QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISO 9001 AND INNOVATION SUSTAINABILITY IN 27 EU COUNTRIES

Abstract

The increasingly uncertain business environment and the growing rate of changes require organizations to improve their competitiveness, sustainable development and innovation. To achieve these objectives, organizations are, among other things, implementing quality management system ISO 9001. The primary purpose of our research was to obtain the answer to our research problem of whether there is any correlation between the number of ISO 9001:2015 certificates, the innovation index and the sustainable development index in 27 EU member states. The empirical analysis was conducted based on data from ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, the Eurostat statistical office of the European Union and the Europe Sustainable Development Report 2020. The main finding of the research is that the number of ISO 9001:2015 certificates in EU member states neither impacts the innovation index nor the SDG index. The findings presented here are relevant and useful for organizations to help them implement in their operations those systems and tools that will directly increase innovation. Also, based on our findings, national governments can examine the effectiveness of their mechanisms aimed at increasing innovation.