An Examination of the Economic Benefits of ISO 9000 and the Baldrige Award to Manufacturing Firms

This Thesis examines the financial data of manfacturing companies who are ISO 9000 certified and the winners in the manufacturing category of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award to determine whether the benefit of receiving certification or winning the award is economically attractive. A literature review is completed to show the limited number of quantitative analyses that have been conducted on this subject and to provide the sources of raw data that were used in the thesis.An analysis of the costs and benefits associated with registration is performed for ISO 9000, while stock performance is examined for the Baldrige Award winners. Results show that the economic success reported by companies that received ISO 9000 certification or the Baldrige award may be exaggerated and certainly that this success cannot be gauranteed. Recommendations for further study and a simple program design for a summative evaluation of the Baldrige award winning companies is also suggested for future research.