A Survey on the Effect of the Establishment of ISO 9001 on Achieving Competitive Advantage in Firms Manufacturing Products Included in Mandatory Standards Act of Guilan Province

Abstract:ISO 9001 standard has been established in firms manufacturing products included in Mandatory Standard Act. Companies having this certificate are willing to know whether applying requirements of ISO9001, considering its costs of establishment, registration and maintenance, can improve business and operational performances to achieve competitive advantage. Thus, this paper primarily aims to investigate the effect of ISO9001 establishment on achieving competitive advantage in mentioned firms and companies. In terms of research objectives, the present paper is of applied type. Data are collected through descriptive method and the paper is considered as a field study. The population is composed of firms manufacturing products included in the Act of Mandatory Standards of Guilan province which have gained ISO9001 certificate. Sample size was determined to be 73 firms, using Kookran formula. Questionnaire was used as the main data collection tool. Reliability of the questionnaire (Cronbach ? coefficient) was 0.87. SPSS-aided Pierson correlation coefficient was applied to test the hypotheses. Findings indicated that establishment of ISO9001 is effective on achieving competitive advantage.