Its history can however be traced back some twenty years before that when the Department of Defense published its MIL-Q-9858 standard in 1959.
It was based on the BS 5750 series of standards from BSI that were proposed to ISO in 1979. The benefit of increased international trade and domestic market share, in addition to the internal benefits such as customer satisfaction, interdepartmental communications, work processes, and customer/supplier partnerships derived, far exceeds any and all initial investment according to Alcorn. Hendricks and Singhal (2001) results indicate that firms outperform their control group during the post implementation period and effective implementation of total quality management principles and philosophies leads to significant wealth creation. Buttle (1997) and Santos (2002) both indicated internal process improvements in organizations leading to externally observable improvements. Lo et al (2007) identified operational improvements (cycle time reduction, inventory reductions, etc.) as following from certification. The mechanism for improving results has also been the subject of much research.
Other writers such as Heras et al (2002) have suggested that while there is some evidence of this, the improvement is partly driven by the fact that there is a tendency for better performing companies to seek ISO 9001 certification. While the connection between superior financial performance and ISO 9001 may be seen from the above, there remains no proof of direct causation, though longitudinal studies, such as those of Corbett et al (2005) may suggest it. Rajan and Tamimi (2003) showed that ISO 9001 certification resulted in superior stock market performance and suggested that shareholders were richly rewarded for the investment in an ISO 9001 system. Chow-Chua et al (2002) showed better overall financial performance was achieved for companies in Denmark. Sharma (2005) identified similar improvements in operating performance and linked this to superior financial performance. Naveh and Marcus (2007) showed that implementing ISO 9001 led to superior operational performance. Heras et al (2002) found similarly superior performance and demonstrated that this was statistically significant and not a function of organization size. Corbett et al (2005) showed that certified organizations achieved superior return on assets compared to otherwise similar organizations without certification. In addition to several stakeholders’ benefits, a number of studies have identified significant financial benefits for organizations certified to ISO 9001, with a 2011 survey from the British Assessment Bureau showing 44% of their certified clients had won new business. A number of major purchasers require their suppliers to hold ISO 9001 certification. The global adoption of ISO 9001 may be attributable to a number of factors.