Introduction
In normal courses of discourse, quality signifies excellence or an exceptional nature of something. In that manner, the object must conform to a set of standards to qualify as quality. On that note, Oakland (2014) explains that quality simply denotes meeting the requirements of a client which take various forms. The various forms describe the fitness of the specific object for its set purpose, its totality in terms of the required features and characteristics, how it fulfills both the current and future needs of the consumer, conformance to the requirements, and the degree to which certain inherent features of the object adhere to quality control standards like the ISO (EN) 9000:2000. Garvin (1987) maintains that his eight dimensions of quality model apply to both products and services. However, it is challenging to ascertain the accuracy of such claims given the glaring differences between products and services. Kelemen (2003) notes that goods are tangible while services are intangible. Similarly, goods are storable, standardized and physically enduring while services are heterogeneous, perishable, and less controllable. In particular, the intangibility and heterogeneity as well as the fact that services are less controllable, make it difficult for quality controllers to apply the concept of quality on services. It is also the three features of services that make it difficult to determine whether Garvin’s eight dimensions of quality apply to services in the same manner as they do to products. To assess the applicability of the eight dimensions of the quality model, the following discussion will first provide an overview of one of the international products and service standards, the ISO 9000.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000
The ISO 9000 refers to a group of management system standards tailored to assist organizations and institutions in meeting the needs of their clients and stakeholders while fulfilling the regulatory requirements of a program, goods or service (Poksinska, Dhlgaard and Antoni, 2002). It encompasses the basics of quality management frameworks like Garvin’s 8-dimension of quality and the famous seven quality principles of management (Tsim, Yeung, Leung and Edgar, 2002). Furthermore, it specifies the requirements that each organization seeking to meet the set standards must adhere to, and successfully fulfill. In this case the type of organization does not matter. That is, ISO 9000 does not consider whether an organization is a service company or one that produces tangible goods, it cuts across the board. The worldwide adoption and subsequent spread of the ISO 9000 system draw from several factors and determinants. Almost all the international purchasers have made it a norm for their suppliers to be ISO 9001 certified. Essentially, apart from seeming credible and reliable, there is a host of other benefits for acquiring an ISO 9001 certification standard. A majority of studies have found that certified organizations have higher chances of winning new business deals (Corbett, Montes-Sacho, Maria and Kirsch, 2005). On the same note, it has been determined that companies with the certification achieve superior ROI (return on assets). Higher operational and financial performances have also been attributed to ISO 9000 certification. However, in the service industry, Sharma (2005) notes that there is no direct causation between the higher financial performance and ISO 9000 certification.