ISO 9000 and product innovation: A literature review and conceptual model

The ISO 9001standard 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 littlescientific discussion. Moreover, the conclusions of the studies about the influence of ISO 9001on 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 9001on product innovation and by developinga 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 9001standard, the sector and the region in which the company operates, the size of the company, and the standard version (1987, 1994 / 2000, 2008 / 2015).