ISO 9000‐based quality assurance approaches and their relationship with strategic analysis

Many organisations use the ISO 9000 series as a reference framework to establish their quality assurance system. In doing so, most of them overlook the process of interpreting and adapting these standards to their own characteristics and capabilities. As a result, there is a misunderstanding with respect to the objectives of the standards. The correct implementation of the ISO 9000 series requires a preliminary analysis that facilitates the adaptation of them to the particular circumstances of a company. Therefore, this paper pays attention to the relationship existing between ISO 9000 implementation and the use of strategic diagnosis tools. The employment of such tools could be studied as an important facilitator for the ISO 9000 implementation process. However, this is not the aim of this research. Instead, the aim is threefold. First, the article analyses the use of strategic diagnosis tools by ISO 9000‐certified companies before and after the implementation process. Second, it examines how aspects relative to the management of processes, the organisational structure, and the relationship with suppliers and customers, are going to determine the quality approach resulting from the ISO 9000 implementation. Finally, the paper aims to analyse the influence of the development of strategic diagnosis activities, prior to the implementation, on the quality approach adopted by firms.