ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 standards: A projection model for the decline phase

Abstract

During the past few years, the process of standardisation with regard to business management systems has accelerated in an economic environment characterised by a marked process of economic globalisation and integration. Thus, the peaks attained by some standards published by agencies specialising in standardisation in the economic field are noteworthy. Two series of standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) stand out amongst these: the ISO 9000 series, related to the implementation of quality systems, and the ISO 14000 series, related to the implementation of environmental management systems. Previous research has analysed different projection models regarding number of certificates, both nationally and internationally, with the logistic model standing out as one of the models better suited to data records, and thus believed to offer better outlooks. However, none of the models referred to included data on countries experiencing clear decertification in terms of number of certificates of the aforementioned standards in their calculations, such as the data that has been detected for the first time in the last two years. Faced with the appearance of the first symptoms of market exhaustion, this article discusses what the projection model could be like once a process of decertification has set in.

Keywords:

• standardisation
• quality management
• environmental management
• ISO 9000
• ISO 14000
• diffusion

Acknowledgement

This article was written as part of a research project titled ‘The integrated management system (IMS) in Spanish companies’ (SEJ2006-00682/ECON) financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology within the aid programme for R&D projects.