ISO 9001 and product innovation: A literature review and research framework

The ISO 9001 standard has been implemented by more than one million organizations in 187 countries, and a substantial number of these organizations aim at achieving product innovation. However, it is still not clear whether ISO 9001 fosters or hinders product innovation, because so far there has been little scientific discussion. Moreover, the conclusions of the studies about the influence of ISO 9001 on product innovation are partly contradictory. This paper aims to solve this controversy and to contribute to the theory by reviewing the literature about the impact of ISO 9001 on product innovation and by developing a framework which can guide future research. This paper also aims to contribute to practice by helping managers understand the relationship between ISO 9001 and product innovation better. We propose that the relationship between ISO 9001 and radical and incremental product innovation performance is influenced by the extent to which the standard has been adopted, the extent of signaling, the motivation of the company to implement the ISO 9001 standard, the sector and the region in which the company operates, the size of the company, and the standard version (1987, 1994/2000, 2008/2015).