Total Quality Management

Vol. 21, No. 12, December 2010, 12791298

A classification model for prediction of certification motivations

from the contents of ISO 9001 audit reports
Paulo Sampaioa , Pedro Saraivab and Antonio Guimaraes Rodriguesc
a

Production and Systems Department, University of Minho, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal;

Chemical Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, 3030-290, Coimbra, Portugal;
c
Production and Systems Department, University of Minho, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal
b

ISO 9001 certification motivations can be classified into two main categories: (1)
internal motivations; and (2) external motivations. Internal motivations are related
with genuine organisational improvement goals (productivity, internal communication,
process performance), while external motivations are mainly related to promotional
and marketing issues (customer and market pressures, market share). Some companies
that become certified mostly upon the basis of external motivations define their main
goal as obtaining registration, and thus typically adopt a limited view over the
scope of quality management systems implementation and certification.
Based upon a detailed review of 100 ISO 9001 audit reports, we performed a detailed
statistical comparison between both types of motivations driving companies in their
certification efforts, explored their differences and similarities and derived a statistically
based classification model that was able to predict, for a particular organisation, what
kind of predominant motivation lead to its certification, from information that can be
retrieved from the contents of the corresponding ISO 9001 audit reports.
Keywords: ISO 9001; quality management; classification model; statistics

Introduction
According to the ISO 9001 related literature, a company becomes certified based mainly
upon either internal motivations and/or external motivations. Internal motivations are
present in those companies that are really committed to the continuous improvement of
their internal processes, and therefore aim to achieve effective organisational improvements. External motivations, on the other hand, are related mostly to promotional and
marketing issues, customers and market pressures and market share enlargement goals.
Even though all organisations present both kinds of motivations to some extent, only
one is usually the most predominant and determines the organisations decision to
become ISO 9001 certified. The implementation and certification of a quality management
system should be both an important organisational improvement tool an internal motivation, as well as a marketing and competitive advantage for certified companies an
external motivation (Sampaio, Saraiva, & Guimaraes Rodrigues, 2009). However, the
motivation for doing so is usually dominated by one or the other of both factors mentioned.
In this paper we will illustrate some key results derived from a detailed analysis of a
sample of 100 ISO 9001 audit reports that correspond to Portuguese certified companies.
This sample was randomly selected from a group of companies certified by the leading Portuguese certification body Associacao Portuguesa de Certificacao (APCER, 2006). The

Corresponding author. Email: paulosampaio@dps.uminho.pt

ISSN 1478-3363 print/ISSN 1478-3371 online

# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14783363.2010.529367
http://www.informaworld.com

1280 P. Sampaio et al.

analyzed audit report, for each company, was in all cases related to the last ISO 9001 audit
performed, regardless of its nature (certification/registration, surveillance or follow-up
audits).
With such a detailed analysis conducted on all of the reports, in what we believe to be a
pioneering contribution in this field, as far as Portugal is concerned, we tried to examine
and explore the following issues:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)

Most common non conformities (NC) raised in ISO 9001 audits.

Standard clauses with more non conformities.
Number of non conformities by activity sector.
Number of non conformities by auditor.
Number of non conformities by company, and its relationship with company size.

Our main research question was: Can we predict a firms motivation in obtaining ISO
9001 certification form its audit report?. Thus, based upon the previous results, we
proposed, developed and tested a statistical classification model, aimed at predicting the
companies ISO 9001 certification main motivation from their audit report profiles. Such
a model has as its major inputs variables that can be identified and derived from an ISO
9001 audit report, and allowed us to identify and predict if a particular company faced
quality management system implementation and ISO 9001 certification as a real commitment internal motivations, or, on the other hand, if the company became certified mostly
because of promotional and marketing issues external motivations.
Quantitative results allowed us to evaluate the classification performance of our model,
both through training and testing sets of data, confirming its statistical significance and
validity. We used the Statistical Package for Social Sciences 15.0 (SPSS) to perform
the statistical analyses.
APCER is a private Portuguese organisation dedicated to the certification of management systems, services, products and people as a method of guaranteeing quality and
promoting the competitive advantage of organisations, whether public or private, national
or international.
In Portugal, APCER is the clear market leader. More than 4500 certificates of conformity have been issued since its foundation, including the certification of organisations in
Spain, Morocco, Mozambique, Angola, Brazil and China (Macao).
APCER is the only Portuguese certification entity representing the international
network IQNet The International Certification Network, which bestows immediate
international recognition on organisations certified by APCER.
Literature review
ISO 9001 certification motivations and benefits
ISO 9001 certification motivations can be classified according to one of two main
categories: internal and external motivations. Internal motivations are related to the goal
of achieving organisational improvement, while external motivations are mainly related
to promotional and marketing issues, customer pressures and market share gains (Brown,
van der Wiele, & Loughton, 1998; Bryde & Slocock, 1998; Buttle, 1997; Corbett, Luca,
& Pan, 2003; Douglas, Coleman, & Oddy, 2003; Escanciano, Fernandez, & Vasquez,
2001; Gonzalez, 2001; Gotzamani & Tsiotras, 2002; Gustafsson, Klefsjo, Berggren, &
Granfors-Wellemets, 2001; Jones, Arndt, & Kustin, 1997; Lee & Palmer, 1999; Lipovatz,
Stenos, & Vaka, 1999; Llopis & Tar, 2003; Magd & Curry, 2003; Mo & Chan, 1997;
Torre, Adenso-Diaz, & Gonzalez, 2001; Poksinska, Dahlgaard, & Antoni, 2002).

Total Quality Management 1281

ISO 9001 certification is frequently used mostly as a marketing tool (Poksinska et al.,
2002). Jones et al. (1997) defined two organisation types, according to their main purpose
for achieving certification: the non-development companies, which are those whose
primary reason for seeking quality certification is driven by the mentality of achieving
a certificate; and the developmental companies, which are those that adopt quality
certification because of their belief in the internal benefits that can derive from it.
In more detail, Magd and Curry (2003) concluded that the most important reasons for
certification, among Egyptian companies, were the following: improve the efficiency of
the quality system; pressures from competitors/foreign partners; to maintain/increase
market share; to meet government demands and to comply with customers requirements. Some companies also stated that without ISO 9001 certification they cannot
achieve a significant number of contracts (Douglas et al., 2003). Corbett et al. (2003),
based in an international survey, concluded that the main motivations for ISO 9001
certification are as follows: quality improvements; improvements in corporate
image; marketing advantage; and customer pressure. Concerning US companies,
one of the most important underlying reasons for becoming certified is the existence of
commercial relationships with European markets (Bhuiyan & Alam, 2004).
Like the motivations, ISO 9001 certification benefits can be also classified into external and internal categories (Bhuiyan & Alam, 2004; Brown et al., 1998; Buttle, 1997;
Casadesus, Gimenez, & Heras, 2001; Casadesus, Heras, & Arana 2004; Coleman &
Douglas, 2003; Corbett et al., 2003; Douglas et al., 2003; Escanciano et al., 2001; Escanciano, Fernandez, & Vasquez, 2002; Gotzamani & Tsiotras, 2002; Gustafsson et al., 2001;
Halis & Oztas 2002; Leung, Chan, & Lee, 1999; Liebesman, 2002; Lipovatz et al., 1999;
Magd & Curry, 2003; Mo & Chan, 1997; Poksinska et al., 2002; Ragothaman & Korte,
1999; Staines, 2000; Stevenson & Barnes, 2001; Torre et al., 2001; van der Wiele,
Iwaarden, Williams, & Dale, 2005).
Casadesus et al. (2001) proposed a classification for ISO 9001 benefits based upon the
perceived benefits obtained, suggesting four organisation types: companies with high
internal benefits (HIB); companies with moderate internal benefits (MIB); companies
with high external benefits (HEB) and companies with moderate external benefits
(MEB) (Table 1).
Although product quality improvements are often quoted as an important ISO 9001
benefit, such an improvement may not be the direct result of a Quality Management
System implementation (Withers & Ebrahimpour, 2001).
Table 1. Most commonly stated ISO 9001 certification benefits reported in the literature.
External benefits
B
B
B
B
B
B
B

access to new markets;

corporate image improvement;
market share improvement;
ISO 9000 certification as a marketing tool;
customer relationship improvements;
customer satisfaction;
customer communication improvements.

Internal benefits
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B

productivity improvements;
product defect rate decreases;
quality awareness improvements;
definition of the personnel responsibilities
and obligations;
delivery times improvements;
internal organisation improvements;
nonconformities decreases;
customers complaints decreases;
internal communication improvements;
product quality improvement;
competitive advantage improvement;
personnel motivation.

1282 P. Sampaio et al.

There is a consensual opinion that ISO 9001 benefits are related to company certification
motivations, i.e. when companies become certified based upon internal motivations the
derived benefits are fulfilled on a more global dimension. On the other hand, when companies
implement ISO 9001 based mostly on external motivations, improvements obtained are then
mainly of an external nature (Brown et al., 1998; Corbett et al., 2003; Gotzamani & Tsiotras,
2002; Jones et al., 1997; Llopis & Tar, 2003; Poksinska et al., 2002; Williams, 2004).
Companies that sought quality certification for developmental reasons had experienced more internal benefits from certification (Jones et al., 1997). Brown et al. (1998)
argued that companies driven by internal reasons to seek certification have a more positive
perception about improvements achieved. The manager that sees certification as an
opportunity to improve internal processes and systems, rather than simply wanting to get
a certificate on the wall, will get broader positive results from ISO 9001 certification.
Gotzamani and Tsiotras (2002) stated that companies seeking ISO 9001 certification
mainly based upon external motivations will also achieve mostly external benefits, while
those that seek certification based on true quality improvement will get benefits mainly
in terms of internal operations improvement (Poksinska et al., 2002; Williams, 2004).
Llopis and Tar (2003) suggest that companies more concerned about internal reasons
are those that:
.
.
.

Obtain higher profits deriving from the implementation of a quality system.

Reach a greater practical implementation of quality management principles.
Are most likely to progress towards total quality management.

Logistic regression model

Regression methods have become an integral component of any data analysis concerned
with describing the relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory
variables. It is often the case that the outcome variable is discrete, taking on two or more
possible values.
The main goal of a logistic regression model is to find the best fitting and most parsimonious model to describe the relationship between an outcome (dependent or response
variable) and a set of independent variables (Hosmer & Lameshow, 1989).
According to Hosmer and Lameshow (1989), the difference between a logistic
regression model and a linear regression model is that the outcome variable in logistic
regression is binary. This difference is reflected both in the choice of a parametric
model and in the underlying assumptions. Once this difference is accounted for, the
methods employed in an analysis using logistic regression follow the same general
principles used in linear regression.
In any regression problem the key quantity to be predicted is the mean value of the
outcome variable, given the value of the independent one(s). According to Hosmer and
Lameshow (1989), this quantity is called the conditional mean and is expressed as
E(Y|x), where Y denotes the outcome variable and x denotes a value of the independent
one(s). In linear regression we assume that this mean may be expressed as an equation
linear in x, such as:

E(Y x) = b0 + b1 x

(1)

According to Equation (1), E(Y|x) can take any value as x ranges from 21 to +1.
However, with dichotomous data the conditional mean must be greater than or equal to

Total Quality Management 1283

zero and less than or equal to one. The change in E(Y|x) per-unit change in x becomes
progressively smaller as the conditional mean gets closer to zero or one.
According to Cox (1970) there are two primary reasons for choosing the logistic
distribution. These are: (1) from a mathematical point of view, it is an extremely flexible
and easily used function; and (2) it lends itself to a biologically meaningful interpretation.
Assuming that p(x) E(Y|x), the logistic regression model form is as follows:

p(x) =

exp(b0 + b1 x1 + ... + bi xi )
1 + exp(b0 + b1 x1 + ... + bi xi )

(2)

Performing the logit transformation in terms of p(x), the logistic regression model is
defined as:
p(x)
) = b0 + b1 x1 + ... + bi xi
(3)
g(x) = ln(
1 p(x)
The importance of the logit transformation (2) is that g(x) has many of the desirable
properties of a linear regression model. The logit is linear in its parameters, may be continuous and range form 21 to +1, depending on the range of x (Hosmer & Lameshow, 1989).
One of the most important differences between the linear regression model and the
logistic one is that in the linear regression model we assume that an observation of
the outcome variable may be expressed as y E(Y|x) + 1. The quantity 1 is called the
error and expresses an observations deviation from the conditional mean. The most
common assumption is that 1 follows a normal distribution with mean zero and some
variance that is constant across levels of the independent variable. It follows that the
conditional distribution of the outcome variable given x will be normal with a mean of
E(Y|x), and a variance that is constant. When the outcome variable is dichotomous, we
may express the value of the outcome variable given x as y p(x) + 1. Here the quantity
1 may assume one of two values (Hosmer & Lameshow, 1989):
.
.

If y 1, then 1 1 2 p(x) with probability p(x).

If y 0, then 1 2 p(x) with probability 1 2 p(x).

Thus, 1 has a distribution with mean zero and variance equal to p(x)[1 2 p(x)]. The
conditional distribution of the outcome variable follows a binomial distribution with
probability given by the conditional mean, p(x).
According to Hosmer and Lameshow (1989), when the outcome variable is dichotomous it is important to point out that:
.

The conditional mean of the regression equation must be formulated to be bounded

between zero and one.
The binomial distribution describes the distribution of the errors and will be the
statistical distribution upon which the analysis is based.
The principles that guide an analysis using linear regression will also guide logistic
regression.

Analysis and discussion of results

Audit reports exploratory data analysis
The first results are derived from the contents and exploratory data analysis we performed
on over 100 ISO 9001 audit reports, randomly selected from the database of the Portuguese
leading certification body (APCER), correspond to the following main features:

1284 P. Sampaio et al.

.
.
.

.
.

More than 80% of the companies are of a Small or Medium size.

Overall, 510 Non Conformities (NC) were identified.
The clauses 8.2 Monitoring and measurement; 4.2 Documentation requirements;
7.5 Production and service provision; and 7.4 Purchasing were responsible for
50% of the total number of NC identified.
Forty-three percent of the NC belong to Chapter 7 Product realisation.
Nine major NC were identified.

A more detailed overview of the NC, as they are related with the different clauses and
sections of the ISO 9001 standard, is presented below.

a) Non conformities per ISO 9001 clause

According to Figure 1, approximately 50% of NC belong to clauses 8.2; 4.3; 7.5;
and 7.4. We can also state that the number of NC in Chapter 7 has a preponderant
weight over the total number of NC 43%. The second position belongs to clause
4.2 Documentation requirements. The highest number of NC was verified in clause
8.2 Monitoring and measurement, which by itself alone is responsible for 13% of
the total number of NC.
On a research project performed over 227 USA companies, Liebesman (2002) identified clause 4.2 Documentation requirements as being the one with the highest number
of NC (23%), followed by clauses 5.1 and 5.4, both with a score of 10%. In our case, as
shown above, clauses 5.1 and 5.4 do not seem to have a significant weight in the total
number of non conformities that were identified.
Ritterbeck (2007), in an analysis performed on over 100 AS 9100 audit reports, identified the following top five NC: (1) 8.2.2 Internal audit (15%); (2) 7.5.1 Control of
production and service provision (11%); (3) Corrective action (10%); (4) 7.6 Control
of monitoring and measuring devices (10%); (5) 8.3 Control of nonconforming
product (8%). There seems to be a quite different profile of NC when comparing the
results of AS 9100 versus ISO 9001 audit reports.

Figure 1. Number of NC per ISO 9001 clause.

Total Quality Management 1285

b) Non conformities per ISO 9001 chapter
According to Figure 2, Chapter 7 Product realization, presents the highest number of
non conformities 43%, followed by Chapter 8 Measurement, analysis and improvement (21.8%), and Chapter 4 Quality management system (15.7%). In spite of the
second highest position, assumed by clause 4.2, Chapter 4 takes the third position in the
number of non conformities found per ISO 9001 chapter.
c) Clauses with the highest number of non conformities in each ISO 9001 chapter
As illustrated in Table 2, the clauses with the highest number of non conformities in each
chapter are Clause 8.2 Monitoring and measurement (66 NC), followed by Clauses 4.3
Documentation requirements; and 7.5 Product and service provision, both with 64 non
conformities. One should also point out that the previous clauses do represent 50% of the
total number of non conformities that were identified.
d) Non conformities per activity sector
According to Table 3, one can see that the Food products, beverages and tobacco (EAC
3) companies are the ones with the highest average number of non conformities. Companies that belong to this activity sector do present, on average, 11.00 NC. In the second and
third positions one finds, respectively, the Concrete, cement, lime and plaster activity
sector (8.50 NC), and the Chemicals, chemicals products and fibres activity sector
(7.00 NC). On the other hand, Pharmaceuticals, Health and social work and Water
supply companies were the ones with the smallest average number of non conformities.
All of these observations must however be regarded with caution, given the small number
of companies in our sample that belong to the different sectors.
The activity sectors that did present the highest numbers of certified companies, within
our random sample of 100 certified companies, were the following ones: Machinery and
equipment (EAC 18); Basic metal and fabricated metal products (EAC 17); and
Construction (EAC 28).
e) Non conformities versus companies sizes
In Table 4 we try to evaluate if there is any kind of relationship between the number of non
conformities found in a given company and its size. One can see that the average number
of non conformities does not change significantly from small to large companies.

Figure 2. Number of NC per ISO 9001 chapter.

1286 P. Sampaio et al.

Table 2. Clauses with the highest number of NC in each of the ISO 9001 chapters.
Clause
4.2
5.6
6.2
7.5
8.2

NC
Documentation requirements
Management review
Human resources
Product and service provision
Monitoring and measurement

64
24
34
64
66

Total

252

Table 3. Average number of non conformities in each activity sector.

EAC
Food products, beverages and tobacco
Concrete, cement, lime, plaster, etc.
Chemicals, chemical products and fibres
Wholesale and retail trade; repairs of motor
vehicles. . .
18 Machinery and equipment
14 Rubber and plastic products
17 Basic metal and fabricated metal products
23 Manufacturing not elsewhere classified
19 Electrical and optical equipment
28 Construction
35 Other services
31 Transport, storage and communication
4 Textiles and textile products
6 Wood and wood products
2 Mining and quarrying
22 Other transport equipment
15 Non-metallic mineral products
27 Water supply
38 Health and social work
13 Pharmaceuticals

Number of
companies

NC

Average NC/
Company

2
2
7
8

22
17
49
51

11.00
8.50
7.00
6.38

12
3
10
5
5
12
7
2
9
4
1
1
7
1
2
1

72
17
53
24
23
55
32
9
39
17
3
3
20
2
2
0

6.00
5.67
5.30
4.80
4.60
4.58
4.57
4.50
4.33
4.25
3.00
3.00
2.86
2.00
1.00
0.00

3
16
12
29

Table 4. Average number of non conformities versus company size.

Company size
Micro (9 workers)
Small (10 49)
Medium (50 249)
Large (250)

NC (Average)
4.83
5.03
5.04
5.23

f) Non conformities statistical distribution by company

According to Figure 3, we can see that the majority of the analyzed companies do have a
number of NC ranging between 0 and 7. The number of companies with more than seven
NC per audit decreases strongly.

Total Quality Management 1287

Figure 3. Histogram for the number of non conformities found in each company.

Classification model
Based on a detailed analysis of the 100 audit reports, we have developed a classification
model aimed at predicting the companies ISO 9001 certification motivations from their
audit report contents. Such a model has as its major inputs critical variables that can be
identified from an audit report and allow us to identify if a company faces ISO 9001
certification as a real commitment or, on the other hand, if it became certified mostly
because of promotional or marketing issues. Quantitative results will allow us to evaluate
the classification performance of this model, both through training and testing sets of data
(see Figure 4).
As was already stated, a company can become ISO 9001 certified based upon two main
motivation categories: internal motivations and external motivations. The aim of our
model is to predict the companys main motivation for ISO 9001 certification from a
set of input variables that can be found from audit reports.
Data gathering
During the first phase of our model development, we have collected different opinions
about each company, from people that we consider to be relevant concerning a fair
evaluation of the company main motivations for achieving certification (Figure 5). We
asked each of them to classify the corresponding companies according to their opinion
concerning the main ISO 9001 certification motivation.
We exhaustively analyzed all of the 100 audit reports and classified each one of the
companies according to their predominant certification motivation based on their audit

1288 P. Sampaio et al.

Figure 4. Classification model structure.

Figure 5. Information gathering as for companies certification motivations.

reports profiles. The classification protocol used to classify those companies was based on
the identification of common patterns (variables) that could be defined as inputs to classify
companies according to their ISO 9001 predominant motivation.
As already stated, we have also collected the corresponding opinion from other people
who have specific knowledge about the given companies. For that purpose, we have interviewed each certified company Process Manager and two Coordinator Managers (from the
companies certification body), as well as the Audit Team Members. The Process Manager
is the person who is responsible for the management of the certification process at the certification body and is close to, and has a detailed knowledge of, each one of the sampled
companies. We contacted all APCERs Process Managers, who classified the companies
they were responsible for. The Coordinator Manager is the person who manages a team
of Process Managers, and does not have specific knowledge about a large set of companies. Generally, the Coordinator Manager is someone with wide experience in ISO
9001 audits. The last interviewed group were the audit teams that were involved in the
sampled companies last audits. In the Process and Coordinators Managers groups the
response rate was 100%. However, in the auditors group we have only reached a response
rate of 78%. Overall, this means that a total of 92 auditors contributed information
regarding the main motivations associated with this set of ISO 9001 certified companies.
After collecting all the responses, we assigned to each company its final classification
(observed value, y) corresponding to either Internal Motivations (y 1) or External
Motivations (y 2). In order to define each company classification, we computed the
average of the classifications attributed by the interviewed people (Research Team,
Process Manager; Coordinator Manager and Auditors) to each of the 100 sampled
companies.
After categorising all the companies that belong to our sample, we found that for 48
companies a consensual classification, of either 1 Internal Motivations or 2 External

Total Quality Management 1289

Motivations, was given by the different people that were involved in such a classification
(Research Team, Process Manager; Coordinator Manager and Auditors). The remaining
52 companies, however, did not reach the same single answer from all the relevant
people surveyed. Thus, our gold standard for the classification problem was comprised
of those 48 companies where a predominant ISO 9001 motivation was found to be
consensual.
Together with the classification of each one of the sampled companies, we also asked
to interview people to identify companies specific characteristics (variables) that they
considered to classify the main ISO 9001 motivation category of each one of the certified
companies. After collecting all of the information, we initially identified a set of 13
prediction variables (model inputs), x, built from our analysis and exchanges of opinions
with surveyed people. Most of the variables were available and extracted from the audit
reports (Table 5).
Model development
In order to develop our classification model, we used binary logistic regression, because
this kind of model produces quite good results in situations where the dependent variable
is nominal and the independent variables are nominal or continuous (Kleinbaum, Kupper,
& Muller, 1988). The binary logistic regression model describes the relationship between
the dependent nominal variable and the set of independent variables, used for that purpose
in the logit transformation (Hosmer & Lemeshow, 1989), as stated before.
We developed two different models, one with our gold standard (Model 1), and the
other including all the companies in the sample (Model 2). However, in this second
model we excluded 10 companies from the training set of data, because they presented
an observed average value of 1.50, meaning that there is a tie between internal and external
Table 5. Variables description.
Variable
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x6
x7
x8
x9
x10
x11
x12
x13

Description
Did the company become certified based on customers, market pressure, or promotional
aspects?
How many non conformities were identified in the last ISO 9001 audit?
Did the company present non conformities related to the development of its quality
management system or that interfere with a continuous improvement philosophy?
Did the company present non conformities related to other past audits that were not yet
corrected?
Was ISO 9001 certification used by the company in order to get public funds or to achieve
public contracts?
Did the company have major non conformities in the last ISO 9001 audit?
Is top management involved and committed with the quality management system?
Is the quality management system implemented only to fulfil the minimum ISO 9001
requirements?
Was the quality management system implemented and certified in order to improve the
companys internal processes and internal organisation?
Was ISO 9001 certification imposed by the company headquarters?
What kind of relationship does the company have with the certification body Process
Manager?
Did the company present in the last ISO 9001 audit non conformities related to statutory
and regulatory requirements?
Do the human resources present knowledge and competences related with the quality
management system?

1290 P. Sampaio et al.

motivations derived from the different people that classified these particular companies.
In model 2, those companies with a value smaller than 1.50 were classified as having
Internal Motivations, while, on the other hand, companies with an observed value
higher than 1.50 were categorized as having External Motivations.
For both Tables 6 and 7 we have:
.
.
.

b Estimated parameter for each variable in the logit model.

SE (b ) Standard error of the estimated parameter.
Wald Wald statistic, which is obtained by comparing the square of the maximum
likelihood estimate of the slope parameter, b, to an estimate of its variance. The
Wald statistic follows a x2 statistical distribution with one degree of freedom.
Exp (b) Represents the odds ratio, which is defined as the ratio of the odds of an
event occurring in one group to the odds of it occurring in another group, or to a
sample-based estimate of that ratio, which can be computed based on b .
p-value.

We would like to point out that x7, x9 and x11 are categorical variables, with three possible response levels. However, for Model 1, variables x10 and x12 were not analyzed,
because they have assumed a constant value for all the sampled companies.
According to Table 6, we can verify that for Model 1 only x1; x2; x3; x4 and x13 should
be considered in our classifier (p values smaller than 0,05). Concerning Model 2, the
variables to be kept for classification purposes are the following: x1; x2; x3; x4, x5; x7(2);
x8; x9(2); x13.
As a result of this initial univariate analysis, we identified which of the 13 variables
present a significant relationship with the independent variable. Our next step consisted
of the development of a multivariate logistic regression model, using the previously
selected variables. For that purpose, we use a Backward Stepwise procedure as a variable
selection technique, leading to the final models described in Tables 8 and 9.
The next step comprised an evaluation and validation of these models, through the use
of a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve methodology and the Pyramid Population graphic, in order to evaluate the models performance. Concerning the Pyramid

Table 6. Binary logistic regression univariate scores (Model 1).

Variable
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x6
x7(1)
x7(2)
x8
x9(1)
x9(2)
x10
x11(1)
x11(2)
x12
x13

SE (b )

Wald

Exp(b )

p value

2.959
0.532
2.923
2.457
21.961
21.111
219.123
222.845
23.059
221.673
242.406
2
222.072
242.406
2
22.269

0.887
0.170
1.140
0.887
40192.970
17300.440
28420.702
28420.702
12118.637
12118.637
14634.645
2
23205.412
46410.839
2
0.786

11.124
9.853
6.578
7.666
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
2
0.000
0.000
2
8.331

19.286
1.703
18.600
11.667
3.0E + 09
1.0E + 09
0.000
0.000
1.0E + 10
0.000
0.000
2
0.000
0.000
2
0.103

0.001
0.002
0.010
0.006
1.000
0.999
0.999
0.999
0.998
0.999
0.998
2
0.999
0.999
2
0.004

Total Quality Management 1291

Table 7. Binary logistic regression univariate models (Model 2).
Variable
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x6
x7(1)
x7(2)
x8
x9(1)
x9(2)
x10
x11(1)
x11(2)
x12
x13

SE (b )

Wald

Exp(b )

p value

1.504
0.374
2.134
1.771
2.207
21.104
20.944
22.632
2.193
21.014
23.997
21.524
221.560
242.406
21.497
21.360

0.457
0.100
0.809
0.622
1.103
13761.628
1.185
1.114
0.682
0.726
0.876
28420.722
200096.496
44937.111
40192.970
0.476

10.845
13.981
6.954
8.109
4.003
0.000
0.635
5.575
10.327
1.952
20.840
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
8.144

4.500
1.454
8.448
5.875
9.091
1.0E + 09
0.389
0.072
8.960
0.363
0.018
2.0E + 09
0.000
0.000
2.0E + 09
0.257

0.001
0.000
0.008
0.004
0.045
0.999
0.426
0.018
0.001
0.162
0.000
0.999
0.999
0.999
1.000
0.004

Table 8. Binary logistic regression multivariate model (Model 1).

Variable

SE (b)

Wald

Exp(b)

p value

Constant
x1
x2
x3
x4

28.049
4.635
0.780
5.763
3.437

2.913
1.876
0.353
2.657
1.570

7.634
6.106
4.888
4.706
4.794

0.000
102.900
2.182
318.428
31.090

0.006
0.013
0.027
0.030
0.029

Table 9. Binary logistic regression multivariate model (Model 2).

Variable

SE (b)

Wald

Exp(b)

p value

Constant
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x9(1)
x9(2)

23.053
1.437
0.312
2.222
2.140
2.445
0.390
21.862

1.437
0.719
0.145
1.266
0.862
1.433
1.008
1.118

4.513
3.989
4.610
3.079
6.163
2.913
0.150
2.773

0.047
4.206
1.366
9.223
8.498
11.532
1.477
0.155

0.034
0.046
0.032
0.079
0.013
0.088
0.699
0.096

Population graphics, we used a cut value of 0.5 for the predicted probability (y). Therefore,
all companies that presented a predicted probability smaller than 0.5 were classified as
having Internal Motivations, while those companies that presented a predicted probability
higher than 0.5 were classified as having External Motivations. The software predicted
probability of 1 corresponds to an observed value of 2 (External Motivations), and the predicted probability of 0 corresponds to an observed value of 1 (Internal Motivations).
As illustrated in Figure 6, the results obtained with Model 1 are better than those for
Model 2, as should be expected, since companies used to develop Model 1 were those
companies with an exact observed value. These results are also reinforced with the
model ROC curves. As we can verify from Figure 7, Model 1 presents an area under

1292 P. Sampaio et al.

Figure 6. Pyramid Population for estimated values in both Model 1 and Model 2.

Figure 7. Model 1 and Model 2 ROC curves.

Total Quality Management 1293

Table 10. p values and ROC curves for Model 2 alternatives.
p value
Variables

Model 2a

Model 2b

Model 2c

x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x9(1)
x9(2)

0.017
0.002
0.009
0.003
0.034
N/A
N/A

0.007
0.056
0.034
N/A
0.569
0.002

0.002
0.003
0.017
0.006
N/A
N/A
N/A

ROC

0.897

0.912

0.882

the curve of 0.978 and Model 2 presents an area of 0.926, with only 2% of the sampled
companies not being correctly classified under Model 1.
We have also analyzed other possible alternative solutions for Model 2, with the aim of
finding a model which enables us to classify companies and predict their ISO 9001 motivations by only making use of information that is readily available and can be directly
extracted from audit reports. For that purpose, we have tested the following models,
based upon Model 2, but with different sets of independent variables being considered
Model 2 alternatives, as shown in Table 10.
In Model 2a we have excluded x9 from the set of predictors, leading to an area under
the ROC curve of 0.897. Concerning Model 2b, we have excluded x5, and found that x2 and
x9(1) were not significant at a 0.05 significance level. Regarding Model 2c, we have
excluded x5 and x9 from the underlying model. The ROC curve values, for the two
previous models, are, respectively, 0.912 and 0.882.

Model performance evaluation

Given the several classification models available, we tried to evaluate which was the best
for predicting the companies ISO 9001 certification motivations from audit reports. For
that purpose, we have used a non parametric methodology developed by Braga, Costa
and Oliveira (2003, 2004), that tries to perform a global and partial ROC curves comparison. This methodology should be used when the different ROC curves cross each other. If
the curves do not cross each other, then the best model the model with the best performance, is the one that is closer to the top left corner of the ROC space. However, since the
ROC curves of the models developed cross each other, as we can see in Figure 8, one needs
to make a more detailed comparison.
The first output obtained from an application of the methodology developed by Braga
et al. (2003, 2004) is related to: (1) the differences between the different ROC curves
areas; and (2) the number of crossings between each curve. As can be verified from
Table 11, the difference between Model 1 and Model 2 ROC curves areas is 0.05145
and Model 1 and Model 2 curves cross each other 11 times.
Table 12 represents the so called extensions measures. As we can verify, in 75.2% of the
ROC space Model 1 has a better performance than Model 2. On the other hand, Model 2 has
a better performance than Model 1 in 18.4% of the ROC space. In the remaining 6.4% of the
space both models have the same performance. According to Table 12, we can see that
Model 1 has the best performance, when compared with the remaining models, as expected.

1294 P. Sampaio et al.

Figure 8. Different Alternative Model ROC curves.

Table 11. ROC curve areas and number of crossings.
Model 1
0.97754
11

0.05145

0.08010

0.06554

0.09595

0.02862

0.01407

0.04447

Model 2
0.92607
0

20.01455

0.01585

Model 2a
0.89744
1

0.03040

Model 2b
0.91200
5

79.6%
41.6%
Model 2a
28.0%
11.6%

81.6%
45.6%
39.6%
Model 2b
32.8%

Model 2c
0,88160

Table 12. Model extension measures.

Model 1
18.4%
14.0%
9.2%
10.0%

75.2%
Model 2
0,0%
18.8%
0.0%

83.6%
52.4%
35.6%
42.0%
Model 2c

The last result is related to the application of a bootstrap test, in order to indentify
statistical significant differences between the ROC curves. According to Table 13, we
can verify that only for the case of Model 1 were we able to find significant statistical
differences, when compared with the remaining models.
According to the results obtained, we can conclude that Model 1 has the best performance, in order to predict why companies become ISO 9001 certified, if based mostly on
internal motivations or on external motivations. However, one must remember that
Model 1 was developed based on companies that reached a precise observed value, i.e.
companies for which the evaluation teams did share a complete consensus about their
dominant ISO 9001 motivation.
Next, we further evaluated the model performance over two different data sets. One set
comprises the training data, which correspond to the companies with a precise observed

Total Quality Management 1295

Table 13. Bootstrap test.
Model 1
Sig.
Sig.
Sig.
Sig.

0.000
Model 2
No Sig.
No Sig.
No Sig.

0.000
0.973
Model 2a
No Sig.
No Sig.

0.000
0.875
0.999
Model 2b
No Sig.

0.000
0.124
0.999
0.991
Model 2c

Table 14. Model 1 additional validation.

Model 1
Precise y (n 48)
Internal validation/Cross validation
Not precise y (n 42)

ROC Curve
% of wrong classifications
% of wrong classifications

With x1

Without x1

0.978
12.50
26.20

0.940
16.67
31.00

categorisation value (n 48). For those companies, we have performed an internal model
validation, using cross validation. We have also tested the model performance over the
group of companies with a non exact consensual observed dependent value (n 42).
We have performed such additional validations under two different situations. First, we
have validated the model using all the variables that composed it (x1; x2; x3; x4), and
second using only variables that can be found directly and easily extracted from audit
reports (x2; x3; x4).
According to Table 14, we can verify that the model performance is better with x1, but
there is not a significant difference between the two described situations. As expected, the
percentage of wrong classifications was smaller with our gold standard data, when
compared with the results obtained with the application of the model over companies
without a consensual dependent variable definition.
Therefore, the final mathematical expressions for the models developed are as follows:

p(x) =

e(8,049+4,635x1 +0,780x2 +5,763x3 +3,437x4 )

1 + e(8,049+4,635x1 +0,780x2 +5,763x3 +3,437x4 )

(4)

e(5,156+0,574x2 +3,851x3 +2,807x4 )

1 + e(5,156+0,574x2 +3,851x3 +2,807x4 )

(5)

p(x) =

with (4) representing the model with x1 and (5) the model without x1.

Conclusions
According to the literature, ISO 9000 certification motivations can be classified into two
main categories: internal motivations and external motivations. Internal motivations are
related to genuine organisational improvement goals (productivity, internal communication, internal processes performance improvement), while external ones are mainly
related to promotional and marketing issues (customer and market pressures, market
share improvement). Some companies that become certified based mostly upon external
motivations defined their main goal as obtaining registration, and thus are of a very
limited nature in terms of quality management systems implementation and certification.

1296 P. Sampaio et al.

Although these two groups of motivations are present in the majority of the companies,
usually only one is the most important and predominant.
Issues related to ISO 9001 certification motivations have been already deeply and
exhaustively analyzed in the quality management literature. However, the use of statistical
quantitative methodologies of classification, in order to categorize companies according to
their main ISO 9001 motivation, corresponds to a new contribution to the quality management and ISO 9000 standards literature. With our research we were able to develop classification methodologies which allow one to classify companies, according to their dominant
ISO 9000 motivation, using information gathered from their audit report profiles.
Based upon a sample of 100 ISO 9001 certified companies from Portugal, that we used
to develop our classification methodologies, we have performed a detailed statistical
analysis that provides the following main results:
.
.

Overall, 510 NC were identified.

Fifty percent of the non conformities belong to ISO 9001 clauses 8.2, 4.2, 7.5 and
7.4.
Chapter 7 Product realisation, is the ISO 9001 chapter with the highest number of
non conformities.
There was no evidence of a relationship between the number of non conformities and
company sizes.

From the same sets of data, together with opinions collected from auditors and other
experts, we were able to derive statistically sound and valid classifiers, which allow us
to predict if a given company follows mostly internal or external motivations from information contained in the corresponding audit reports.

Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge financial support provided by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through research grant (BD/16032/2004).
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