In the study of Feng et al. (2008), three basic components of implementing the standard were
examined: planning for ISO 9001 certification, organizational commitment, and implementing
procedures. Organizational performance was measured in two dimensions, namely
operational performance (related to organization’s internal operation, such as productivity,
product quality, and internal customer satisfaction) and business performance
(related to financial and marketing such as sales growth, profitability, and market
share). The results showed a positive and significant relationship between the certification
practices (implementation, organizational commitment, and planning) and operational
performance. However, the relationship between these practices and business performance
was found to be positive but not significant. Organizational commitment to certification
was found to be most strongly related to operational and business performance.
The findings from the study of Lin and Jang (2008) revealed a
comprehensive ISO 9001 model that was supported by four key constructs namely
top management support, quality planning, employee involvement, and continuous
improvement. These constructs created a series of chain which had a direct
positive impact on business performance. It must be noted that these constructs
are interdependent, rather than parallel components. Jang and Lin (2008) found
that a positive relationship exists between the extent to which companies
implement ISO 9001 and their performance.
Amongst the major findings of the study of Terziovski and Power
(2007) is that organizations that seek ISO 9001 certification with a proactive
approach driven by a continuous improvement strategy are more likely to derive
significant business benefits as a result.
According to the findings of Park et
al. (2007), the ISO 9001:2000 certified companies driven
by internal motives tended to comply with the major requirements better than those
driven by customers demand. More specifically, the certified companies
motivated by internal reasons actively accomplished documentation requirements,
improvement, customer-related processes, provision of resources and
responsibility, authority and communication. Even though companies were
certified for internal reasons, they were negligent in thoroughly complying
with requirements regarding quality policy, management review, control of
nonconforming products, and analysis of data. The results of Park et al. (2007) also showed that a company’s size did
not significantly affect the major requirements’ conformity, except for
monitoring and measurement, with which the large-sized companies achieved
compliance better than the small-sized ones. The results also showed that the
companies certified for longer operating years easily managed processes with
respect to purchasing, infrastructure, customer, work environment and control
of monitoring and measuring devices. However, the certified companies
established for a longer time seemed to be careless about complying with planning,
customer focus, quality policy, management commitment, and analysis of data.
Poksinska et al. (2006)
found that the ISO 9001:2000 standard was implemented by standardising the
practice (change only the presentation of organizational processes, not the
practice) and not by practising the standard (the practice is changed). The requirements
were interpreted by the studied organizations in such a way that it was possible
to describe the existing practice in the language of the standard. The organizations
stated that standardising the practice was the starting point of the work with
ISO 9001 and in the future they also want to practise the standard, but the
lack of internal motivation stopped the process or made it very stagnant. As a
consequence of this approach, many opportunities for improvement were lost. The
ISO 9001:2000 was not perceived as a tool for managing organizational
processes, but as a tool for keeping and updating documentation. Consequently,
this was reflected in the benefits achieved. Despite the external benefits like
improved customer relations, the internal benefits most often mentioned were
more structure and order in the work and standardisation of organizational
processes. One should notice that those benefits resulted from standardising
the practice. ISO 9001:2000 as a first step towards TQM. It is generally accepted that the ISO 9001:2000 standard is much
more in line with TQM than the previous versions. However, the gap between ISO
9001:2000 and TQM and the way to effectively reach business excellence in a
specific business environment are still under question.
The findings from the study of Magd (2006) seem to confirm the
assertion that the ISO 9001 certification constitutes a base for, or is at
least complementary to TQM. This can be said due to the fact that the
researched companies were hoping to implement TQM in the near future, as they
wanted to go further than simply maintaining ISO 9001 in order to achieve
long-term success. The results from the study of Tari (2005) showed that the
certified companies must improve their people orientation and use quality
improvement techniques and tools to a higher extent in order to progress towards
TQM. He concluded that if the final company’s objective is to maintain the ISO 9001
certificate, it will stay at a basic TQM level and will show no interest
towards a wider development of quality management components. However, if the
company wishes to go beyond ISO 9001, it must improve all TQM aspects in order
to improve its
competitiveness. In practice, the next step could be the use of the
EFQM model to define improvement activities.
The basic conclusion drawn from the study of Gotzamani et al. (2007) was that the ISO 9001 certification
indicated an improved EFQM enablers’ performance, especially in the category of
process management. Even more, it was indicated that the certification motives
are particularly significant for the contribution of certification in excellence
performance. The contribution of the standard was indicated to be higher for
organizations that implement it focusing mainly on true quality improvement of their
internal operation and their final products and services. The results also
revealed that the efforts after certification should focus on the “soft”
elements of TQM (leadership, employee participation and empowerment and
customer relations), since these were the ones with the least improvement from
certification.
Terziovski and Power (2007) found that the promotion and
facilitation of a quality culture can be achieved through ISO 9001
implementation and the quality auditor is an important player in the process.
The relationship between quality culture – ISO 9001 certification and improved
business performance was moderately strong, especially in SMEs
certified for longer periods. Finally, it was found a weak
relationship between
management responsibility and value derived from ISO 9001
certification, especially in SME certified for less than five years.
Adopted from
Evangelos L. Psomas and Christos V. Fotopoulos” A meta analysis of ISO
9001:2000 research – findings and future research proposals” IJQSS pg 128-144
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