Motives Affecting the Companies’ Benefit of Service Standards

Abstract

Despite the growing significance of service standardization, little is known about the microeconomic benefit of service standards. The paper presents results of a company survey on the benefit of service standards and the motives behind the standard’s implementation. Within the theoretical part of the paper, different roles of motives for the successful implementation of service standards are derived from the literature on the ISO 9000 standard. The empirical part supports the theory so that internal motives are positively related to the benefit of service standards, while external motives are negatively related. We consider these findings as a first indication for the existence of the microeconomic benefit of service standards, which in turn might stimulate future awareness of service standards and service standardization in general. Companies that intend to implement service standards are well advised to consider their motivation and to attach adequate importance to the subsequent implementation process.