To what extent do quality procedures determine the performance of French SMEs?

Although a considerable bulk of literature has focused on the relationship between the implementation of quality assurance certification and the corporate performance of companies, still few are the works devoted to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to provide additional evidence for the impact of implementing quality assurance and control certificates on the performance of French SMEs.

With a view to determining the effect of certification on the performance of 1,164 French SMEs, the study used the matching method as developed by D.B. Rubin (1974). The data mobilized is the fruit of matching the results of the IOC survey (the Organizational Change and Informatization) conducted in 2006 with data pertaining to the performance of companies as derived from DIANE files (Disk for Economic Analysis).

The empirical contribution of this study indicates the need of SMEs for implementing quality certificates to improve their turnover, increase their added value, increase their labor productivity and boost the productivity of financial capital.

The paper has three main limitations. The first has to do with the choice of performance indicators. The paper is manly limited to the economic side of corporate performance. The second limitation is related to the origin of the data that covers only the year 2006. The study suffers from the time interval limit in which the relation between the implementation of the organizational innovations and the performance is tested. The third limitation concerns the generalization of results. The study was conducted on French SMEs, which limits the generalization of the results obtained.

Research findings have many implications on researchers and SME executives. For this latter, quality assurance system is perceived as a tool to maintain a competitive edge over competitors.

The paper aims to assess the impact of implementing quality certificates on the performance of French SMEs. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the relationship between the implementation of a quality assurance certificate and the performance of a large sample of 1,164 French SMEs.