Performance measures of ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies with regard to performance measures, both financial and non-financial. Design/methodology/approach – A research study was carried out in 140 Greek manufacturing companies by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent by e-mail and it was requested that it should be answered by a company representative. Exploratory factor analysis is applied in order to extract the latent factors of performance measures. The differences between the ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies are determined through non-parametric tests such as the χ 2-test and the Mann-Whitney U -test. Findings – The ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies significantly outperform the non-certified with regard to product quality, customer satisfaction, operational, market and financial performance. This is evident in a business environment where an economic downturn and financial crisis dominates. Research limitations/implications – The sub-samples of the responding ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies are small sized and they are limited to small- and medium-sized enterprises. The subjective character of the data collected through the company representatives involves the risk of receiving biased responses regarding the performance measures. The above limitations suggest future research recommendations. Practical implications – The increased performance measures of the ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies may motivate the non-certified ones to implement the ISO 9001 standard and apply for the certification in order to increase their performance and withstand the current economic downturn and financial crisis. The present study may also stimulate manufacturing companies to adopt traditional and modern benchmarking techniques, in an additional effort to improve their businesses and competitiveness. Originality/value – The present study compares performance measures of ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies operating under unprecedented circumstances due to the current economic downturn and financial crisis.