Linking the firm's technological status and ISO 9000 certification:: results of an empirical research

This work presents part of the results of a multi-sector environment study undertaken in Spain on the Spanish firms' experience with the ISO 9000 certification and its consequences. Specifically, the article is focused on the analysis of the firm's technological status and its influence on the perception of the certification's results, as well as its possible relationship with the firm's decision to proceed towards Total Quality. The results show that the technologically superior firms are the ones that seem to be the most satisfied with the certification's results. In like manner, the analyses performed have enabled us to confirm the presence of a positive relationship between a high technological level and the firm's advance towards TQM. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.