An Examination of ISO 9001 Certifications in the BRIC Countries

Abstract

The ISO 9001 certification process provides companies an opportunity to assess business practices to improve operations. This voluntary process has gained popularity world-wide. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of globalization on the number of ISO 9001 certifications issued in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries). The International Organization for Standardization and the World Bank provides data for the analyses. The overall results show the change in foreign direct investment (FDI per Capita) is associated with the adoption of ISO 9001 for the BRIC countries. After controlling for the country, analysis reveals that both the change in FDI per capita and the lagged change in FDI per capita are positively associated with the number of ISO 9001 certificates. Further investigation reveals that the conditions in Brazil and Russia are statistically associated with the number of organizations obtaining ISO 9001 certificates.