The benefits of the implementation of the ISO 9000 standard: empirical research in 288 Spanish companies

Since 1987, when the International Organization for Standardization accepted a series of quality norms – the ISO 9000 standards – large companies and small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have been obliged to open their doors to something new: the culture of quality, a message which is very often associated with the initials of this well‐known standard. In Spain there are around 6,000 companies with this certificate, but they have not always obtained the same results. In this article we expose the results of an empirical research developed in 288 Spanish companies, to determine what the benefits are of the implementation of this standard. With a cluster analysis we found the existence of different typologies of companies. We found that nearly 65 per cent of the companies that have been certified in Spain have obtained very high levels of internal and external benefits.