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No International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Volume 56, Número 5/6 de 2007, a partir da página 484 pode ler-se o artigo "A triple analysis of ISO 9000 effects on company performance" de Micaela Martínez-Costa e Ángel R. Martinez-Lorente.
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"This paper reports new findings on the topic following a study using data from 713 companies and using the two methodologies that have been applied in the scientific literature: the comparison of certified and non-certified companies and a longitudinal study of the results of certification."
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"The present research has the aim of analysing the impact of ISO 9000 on company performance. However, this paper is not merely another paper on ISO 9000 that analyzes this possible effect, for the following reasons.
First, the present study uses objective measures of performance.
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Second, two methodologies are used to analyse the problem: the comparison between certified and non-certified firms and a longitudinal analysis to test for possible increases in results.
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Although there are many papers on the influence of ISO 9000 on company performance, there are relatively few that study that influence using quantitative data. Most of the studies are merely descriptive or prescriptive. (Moi ici: Ou seja, conversa da treta. Ou seja, retórica e oratória.)
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The first wave of the survey was sent to 2,986 companies in March 2003. In May 2003, as advised by Frohlich (2002), a second wave was carried out to 1,500 randomly selected companies that had not responded the first time.
From the original 2,986 letters sent, 36 were returned due to unknown address. Most likely, these companies either changed their address or were no longer in existence. 12 companies listed as manufacturing turned out to be service companies. In the end, the population was made up of 2,938 companies.
The number of completed questionnaires was 713. This constituted a response rate of 24 per cent. Response rate is usually interpreted as being affected by the manager’s interest in the research. In this sense, a 24 per cent response rate is considered a success with Spanish companies and is higher than the suggested minimum in the study done by Malhotra and Grover (1998).
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The variables analysed will be:
- Sales growth rate: to evaluate the ISO 9000 impact in sales.
- Personnel expenses and operational cost growth rates: to evaluate the ISO 9000 impact on costs.
- Earnings before taxes: to evaluate the ISO 9000 impact on benefits.
- Return on assets (ROA): to evaluate the ISO 9000 impact on profitability."
OK, agora vamos ao resultados:
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"The first research question asks if the ISO 9000 certification has an influence on company performance. This was tested with Analyses I and II.
In first place, a longitudinal study that consisted in a t-test comparing performance before and after certification is presented (see Table I). Excluding the year of certification, the performance average of the three years before the implementation of ISO 9000 is compared to the performance average during the three years following registration. The analysis shows not only that certified companies have not improved their results, but also that their results have worsened.
However, this analysis could be biased by an abnormal performance of some companies in one of the groups. In order to avoid that problem, a second analysis was performed: the sign-test. The sign test compares the number of companies that improve with the number of companies that worsen. The results support the conclusion that certified companies obtained less earnings and ROA after certification.
There were no differences in sales, so the results do not support the conclusions of other studies that ISO 9000 is a good marketing tool (Ebrahimpour et al., 1997; Brown et al., 1998; Anderson et al., 1999; Hughes et al., 2000). Operational costs and personnel expenses remained unchanged.
Analysis II compares certified and non-certified companies. Some differences have been detected but, contrary to findings in some of the literature exposed before, these differences are negative, as certified companies are the group with the worse performance.
In summary, the data suggest that certification has a negative effect on company results, mainly on earnings and ROA. These results support the findings of Singels et al. (2001), who found that certified companies had worse average cost savings, rate of sales growth, rate of market share growth and rate of net benefit growth when compared with non-certified companies. However this is in contrast with the results of many other papers that claimed that ISO 9000 has a positive effect or even no effect at all on company performance (Simmons and White, 1999; Abraham et al., 2000; Gupta, 2000; Heras Saizarbitoria et al., 2000; Hua et al., 2000; Sun, 2000).
A number of explanations of the present findings can be advanced:
In first place, a longitudinal study that consisted in a t-test comparing performance before and after certification is presented (see Table I). Excluding the year of certification, the performance average of the three years before the implementation of ISO 9000 is compared to the performance average during the three years following registration. The analysis shows not only that certified companies have not improved their results, but also that their results have worsened.
However, this analysis could be biased by an abnormal performance of some companies in one of the groups. In order to avoid that problem, a second analysis was performed: the sign-test. The sign test compares the number of companies that improve with the number of companies that worsen. The results support the conclusion that certified companies obtained less earnings and ROA after certification.
There were no differences in sales, so the results do not support the conclusions of other studies that ISO 9000 is a good marketing tool (Ebrahimpour et al., 1997; Brown et al., 1998; Anderson et al., 1999; Hughes et al., 2000). Operational costs and personnel expenses remained unchanged.
Analysis II compares certified and non-certified companies. Some differences have been detected but, contrary to findings in some of the literature exposed before, these differences are negative, as certified companies are the group with the worse performance.
In summary, the data suggest that certification has a negative effect on company results, mainly on earnings and ROA. These results support the findings of Singels et al. (2001), who found that certified companies had worse average cost savings, rate of sales growth, rate of market share growth and rate of net benefit growth when compared with non-certified companies. However this is in contrast with the results of many other papers that claimed that ISO 9000 has a positive effect or even no effect at all on company performance (Simmons and White, 1999; Abraham et al., 2000; Gupta, 2000; Heras Saizarbitoria et al., 2000; Hua et al., 2000; Sun, 2000).
A number of explanations of the present findings can be advanced:
- The cost of implementation and maintenance of the standard is greater than the benefits that it produces.
- This cost is high due to the fact that the standard slows the production process by introducing too much bureaucracy in the company (Martı´nez-Costa and Martı´nez-Lorente, 2004). The 2000 version of the standard has reduced the need for paperwork and this could change the effect that the standard has today on company results.
- The benefits of implementation are low in companies that get the certificate only in response to external pressures, since they do not apply the standard thinking of a quality management system more in line with TQM but only with a view to getting the certificate at a minimum cost. Terziovski et al. (2003) found that there is a positive relationship between the managers’ motives for adopting ISO 9000 certification and business performance. In this sense, the 2000 version of the standard has tried to be more congruent with TQM prescriptions and therefore it will be interesting to analyse the effect of this new version.
- Some of these companies that have applied the standard only for commercial reasons could be applying it only in a formal way and trying to deceive the auditors.
- Some companies have applied the standard because their industrial customers have forced them to do it. Therefore, after getting the certificate they have the costs but the same clients. If these companies have no way to decrease costs by the application of the standard, it has been a requisite to survive but not a way of improving.
- Not all auditing companies have the same ways of understanding the standard (Andrews et al., 2001), and some of them could have flexible procedures of
- auditing. This will mean that two companies in the same sector certified by different companies could be applying the standard in very different ways, and possibly even companies certified by the same auditing company." (Moi ici: Na terceira parte desta série vou dar a minha explicação pessoal para estes resultados, com base na minha experiência como consultor e como auditor.)
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"The conclusions of this study are, necessarily, controversial. If the success of ISO 9000 is measured by the number of companies that have decided to obtain the certificate, this success would be clear. However, the data suggest that certification is not positive for companies and may even be negative.
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Therefore, the present results imply two main conclusions for companies and other organizations (such as governments):
- (1) Organizations should not undertake the certification process if they do not have customers that force them to do so. The costs of implementation and maintenance appear to be greater than the possible benefits. However, some companies of the sample got better results after the certification, what could imply that depending of the way of application or depending of the specific company circumstances, the norm can be positive. Therefore, the differences amongst different industries and amongst other company characteristics in relation to the benefits of ISO application could be interesting to analyse.
- (2) Organizations should not choose their suppliers using their possession of an ISO 9000 certificate as a requisite, since they could be creating problems for their suppliers that, soon or later, will result in increased costs to themselves."
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