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Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

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Listed:
  • David I. Levine

    (Haas School of Business, University of California,)

  • Michael W. Toffel

    (Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management Unit)

Abstract

Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety change when employers adopt ISO 9001. We analyzed a matched sample of nearly 1,000 companies in California. ISO 9001 adopters subsequently had far lower organizational death rates than a matched control group of non-adopters. Among surviving employers, ISO adopters had higher growth rates for sales, employment, payroll, and average annual earnings. Injury rates declined slightly for ISO 9001 adopters, although total injury costs did not. These results have implications for organizational theory, managers, and public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • David I. Levine & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-018, Harvard Business School, revised Jan 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:09-018
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

    ISO 9001; quality management; standards; occupational health and safety; wages; labor; empirical; California;
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