Professional Documents
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Introduction
The development of management standards now
encompasses a very wide range of aspects of business activity, such as quality management (e.g. ISO
9001), environmental management (e.g. ISO 14001),
the prevention of occupational hazards and the provision of health and safety regulations in the workplace (e.g. OHSAS 18000), and corporate social
*This article is a result of a Research Project funded by the
Basque Autonomous Government (GIC 10/89) and the
Spanish Ministry for Education and Science (ECO200912754). The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to
the Co-Editor-in-Chief of IJMR Oswald Jones and to the
three reviewers for their assistance; their constructive criticism and suggestions helped us to improve and develop the
paper substantively.
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Figure 1. Worldwide ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification. Source: ISO Survey (ISO 2011)
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Introduction
Standardization of management systems and its endproduct, meta-standards, constitute a clear example
of a multidimensional phenomenon which has implications of an extremely varied nature. It is for this
reason that they have been studied from the perspective of a variety of disparate but related disciplines,
such as international economics, management studies (and, more specifically, the study of operations
management) and organizational sociology.
In this section of the paper, an attempt will be made
to produce a synthesis of these approaches.1 First, the
different theoretical approaches will be structured in
three main groups: (1) technical approaches, in which
we would place the standpoint of Operation Management and other technical standpoints involving a
study of the meta-standards that refer to more or less
general, mature fields such as Quality Management,
Environmental Management and System Thinking,
among others; (2) non-technical approaches, with
the following four sub-approaches: self-regulation,
decentralized institutions and signalling models,
cartels and clubs and New Institutionalism; and (3)
other approaches, in which we have grouped various
pieces of research based on eclectic works and which
are, consequently, difficult to classify.
The following two subsections focus on the
presentation of the first two general approaches.
The main works published in the literature could
be included in them. In the research perspective that
we have generically named other approaches, we
include other works from various different standpoints, such as works of a pragmatic nature carried
out from the standpoint of international economics
and international business, those that focus on the
same standpoint but which are clearly critical (e.g.
Clapp 2001), highlight new challenges regarding
1
This is a sub-approach with a clear link to that of selfregulation, but which is put together in a different way as it
has far less theoretical basis.
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Non-technical approaches
These approaches are essentially focused on the
analysis of the development, rationality and social
legitimacy of meta-standards, from a more global
and theoretical perspective. Through the adoption of
meta-standards and their certification, legitimacy is
awarded to the organizations adopting them, and this
grants benefits beyond pure technical or efficiency
advantages (Beck and Walgenbach 2005). This standpoint is most salient in New Institutionalism, although
it can be argued that it is also present in other
approaches and, on occasions, even in works which, in
terms of both the views they express and the journals
in which they are published, could be included among
technical approaches (e.g. Nair and Prajogo 2009).
This does not really come as a shock, above all if one
takes into account that, according to some authors,
third-party certification, like other forms of auditing
certification, is primarily aimed at creating trust and
social legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders (Boiral
and Gendron 2011; Power 2003).
Self-regulation refers to the adoption of voluntary
standards (e.g. environmental standards such as ISO
14001) beyond the requirements of government regulation (Christmann and Taylor 2006; King and Lenox
2000; Prakash and Potoski 2007). As is underlined by
ORourke (2006) and Christmann and Taylor (2001),
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Representative works
(theoretical approach/es)a
1. Creation of
meta-standards
and implications
for global
governance
2. International
Terlaak and King 2006 [SR]
diffusion process Corbett and Kirsch (2001) [TA]
of meta-standards Guler et al. (2002) [NI]
Delmas (2002) [NI]
Saraiva and Duarte (2003) [TA]
Poksinska et al. (2003) [C&C]
Franceschini et al. (2004) [TA]
Vastag (2004) [SR]
Neumayer and Perkins (2004 2005) [O]
Corbett (2006) [TA]
Marimn et al. (2006) [TA]
Alburquerque et al. (2007) [TA]
Potoski and Prakash (2009) [DIS]
Delmas and Montes (2008) [NI]
3. Motivations to
adopt
meta-standards
4. Benefits of
adoption(A) and
impact on
performance(B)
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Table 1. Continued
Research areas
Representative works
(theoretical approach/es)a
5. Differences in
adoption levels
(internalization)
6. Integration of
standards
a
TA, Technical Approaches; SR, self-regulation; DIS, decentralized institutions and signalling models; C&C, theory of cartels and clubs;
NI, New Institutionalism; O, Others (see the classification used in the paper).
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3. Motivations to adopt
meta-standards
4. Benefits of adoption
and impact on
performance
5. Differences in adoption
levels (internalization)
6. Integration of standards
7. Consultancy and
auditing for
meta-standards
2. International diffusion
process of
meta-standards
Case studies on the different levels of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 adoption inside the same
organization
Longitudinal case studies on the evolution of the meta-standards dominant adoption models
Interviews performed outside the workplace in order to reduce bias related to organizational
rhetoric of success
Cross-country comparative studies on the differences in adoption levels
1. Creation of
meta-standards and
implications for global
governance
Knowledge gaps
Research areas
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I. Heras-Saizarbitoria and O. Boiral
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Christmann and Taylor (2006) underlined, researchers need to acknowledge the limitation of certification as a measure, and need to evaluate how
variations in the quality of standard implementation
may affect their results.
Finally, for future work, research should also focus
on studying audits by third parties one of the processes that characterize the phenomenon of metastandards and one which has not received much
attention from researchers in recent years. It would be
interesting to analyse the consistency of external
auditing services rigorously, limited as they are by the
fact that they are contracted and paid for by the
company that wishes to become certified. This issue
has already been analysed in other areas of business
as a result of the accounting scandals that occurred in
the US a few years ago and, more recently, with the
problems facing credit-rating institutions in the financial crisis that arose in 2008. Indeed, as has been
demonstrated by recent scandals in the accountancy
sector and the financial market, third-party audit
of meta-standards an activity that shares certain
features with that of account auditing and creditrating is no guarantee of honesty (Boiral and
Gendron 2011; King et al. 2005). This question might
be related to a possible erosion of the prestige and
credibility of management standards, a danger which
has been pointed out ever since the phenomenon
began (Askey and Dale 1994). Thus, with a view to the
future it would also be interesting to analyse whether,
as a result of the rapid expansion in the diffusion of
meta-standards, the quality of audits has improved,
with better-trained and better-qualified auditors being
able to provide a more helpful auditing style, as some
authors maintain (e.g. Terziovski and Power 2007),
or whether it is rather the case that a rapid decline in
quality has taken place. As pointed out by Brumm
(1997), the existence of many entities capable of
performing the required audits and issuing the relevant certificates was pointed out as a weakness that
favoured instrumental implementation practices, contributing to the erosion of the prestige and credibility
of meta-standards, as recently stressed by several
authors (e.g. Boiral and Gendron 2011; Christmann
and Taylor 2006; Yeung and Mok 2005).
In short, further critical and rigorous empirical
studies are necessary in order to analyse the real
perceptions of the various stakeholders (consumers,
managers, suppliers, intermediary clients, workers
and public administration) regarding the adoption of
meta-standards and their effects. However, in order
for the results of such research to constitute a clear
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