Quality Costs and ISO 9000 Certification: A Panel Data Research with Brazilian Publicly Traded Companies

Abstract

Despite of quality costs theme remains involved in academic discussions, little practical use of its concepts is realized. Researchers have warned about the low commitment of their actual implementation on companies. Alternatives, therefore, must come to allow a firm can measure if its efforts produce superior performance to all its stakeholders. In this study, it is proposed a trade-off of traditional ways to measure the costs of quality - away from classical accounting practices - for an evaluation of a set of indicators that measure and monitor the satisfaction of the stakeholders in a company. One of those tools is the implementation of ISO 9000. This standard establishes that a company must monitor information related to the perception of the client regarding the accomplishment of its requirements. One company, when it is certified, produces better results, since it invests in continuous improvement. The purpose of this study is to report financial results achieved by brazilian publicly traded companies certified by ISO 9000, showing that they use the mechanisms proposed by the management standard to achieve better results. Researching 44 brazilian companies ISO 9000 certified with a static panel data from 1995 to 2006, one can verify there was statistically significant contribution of the certification to reduce the production costs and to increase the operational turnover of the assets..