Raising awareness of the benefits of certification and assurance services
In ‘Comparison between manufacturing companies that are ISO certified and those that are not certified using performance measurement model’(Wu, Chen, 2011), the performance of Taiwanese manufacturing companies is measured, 282 certified against 125 non-certified companies.
The research uses the idea of converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes, examining the cause and effect relationship between four perspectives of internal access, customer, learning & growth and financial. These ideas came from Kaplan & Norton (2004), Strategy Maps, a development of their balanced scorecard concept and helped judge the influence and effect of ISO certification on these manufacturing companies. A range of questions was asked, aimed at ascertaining if there were different levels of performance between certified and non-certified companies and the nature of any variation.
The conclusion was ‘the comparison results show that the ISO-certified companies demonstrate significantly higher performance than companies without ISO certification in all perspectives of performance. Moreover, the ISO certified companies show greater strength in all relationship paths as compared to uncertified firms. These results indicate that ISO certification has a significant effect on the performance of manufacturing companies’.
Specifically, the report highlights that ‘acquiring ISO certification will reinforce the operation efficiencies and product quality, improve standardised procedures, reinforce corporate image, increase customer satisfaction, expand market share and enhance the overall performance of a company.’
Paper available to purchase
National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taiwan (Wu, Chen)