR

HK

JP

KR

SEA

SE

TW

US

Cost reductions

Productivity

Quality

Environmental

On-time delivery

Customer satisfaction

Market share

Profit margin

Procedures

Authorities

Morale

Communities

Image

Cost reductions

Product-ivity

Quality

Environ-mental

On-time delivery


Market share

Profit margin

Procedures

Authorities

Morale

Communities

Image




0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

Figure 10 : Benefits from ISO 14000 certification – by economy

Figure 11 : Benefits from ISO 14000 certification – by business sector

Phar

mac

euti

cal

Oth

ers

Text

ileM

etal

Plas

tic

Chem

ical

Aut

omat

ion

Food

Mec

hani

cal

Elec

tron

ics

Com

mun

icat

ion

sCo

mpu

ter

equi

pmen

t or

per

iphe

rals

Sem

icon

duct

ors

ANZ

CA

FR

HK

JP

KR

SEA

SE

TW

US

Cost reductions

Productivity

Quality

Environmental

On-time delivery


Market share

Profit margin

Procedures

Authorities

Morale

Communities

Image

Cost reductions

Product-ivity

Quality

Environ-mental

On-time delivery


Market share

Profit margin

Procedures

Authorities

Morale

Communities

Image




The pattern is fairly consistentacross countries, with some excep-tions. Firms in the US report relative-ly high benefits from “ improved pro-cedures ”, followedby firms in Australia,Canada, and France.Japanese firms reportconsiderably higherbenefits in “employ-ee morale ” thanfirms in other coun-tries. Respondents inHong Kong reporthigher benefits from“ improved relationswith authorities”.

The pattern isalso quite constantacross sectors, exceptthat pharmaceutical firms report con-siderably higher benefits fromimproved relations with authorities.This reflects the fact that the pharma-ceutical industry is subject to farmore stringent quality regulations bygovernment agencies than firms inother business sectors.

Overall, the key benefits obtainedfrom ISO 14000 certification areimproved environmental perform-ance and improved corporate image,followed by improved procedures,relations with authorities, and rela-tions with communities. Firms in

Canada and the US report the highestbenefits from improved procedures.

The same pattern arises when bro-ken down by sector. Textile firms

report the largestcost reductions fromISO 14000 certifi-cation. Pharmaceu-tical respondentsreport the highestbenefits from im-proved relations withauthorities, and thelowest benefits withrespect to employeemorale and corpo-rate image.

Conclusion

By and large, the patterns we findare consistent across countries, formost of the factors we study. Thoughthere are, inevitably, variations acrosscountries, these differences are rela-tively small and certainly not largeenough to indicate substantially dif-ferent “versions” of management sys-tems built on ISO 9000 or ISO 14000.

The one notable exception is theproportion of employees trained.Here, we find substantial variationacross countries, which calls for fur-ther examination. If this reflects dif-ferences in interpretation of the sur-vey question across countries, there is

The authors

Dr. Jeh-Nan(Jack) Pan isProfessor andChairman ofthe Depart-ment ofStatistics ofthe School ofManagement

at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan.

E-mail [email protected]

Dr. Charles J.Corbett isAssistantProfessor ofDecisions,Operationsand Techno-logy Manage-ment at the

Anderson School at UCLA, California,USA.

E-mail charles.corbett@anderson. ucla.edu

Dr. AnastasiaM. Luca isPostdoctoralScholar at theAndersonSchool atUCLA.

E-mail anastasia.luca@anderson. ucla.edu

The key benefits obtained

from ISO 14000 certification

are improved environmental

performance and improved

corporate image, followed

by improved procedures,

relations with authorities,

and relations with

communities




of course no problem. However, if itreflects true differences in breadthand depth of implementation of ISO9000 and ISO 14000, that might castsome doubt on the assertion that thestandards are truly implemented in astandardized manner worldwide.

It is instructive to compare themotivations for seek-ing certification withthe benefits achieved.Recall that the mainmotivations for seek-ing ISO 9000 certifica-tion were qualityimprovements, mar-keting advantage andcorporate image. Theseexpectations are, byand large, met : themain benefits experi-enced are qualityimprovements, improv-ed customer satisfaction, andimproved image. The same is true forISO 14000.

However, two points are worth not-ing. Firstly, the improved customersatisfaction does not appear to lead toequally large benefits in terms of mar-ket share or profit margin. This mayreflect the fact that ISO 9000 certifica-tion is often considered a require-

ment. Having the certification doesnot actually increase market share orprofits, but not having it will lead to adecrease in market share or profitabil-ity.

Secondly, perhaps the most impor-tant ISO 9000 benefit of all isimproved procedures. The survey did

not explicitly askabout improved pro-cedures as a motiva-tion for seeking certi-fication, but anecdotalevidence from inter-views with certifiedfirms suggest that, inmany cases, thesebenefits were notanticipated, but prov-ed very helpful.

This is, in fact,characteristic of anystructured process

improvement effort : one does notknow in advance how the efforts willpay off, but following a structuredand disciplined approach almostinevitably does lead to valuableprocess improvements.

Following

a structured and

disciplined approach

almost inevitably

does lead

to valuable process

improvements

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to ISO Central Secretariat(www.iso.org), to the University of CaliforniaPacific Rim Research Program, and to the Centerfor International Business Education andResearch at the Anderson School at UCLA fortheir financial support, and to WorldPreferred(www.worldpreferred.com) for sharing theNorth American certification data with us.

We are also very grateful to our survey partners :Mile Terziovski, Rob Klassen, Olivier Aptel, TY Lee,

Kazuhiro Asakawa, Phares Parayno, Carlos Romero,Hosun Rhim, and Jens Dahlgaard. We would alsolike to acknowledge the excellent research assis-tance provided by Theresa Jones, Susana Medina,and María J. Montes.

Finally, we are of course highly grateful to therespondents for sharing their ISO 9000 and ISO14000 experiences with us.



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