Raising awareness of the benefits of certification and assurance services
In ‘Effects of ISO 9000 certification on companies’ profitability: an empirical study’ (Heras, I., Casadesús, M., Ochao, C., 2001), research is carried out examining companies in the Basque Region on Spain. The research looked simply to compare the financial results of 400 companies certified to ISO 9000 with 400 companies not certified to ISO 9000 over five years from 1994 to 1998.
The research looked at one specific indicator, economic profitability to see results in each of the five years between the two groups of companies. The results were as follows:
|
Average Economic Profitability |
|||||
|
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
|
| ISO 9000 certified |
7.90% |
9.41% |
6.62% |
11.79% |
17.30% |
| Non-certified |
6.33% |
6.61% |
6.10% |
6.11% |
7.35% |
Table 1: Statistically significant difference concerning the average profitability (Heras, I., Casadesús, M., Ochao, C., 2001)
With the exception of the close result of 1996, all other years’ results indicated a statistically significant outperformance of the ISO 9000 certified companies over the non-certified companies.
The report is very clear to point out that the research does not look to attribute cause and effect, saying, ‘Even if it can be statistically contrasted that the certified companies have a greater average economic profitability than the non-certified companies, it can not be strictly concluded that the ISO certification leads to higher profitability performance’. The suggestion is that more analysis is needed to ascertain this level of conclusion.
The Basque Country University (Heras, Ochoa), University of Girona (Casadesús)