Why Management System Standards Add Value, Part 2

Evidence that sets the record straight

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 16:04

In part one of this two-part article, we looked at the history of management system standards. Part two details some of the evidence that supports the assertion that these standards add value to organizations.

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A 2008 detailed study published by the Harvard Business School provides real data, gathered by external means, which emphasize the value of management system standards and the accredited certification process. The study documents compelling evidence regarding standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) stating that “ISO adopters have higher rates of corporate survival, sales, employment growth, and wage increases than a matched group of non-adopters.” The study also finds that “annual earnings per employee grew substantially more rapidly, post-ISO certification, than organizations that did not adopt ISO.”

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Comments

Submitted by dvanputten on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 16:20

Hello Authors

 

If you are referring to the Harvard
Business School
research titled "Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001
Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers",
you may want to pay special attention to the use of the terms
"adopters" and "certification." An organization can
"adopt" ISO 9001 but not be certified. I assume that the authors of
the Harvard paper used "adoption" and "certification" interchangeably.
I believe they made no distinction between adopting a standard for the sake of
improvement and certification. Adoption was the same as adopting the standard
and attaining a third party certification.

 

In the following paragraph from your article, notice the title uses the term
"certification" but the following text is about "adopters."

 

 

 

Benefits of management systems certification

 

 

 

Management
systems encourage and provide discipline across the entire
organization. The Harvard data show that organizations adopting the
management system found not only dramatic improvements in the areas of
quality and customer satisfaction, but also “significant reductions in employee injuries on the job,”
suggesting that organizations and people that pay additional attention
to preventing problems with products or services also pay more
attention to employee safety.

 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Dirk van Putten

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