Comparison between manufacturing companies that are ISO certified and those that are not certified using performance measurement model

Abstract

Certification from the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) has recently become the fundamental requirement of businesses seeking to ensure continuous quality improvement. However, further evaluation is needed to ascertain whether those ISO certified enterprises could enhance their overall performance. This research compares between the manufacturing companies that are ISO certified and those that are uncertified using the performance measurement model. The valid questionnaires include 282 and 125 responses from companies that are ISO certified and uncertified, respectively. The comparison results show that the ISO-certified manufacturing 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 the uncertified firms. These results indicate that ISO certification has a significant effect on the performance of manufacturing companies.