A literature review on internalization of quality standards

Purpose – This paper presents a literature review about internalization of quality standards and identifies antecedents and the effects of internalization.
Design/Methodology/approach – The ScienceDirect, ProQuest and Emerald databases were used in order to carry out searches with the following keywords: “daily usage of ISO 9001”, “substantive versus symbolic adoption”, “integration”, “depth of implementation”, “level of adoption”, “basic, advanced and supportive implementation”, “internalization”. The references in the papers identified by these searches were also reviewed.
Findings – Results of this literature review show that organizations can implement quality standard requirements in different ways. This leads to either an in-depth or a symbolic adoption of the quality standard requirements. Moreover, a higher degree of internalization may have positive effects on performance. In this context, different factors can play a role in the relationship between internalization and performance, such as reasons for seeking certification, quality culture, leadership, training activities, stakeholder pressure, innovation and the way ISO 9001 system is coordinated with suppliers and  customers.
Originality/value – This paper identifies the antecedents of internalization and the factors which may influence the relationship between internalization and performance.

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Quality management standards, internalization, quality certificate, performance