International Trade and the ISO 9001 Certification of Firms: An Investigation

Abstract

The ISO 9001 certification gathered the interest of researchers, businessman and other related parties that believes it has a huge effect on firms being certified. ISO 9001 certification allows the firm to have a standard on the operation of its processes that are customer-focused. Thus, it results in consistent delivery of quality of product or services and focuses on customer satisfaction. International trade or globalization could be triggered by aspects of a firm that is perceived as beneficial by consumers. The aspects included in this study, namely the firms’ quality of the product produced, image, performance and the economic growth of a country tend to trigger globalization or international trade of business. Therefore, the researcher investigated the effect of ISO 9001 certification on firms’ quality of the product produced, image, performance and economic growth of a country, to explicit its effect or attribute to international trade. The researcher used a descriptive qualitative approach, thus, gathered data from articles, researches, and journals. The result shows that ISO 9001 certification positively affects firms’ quality of the product produced, image, performance, and countries' economic growth through importation and exportation that results in GDP increase. Also, it was observed that all the aspects used in this study affect globalization or international trade. The researcher concluded that ISO 9001 certification indirectly affects international trade through firms’ quality of the product produced, image, and performance. While it directly affects international trade and economic growth through its positive correlation with GDP and exports.