Proceedings of the 6th Economic & Finance Conference, OECD Headquarters, Paris

FINANCIAL IMPACT OF CERTIFICATIONS TO MANAGEMENT SYSTEM STANDARDS: EVIDENCE FROM TUNISIAN LISTED COMPANIES

OMRI IMEN

Abstract:

Certifications to management system standards (ISO 9000, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, etc.) are a widespread benchmark for thousands of organizations around the world. A number of studies have been carried out in order to analyze the impact of these certifications over companies’ performance. However, conclusions reached so far have been of a contradictory nature. The real benefits of these certifications continue to raise the debates and the different results show that the effect of certifications to management system standards on firms’ performance remains to be explored specially in terms of financial improvement. The purpose of this research is to investigate the association between certifications to management system standards and Tunisian companies’ financial performance covering the period 2010-2014. Such a study is likely to provide a useful insight to managers since the process of achieving and maintaining these certifications involves costs and time. The results find that there is no evidence that improvements in performance follow certifications and certified firms do not present higher performance than those that are not certified.

Keywords: Financial Performance, Operating Performance, Certifications, ISO, Propensity Score Matching

DOI: 10.20472/EFC.2016.006.010

PDF: Download