ISO 9000 series ‐ Certification and performance

In this article, the relationship is studied between certification on the ISO 9000 series and the performance of organizations. It is often claimed that ISO certification generates an improvement in the performance of organizations. This research aims to find out if ISO certification indeed results in better performance outcomes for organizations. This is of importance, for example, for those organizations that seek ISO certification in order to improve their performances. To test the hypothesis, an instrument is developed to measure the performance. The performance of organizations is operationalized through five performance indicators, which were derived from the literature: production process, company result, customer satisfaction, personnel motivation, and investment on means. Besides this main research interest the question is posed if other factors can explain for the performance. The concept of motivation is introduced which is the focus of the second part of the study.