The effects of ISO 9001:2000 certification on the internal organisational processes in the local government - the Malaysian context

The number of organisations worldwide certified with the ISO 9001:2000 QMS has increased dramatically in the last decade. Malaysia, as many other developing nations, had also experienced a rapid growth in the number of ISO 9000 certified organisations in the late 1990s. The growth of ISO 9000 certifications worldwide suggests that there is a widespread belief in the benefits gained from the certification. However, the benefits achieved from the QMS are surrounded by many controversies and disagreements. There were also serious doubts and reservations again concerning the degree to which the ISO 9001:2000 will really boost companies' performance more than the previous one. The analysis of the literature showed that the effect of the QMS on an organisation's internal practices and performance seem uncertain. The research aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the ISO 9001:2000 certification on the internal organisational processes within the Malaysian Local Government. Although the experiences of the QMS implementation in different countries have been explored, limited empirical research has been carried out in developing country. Most of the research have been conducted on the private sector organisations and very limited research focused on the public sector organisations. And to date, no research on investigating the effects of the ISO 9001:2000 on the internal organisational processes within the local government in Malaysia has been conducted. Based on the nature of this research. Interpret!vism philosophy. Qualitative approach and the Case Study strategy, the multiple case design and the use of interview as the main tool for data collection in this research. Semi-structured interviews have been adopted to gain an in depth understanding, and this was triangulated with other sources of relevant data such as documents review, archival records and direct observation. Finally, the data gathered have been analysed using the Grounded theory and the Explanation Building method. The primary contribution of this research is to present an in-depth understanding of the effects of the ISO 9001:2000 certification on the internal organisational processes within the Malaysian Local Government. Amongst the major findings of this research are new effects of the QMS certification on the internal organisational processes. The researcher has also found that organisations can effectively use ISO certification as a means of promoting and facilitating a quality culture, where the Top Management is the important player in the implementation and certification process. This research has found that organisations decided to implement ISO 9001:2000 and this is motivated only by external causes had gained most of the benefits and improvements achieved by organisations which implemented the QMS based on internal motives. This finding contradicts with findings by many authors who found that companies decide to implement ISO 9000 motivated only by external motives will get fewer results than companies that implement them motivated by internal motives. This is a contribution to the body of knowledge regarding the ISO 9001:2000 QMS. Another contribution is that the findings of the research also confirmed that ISO 9001:2000 QMS has been effective in not only manufacturing organisations but also in the public service organisation i.e. the local government organisations.