Modelling firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification: A configurational approach

Accepted Manuscript Modelling firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification: a configurational approach

Pavel Castka PII:

S0925-5273(18)30199-3

DOI:

10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.05.005

Reference:

PROECO 7034

To appear in:

International Journal of Production Economics

Received Date:

27 February 2017

Revised Date:

03 May 2018

Accepted Date:

04 May 2018

Please cite this article as: Pavel Castka, Modelling firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification: a configurational approach, International Journal of Production Economics (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.ijpe. 2018.05.005

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Modelling firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification: a configurational approach Pavel Castka University of Canterbury, New Zealand

January 22, 2018

Abstract Firms are subject to various external audits and certifications, which provide an external assessment of firms’ operational practices. The literature has focused so far on immediate effects of external certifications overlooking the patterns of activities and interventions that firms pursue to maintain their certifications. In this paper, we employ the configurational approach to empirically test a theory on firms’ intervention in the maintenance stages of ISO 9001 certification. The theory is causally asymmetric in nature and examines causal configurations of antecedent conditions (firms size, year certified, institutional pressure, board pressure, motivation and complexity of firm’s operations) that result in firms’ pursuit of more (or less) complex interventions and firms’ high (or low) intensity of interventions. Using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and in-depth data from 15 cases, the study reveals strong support for causal asymmetry, complexity and equifinality and provides nine models to explain complexity and intensity of firms’ interventions. The study addresses two gaps in the literature – maintenance stages of certification are poorly understood and a configurational approach is largely lacking in studies on voluntary certification. Keywords: ISO 9001, third party certification, qualitative comparative analysis, intervention

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Introduction

Firms’ operational and supply chain management practices are increasingly subject to external audits, compliance activities and independent certifications (Porteous et al., 2015), for instance for quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001, EMAS), health & safety (OHSAS 18001), energy efficiency, carbon emissions and many others (Anderson et al., 1999; Corbett and Kirsch, 2001; Gray et al., 2015; Hassini et al., 2012; Kleindorfer et al., 2005; Pagell et al., 2014). It takes about 12-18 months to implement the requirements of a certification and get certified (Corbett, 2006; Singh et al., 2006). A vast majority of the literature concentrates on these “early stages” in the certification life-cycle and their immediate impact1 (Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2012). However, firms tend to maintain their certifications for decades – which is a practice in, for instance, supply chains such as Samsung, Toyota, DuPond or Coca-Cola who require adherence to ISO certifications long term. In the context of ISO certifications, the growth of new entrants reached its saturation (Viadiu et al., 2006) and the number of newly certified firms is significantly lower than the number of firms who were certified for 10 years or more. Surprisingly, the literature largely overlooks the long term aspects of certification (Castka and Corbett, 2015). Given that firms put a considerable investment (direct and indirect) into their certifications, how do firms maintain their certifications over time? We investigate the maintenance stage of certification in the context of ISO 9001 certification even though – as we explain later – the results are transferable to a broader context of voluntary certification, for instance for environmental and social standards and eco-labels (Castka and Corbett, 2016a, b; Prado and Woodside, 2015). Several theoretical perspectives may explain the “maintenance stage” of certification. From the institutional theory perspective, firms adopt management practices (such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications) due to coercive, mimetic and normative forces (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Institutional theory has been used to explain various facets of ISO certification, e.g. that standards diffuse due to coercion in supply chains (Corbett, 2006), that multinational corporations contribute to the diffusion of standards across countries (Guler et al., 2002); that institutional forces contribute to symbolic rather than substantial adoption in certified firms (Boiral, 2011, 2003) or that firms adopt certifications due to institutionalization

The study divides the certification lifecycle into “adoption” and “maintenance”. The adoption stage includes all initial activities (decision to adopt, changes of management practices to comply with the requirements of a standard; first external audit and certification). “Maintenance” includes all subsequent stages (surveillance audits; responding to audit findings; recertification). The focus of this study is on the “maintenance stage”. 1

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT in their industry sectors (Lo et al., 2011). It is plausible that coercive, mimetic and normative forces might continue to influence how firms maintain their certification. For instance, firms might be coerced to keep the existing certification or to adopt further certifications in response to pressures from their suppliers (Castka and Balzarova, 2010; Karapetrovic and Jonker, 2003). Latter stages of the certification may be viewable from a perspective of the attitude theory (Bagozzi, 1992). This theory argues that firms are satisfied with a certification only if their expectations are achieved. In the certification context, the expectations from certification are often described along the continuum “basic conformance to standards’ requirements” and “learning from standards” (Karapetrovic and Willborn, 2001). In other words, firms might approach certification with a genuine motivation to incorporate the requirements of the standard in their operations or, on the other hand, to comply with the baseline requirements in a symbolic manner (Boiral, 2003). Based on the attitude theory, firms may intervene in order to realize their expectations. Castka et al. (2015) have for instance shown that firms select their certification intermediary in line with this logic but whether and how firms would intervene beyond the selection of their certification intermediary is unclear. Further theoretical insight might be gained from the diffusion of innovation literature. The certification ‘life-cycle’ in fact follows a pattern of the diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1962; Teece, 1980) and during this cycle, firms pursue different approaches to adopt standards (Ivanova et al., 2014) and to intervene (Castka and Balzarova, 2018). The research into certification has been building on these theoretical perspectives (Tuczek et al., 2018) as well as on the use of multivariate statistical methods and case based studies (Castka and Corbett, 2015). A typical approach to studying certification is to reveal effects that are linear, additive and unifinal in nature and to investigate a set of variables that “compete” rather than combine to produce an outcome (Fiss, 2007). However, Prado and Woodside (2015) questioned the symmetrical approach and argued that a configurational approach might better serve to capture the complexities in the certification. The configurational approach argues that combinations of variables determine multiple paths, which lead to an outcome (Ragin, 2008a) and configurational approach holds a considerable promise to unravel complexities of management decision making (Fiss, 2007). Prado and Woodside (2015) demonstrated that (in line with the configurational approach) adoption of certifications is indeed complex, asymmetrical and equifinal – a point also highlighted by Cai and Jun (2018).

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT In this paper, we combine these two perspectives that are omitted in the literature to study the interventions in ISO 9000 certified firms. We ask “under what conditions do firms pursue more complex and intense interventions?”. Building on the work of Castka and Balzarova (2018)2, who identified a typology of interventions in the maintenance stage of certification, we develop a theory of complexity and intensity of interventions to empirically describe the antecedent conditions that result in two outcomes: firms’ pursuit of high (low) complexity of interventions (e.g. a variety of interventions that a firm adopts) as well as high (low) intensity of interventions (e.g. the effort that a firm puts in the pursuit of such interventions). The underlying assumption in this study is that both outcomes (complexity of interventions and intensity of interventions) symbolize the value3 that an organisation and/or their stakeholders assign to a certification. The high complexity of interventions, for instance, indicates that a firm pursues multiple interventions to realize enhanced value of certification that otherwise remains unexplored. In contrast, low complexity of interventions demonstrates that a firm focuses on baseline value of certification. The second important feature of this study is the application of the configurational approach. By adopting the configurational approach, we unravel the complexities of the interventions and show multiple pathways that lead to the outcomes. More precisely, we determine a set of causal configurations of antecedent conditions (firms size, year certified, institutional pressure, board pressure, motivation and complexity of firm’s operations) that lead to pursuit of interventions. The study is based on a qualitative enquiry in 15 case study firms. The data was collected on firm’s premises using semi-structured interviews, informal interviews and document review. A fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is used for the analysis. The paper is organised in the following way. We firstly discuss Empirical Settings and Conceptual Foundations of our study. This section provides background to firms’ interventions in the context of ISO 9001 certification, a discussion of configurational theory, outlines our theory of firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification and develops a set of 3 propositions (P1, P2, P3) based on the configurational approach. Second, Methodology section provides a discussion of our sample, data collection and our approach to data

2 A companion paper (Castka and Balzarova, 2018) and this paper use a database that was created by the authors as part of a larger research

project. The two papers pursue different research objectives and use different subsets of the database. The companion paper focuses on the development of a typology of interventions, this paper develops a theory on the complexity and intensity of interventions. It should be therefore noted that there is some inevitable overlap between the two papers, especially where we discuss the sample, data collection process and coding of the data. 3 In the paper, the term ‘baseline value’ is used to describe the value that a firm realizes after achieving the initial certification. The term ‘enhanced value’ is used to describe the additional value of certification that a firm realizes by pursuing various interventions during the maintenance stage.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT analysis. This section also discusses the software (fsQCA) and its procedures. We follow with Findings section, where P1-P3 are used to present the results. Finally, in Discussion, we scrutinize our findings, discuss the linkages with the literature and also discuss implications of our study for scholars and practitioners.

2. Empirical Setting and Conceptual Foundations 2.1. Firms’ involvement with ISO 9001 certification ISO 9001 certification has been around since 1987 and since its introduction, attracted more than a million of participating firms. Initially the uptake have been concentrated in few locations (EU, Japan, Australia), yet later the standard diffused across the globe and became a truly global phenomenon. ISO 9001 governance system is also globally unified: accreditation bodies accredit Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs), CABs send their auditors to verify firms’ practices and certify individual firms, group of firms or facilities if they fulfil the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard. Such governance system is in place for other ISO standards (e.g. ISO 14001 for environmental management system) as well as for other certifications such as environmental and social standards in forestry (FSC), fisheries (MSC) or for fair trade (Castka et al., 2016). The literature refers to these certifications as “voluntary standards” and argues that their overlap in governance as well as in empirical findings is such that the findings are transferable (Bowler et al., 2017; Darnall et al., 2016). This means that our research has implications beyond the ISO 9001 context of our study. The process of a firm’s involvement with ISO 9001 (and other certifications as we discussed above) progresses through several stages: (i) decision to adopt; (ii) design and adoption; (iii) deployment; (iv) initial certification; (v) maintenance of the certified system; (vi) recertification and (vii) termination of a firm’s involvement with the certification (if needed). The decision to adopt is either a board decision or facility/operations manager drives such decision in a firm (Beattie and Sohal, 1999). The implementation of the standard is driven by a management representative (it is a requirement of the standards to appoint a management representative) and typically, an operations, quality or facility manager is in charge. From a temporal perspective, a period of substantial effort and radical changes (stages i-iv) occurs prior to a relatively stable and long-term period of maintenance of a certification (stages v-vi). The first four stages

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT take about 18 months – as reported by Corbett (2006) and Beattie and Sohal (1999) - and similar timeframes are reported in other contexts – i.e. ISO 14000 or FSC. The maintenance stage has no upper time limit: firms are recertified every three years and can seek recertification repeatedly. Again, the same applies to other certification contexts, for instance, forestry certification (Bowler et al., 2017). The maintenance stage spans over long periods of time. Though there are no statistics about the lengths of the maintenance stage, research studies often indicate that most firms do not withdraw from the certification and that the levels of newly entrants have been declining (Viadiu et al., 2006). This means that the early entrants have been certified for over 30 years (ISO 9001 certification has been introduced in 1987). Whilst maintaining the certification, firms adjust their approaches over time and proceed with various interventions (Castka, 2013). For instance, firms discontinue cooperation with their conformity assessment body (CAB) and opt for a new one (UNIDO, 2012). Firms also intervene in order to improve their benefits from certification, for instance by using the audit results to benchmark performance of departments or business units (Peddle et al., 2010). Karapetrovic and Casadesus (2009) suggest that one certification serves as a platform for a new certification: for instance ISO 9001 certification often serves as a platform for environmental certification, such as ISO 14000 (Corbett and Kirsch, 1999) or certification for environmental certification in forestry (FSC, Bowler et al. (2017)). Together with the adoption of a new certification, firms proceed with amendments of their existing certifications and intervene to integrate their multiple certifications and audits (Castka, 2013). A companion paper by (Castka and Balzarova, 2018) determined the typology of interventions. We have adopted the typology for this study and the typology is presented in Table 1. Before we elaborate on the theory on complexity and intensity of interventions in ISO 9001 certification, we firstly discuss the configurational approach.

==INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE==

2.2. Theoretical foundations – configurational approach The empirical research in management is often based on econometric methods and empirical studies are usually grounded in the linear paradigm and use multivariate statistical methods (Fiss, 2007). Multivariate methods

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT provide a directional analyses and determine how a set of competing variables explain variation in an outcome. Many authors however highlighted limitations of this approach; for instance, Woodside et al. (2014) stress that such approach is limiting the understanding of anomalies and complexities that are observed in the real world situations. Rather, in the real world situations, multiple explanations about an outcome often exists. Consequently, Roig-Tierno et al. (2017) stress that the importance of Boolean logic has been growing in substituting traditional correlation and multivariate statistical methods in management literature. The configurational approach (Fiss, 2007; Ragin, 2008a) – based on complexity theory and Boolean logic stresses a contrasting view to traditional linear approaches: that multiple pathways (configurations) exist and in fact combine into an outcome. This approach also recognises that the results are often asymmetrical. This means that positive and negative outcomes are not mere opposites and different configurations often describe opposite outcomes. The configurational approach uses Boolean algebra to determine “which combinations of organisational characteristics combine into the outcome in question (Ragin, 2008a)”. Variables are understood as set memberships (Fiss, 2007) and an algorithm “is a rule stating that a given statement leads to a given outcome (Prado and Woodside, 2015). For instance, a theory might suggest that firms with large assets (A), high marketing intensity (I) manufacturing (M) consumer products (P) have high scores in Corporate Social Performance (CSP) (Isaksson and Wooside, 2016). This statement translates into the following model: A⦁I⦁M⦁P≤CSP; where a “⦁” refers to logical AND, and “≤” refers to sufficiency condition (that the value for the complex antecedent condition A⦁I⦁M⦁P≤CSP is less than or equal to the outcome condition). Such statements can be tested using software packages, such fsQCA.com software. In the next section, we use the configurational approach to develop a theory of complexity and intensity of interventions in ISO 9001 certification. In the Method section, we further elaborate on the configurational approach and discuss the procedures of data calibration and analysis.

2.3. Theory of Complexity and Intensity of Firms’ Interventions in the ISO 9001 certification Firms need to constantly develop their capabilities and introduce improvements in their processes to sustain their performance (Su et al., 2014). In the context of ISO 9001, there are multiple interventions that firms can potentially adopt (see Table 1) to realize the enhanced value of certification (as defined in the

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT introductory section of this paper). The literature suggests that such interventions indeed lead to enhanced value even though the literature has so far focused at the interventions individually. For instance, Castka et al, (2015) provide evidence of performance improvements in firms that adopted audit quality interventions. Likewise, integrative interventions (for both internal and external audits) are associated with cost savings and efficiency improvements (Karapetrovic and Casadesus, 2009) and learning interventions (or more broadly a learning approach towards certification, Naveh and Marcus, 2005) lead to superior performance in adopting firms when compared to control groups. The approaches and interventions amongst individual firms differ (Lal, 2004): some firms opt for one or few interventions; other firms pursue a plethora of interventions whilst maintaining their certification. In other words, firms differ on the complexity of interventions. Likewise, the intensity of interventions also differs. Webster Dictionary defines intensity as “the quality or state of being intense”. In the context of this study, the intensity has a temporal dimension (differences exist in timeframes in which firms pursue interventions) and a quality dimension (the depth of interventions differs, some interventions are basic and do not require an in-depth change – such as contractual interventions; other interventions are substantial and require significant changes – such as adoptive interventions). Both measures are described in detail in Section 3.3. There are several variables (or in a language of complexity approach antecedent conditions), which are frequently used in the literature to describe various facets of ISO 9001 certification. External institutional pressure (E) plays an important role in the certification context. Firms are often subject to institutional pressure and coerced into compliance with standards – especially to gain (or retain) a preferred supplier status (Corbett, 2006). Firms are also susceptible to normative pressures in their respective industries and mimic their counterparts to maintain their market position (Guler et al., 2002). In general, institutional pressure leads to wider adoption of certifications and pushes firms to get more closely engaged with pursuing certifications in comparison to firms that are not exposed to such environment. Inevitably, such pressure is also likely to impact firms’ interventions during the maintenance stage of certification. Board pressure (B) (top management pressure or pressure from a firm’s headquarters) and their oversight and involvement in the certification influences how a firm approaches a certification. The boards’ close involvement brings focus and resources to certification related interventions (Beck and Walgenbach,

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2005). For instance, the board may oversee a number of companies in a group and compare audit results from different sites and different firms. Such scrutiny leads to identification of opportunities for improvements and results in pressures on managers to intervene - for instance, to change certifiers or to integrate the audits (as reported in Castka, 2013). More complex (and intense) interventions are also more likely in firms with positive motivation (M). Positive motivation refers to an approach where a firm is proactive towards the certification and views certification as an opportunity to learn rather than a compliance activity to adhere to minimum requirements. Prajogo (2011) argues that motivation has a positive effect on the benefits that firms get from the certification and Naveh and Marcus (2005) demonstrate its positive relation to operational performance. It is therefore plausible that positively motivated firms are more likely to approach the interventions in a complex (and intense) way in order to maximize their benefits from the certification. Firm size (F) is also an important antecedent condition. Larger firms tend to be more bureaucratic and administratively intensive, which often means higher investment to certifications. Consequently, certifications tend to be more central to firms’ operations and decision making (Beck and Walgenbach, 2005). Further important condition is Process Complexity (P). Process complexity determines the number of auditors and audit days that is required to audit a firm. Process complexity is described by IAF Guidelines and it has a cost and scrutiny implication for a firm: more complex processes require higher investment and a firm is under more scrutiny. Inevitably, a firm with more complex processes is more likely to intervene: more complexity means more opportunities to increase benefits form the certification and higher investment means more likelihood to optimize such investment over time. Figure 1 presents a Venn diagram that captures the underlying theory for this study (for visual simplicity, only five of the six conditions are shown in Figure 1; this is a common practice in studies using the configurational approach, Isaksson and Woodside, 2016). The antecedent conditions include (F=firm size, Y=year certified, E=external institutional pressure, B=board pressure, M=motivation and C=complexity of firm’s operations). The importance of these conditions has been demonstrated in the extant literature on voluntary standards (see Castka and Corbett (2015) for the most comprehensive review of the literature) and we have discussed the individual conditions in the previous paragraph. In our study, we postulate that increases in the conditions associate positively with an outcome conditions - complexity of interventions (INT-C) and intensity of interventions (INT-I). In other words, a large firm (F), which adopted a certification

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT long time ago (~Y), that is positively motivated (M), that is under institutional pressure (I), when a firms’ board puts managers under the pressure to improve the certification (B) and which has more complex processes (P), is more likely to adopt more complex interventions (INT-C). Likewise, more intense interventions (INT-I) are more likely under the same conditions. Using Boolean algebra, the expressions for these contingency statements are: F⦁~Y⦁M⦁E⦁B⦁C≤INT-C; F⦁~Y⦁M⦁E⦁B⦁C ≤INT-I where a “⦁” refers to logical AND, “~”represents a negation of a condition, and “≤” refers to sufficiency condition (that the value for the complex antecedent condition F⦁~Y⦁M⦁E⦁B⦁C is less than or equal to the outcome condition). On the contrary, a small firm (~F), a firm with low motivation for certification (~M) and a firm under neither institutional pressure (~I) nor board pressure (~B) is less likely to adopt complex interventions (INT-C) as well as intense interventions (INT-I). Therefore: ~F⦁Y⦁~M⦁~E⦁~B⦁~C ≤INT-C; ~F⦁Y⦁~M⦁~E⦁~B⦁~C ≤INT-I

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In line with the configurational approach and the complexity theory (Fiss, 2007; Ragin, 2008a), we formulate a set of propositions. These propositions reflect the notions of equifinality, asymmetry and complexity and are listed below.

P1a: No single complex configuration of antecedent conditions is sufficient in predicting (a) the high complexity of interventions and (b) high intensity of interventions—more than one configuration identifies each of the two outcomes (the equifinal proposition in complexity theory applies).

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT P1b: No single complex configuration of antecedent conditions is sufficient in predicting (a) the low complexity of interventions and (b) low intensity of interventions—more than one configuration identifies each of the two outcomes (the equifinal proposition in complexity theory applies). P2a: The configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the high complexity of interventions are not the mirror opposite of configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the low complexity of interventions (the causal asymmetry proposition of complexity theory) P2b: The configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the high intensity of interventions are not the mirror opposite of configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the low intensity of interventions (the causal asymmetry proposition of complexity theory) P3a: One or more simple antecedent conditions may be necessary but none are sufficient by themselves in indicating (a) the high complexity of interventions and (b) the high intensity of interventions (the complexity proposition indicating the antecedent conditions leading to the same outcome include two or more simple conditions). P3b: One or more simple antecedent conditions may be necessary but none are sufficient by themselves in indicating (a) the low complexity of interventions and (b) the low intensity of interventions (the complexity proposition indicating the antecedent conditions leading to the same outcome include two or more simple conditions).

3. Method This study uses a case based method to study firms’ interventions in the maintenance stages of their certifications (Yin, 1994). There are several reasons for this approach. First, there is a good understanding of the early stages of the certification life-cycle yet there is comparatively less understating of the latter stages. Even though we have based the study on the existing literature and the configurational approach, there is lack of understanding of the practices and interventions in the latter stages of certification. Having conducted an in-depth research with the participating firms, we were able to develop adequate measures for complexity and intensity of interventions and understand the underlying processes. Secondly, firms would publicise that they obtained the certification to signal their management practice to the market

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT place. However, firms do not publicly disclose how they maintain their certifications. In some cases, this information could be even sensitive. For instance, a firm might be dissatisfied with their current certifier yet would not be keen to make this information publicly available (Lal, 2004). It is therefore equally important to investigate the issue in a “safe setting”. A participating firm likely discloses such information whilst in personal contact with researchers and whilst ensured about confidentiality of the data. These two main reasons were the main driving forces behind the qualitative case study method.

3.1. Sample A firm that is certified to ISO 9001 is the unit of analysis. We used a theoretical sampling approach (Yin, 1994) and case study organisations were chosen to allow to investigate a diverse set of interventions (as specified in Table 1). Firstly, we looked for firms, that were certified long enough to have an established quality management system and which would undergo at least one certification and recertification. A recent adopter of ISO 9001, for instance, is likely to be still developing the quality system and therefore unlikely to progress with any further interventions. We also looked for firms diverse in terms of the their motivation for certification (Naveh and Marcus, 2005; Prajogo, 2011) and with complexity of their operations (Power and Terziovski, 2007). Finding firms based on various complexity of operations was easy because such information is available from Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs; complexity of firms’ operations is determined in IAF Guidelines and CABs have to use these guidelines to assign audit days for each firm). Finding firms based on their motivation was more difficult. We have therefore consulted with various experts in the industry, representatives from one of the leading accreditation body and several external auditors to identify a set of firms with various expectations and various complexity of their operations. Our experts had to use their judgement and experience from previous audits to shortlist firms with diverse expectations. Even though this was not always accurate, in most cases the experts were correct and overall we have achieved a good balance of firms. We have approached 50 firms in total and gained access to 17 of them, 15 firms agreed to use their data for this publication. The case study literature argues that about 4-10 cases are appropriate to capture the complexity of a research phenomenon (Eisenhardt, 1989). On the other hand, having more cases “helps to augment external validity and reduce observer bias” in the research (Barratt et al., 2011). In our research, we have

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT used a larger set of case study organisations to increase external validity. At the same time, we also observed that after the initial steep learning curve (after about 10 organisations), additional cases added only an incremental value (saturation logic; Yin, 1994). Even though we might have selected a representative set of 8-10 cases for this paper, we chosen to report on a full set of case studies. Such larger set of cases provides a richer picture of firms’ interventions as well as providing assurance of the external validity of our findings. A list of case study organisation is provided in Table 2. == INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE ==

3.2. Data Collection We used semi-structured interviews, informal interviews and document review to collect the data in each of the case study organisation. The main data source was a semi-structured interview with a person in charge of certification (in the jargon of ISO 9001 “management representative” further referred to as “main respondent”) – typically lasting between 90-120 minutes (we visited each site to collect the data). The interviews were complemented by additional informal interviews in the firm and by review of documents. The semi-structured interview was transcribed; notes were taken from informal interviews and document review. In some cases, respondents did not allow for recording and in such cases the transcription was based on our notes. In each case, we contacted the main respondent and asked for a review and feedback on our transcription and our notes. A telephone follow-up was conducted to collect any missing data or to clarify further issues. The data collection relies on recollection of past events and we were mindful of a potential recall bias during the data collection. We eliminated the bias by a careful selection of respondents and by triangulating the data with archival research. The respondents were all senior decision makers, who were in charge of the certification (management representatives for ISO 9001) – hence the most knowledgeable about it. We also investigated discrete and significant events (e.g. change of a certification intermediary; board requests to streamline certification activities; adoption of other certifications). These events were also well documented, mid to long term in their time horizon (e.g. once in 3-5 years) and required an approval of the board or senior managers. Hence the respondents had no problems to recollect these events and it is unlike that their recollection was biased. We also triangulated the data with the documents and

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT informal interviews with others in the firm. In four cases, we had a chance to triangulate the data with firms’ external auditors, who confirmed our findings (access to auditors from other cases proven to be difficult). The data collection required extensive travel and we therefore employed two research assistants to help us to collect the data. Both research assistants had a practical and theoretical expertise with the research topic and both were trained in interviewing and data collection practices. The interview protocol was the main research instrument in this study. It was developed to ensure that all areas of interest were investigated consistently in each case study organisations. The protocol aimed to collect the data on the 6 conditions (described in Section 2.3) and on a set of interventions (described in Table 1). Our strategy was to open the investigation by asking very high level questions and follow with probing questions to clarify the points of interest. High level questions included “why did you get certified in the first place?”, “What do you expect from the certification?”, “Describe your last audit. What non-conformance (if any) did you receive and how did you deal with the issue arising from the audit?”, “Describe an ideal auditor?”. These questions allowed the main respondent to describe a firm’s approach to managing the certification and also to discuss their actions and interventions. Probing questions included clarifying questions; for instance if the respondent described the issues with an auditor, we asked “What did you do about it? Why? Who initiated the intervention?”. The data collection was complemented by searching in the documentation records and further clarifications from other respondents in a firm followed the interview with the main respondent. 3.3. Data Coding and Calibration for fsQCA After the data collection stage, we had a set of transcriptions from interviews and notes on the document review. The next stage was to create a data set, which would be usable for the analysis in fsQCA software. In line with the principles for qualitative comparative analysis (Ragin, 2008b), we needed to transform the qualitative data into quantitative data. Ragin (2008a) suggest that the transformation should be grounded in the context and seen as memberships and the values had to provide distinctive “categories”. The memberships are either dichotomous (full membership versus full non-membership) or fuzzy (with a set of values ranging from full memberships to full non-membership; Ragin 2008a). ====INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE===

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Table 3 shows a coding table, which defines membership values for each condition and outcome. In line with Ragin’s (2008a) advice, we created the coding “grounded in the context”. For external institutional pressure and board pressure, we observed a clear dichotomy: the pressure was either substantial (and managers had to take it seriously into their decision making) or it was not. For that reason, we found no reason to create more precise fuzzy membership and we used binary values. For motivation, the literature refers to dichotomy of motivation (a motivation to comply versus a learning motivation; such as in Castka et al. 2015) or more fined tuned compliance-learning continuum (Terziovski and Power, 2007). We observed that the dichotomy of motivation did not distinctively describe firms’ motivation in the sample and therefore we developed three distinct categories to capture a firm’s motivation: focus on the compliance with the baseline criteria of certification; (firms where the primary motivation is to achieve the certificate), focus on learning (firms that focused on learning however limiting the learning to some aspects of certification) and focus on complex learning (firms that focused on learning across all aspects of certification). This approach aligns with the general approach in the literature to determine firms’ motivation for certification (Prajogo, 2011). For process complexity, we used the process’ complexity evaluation by the Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs; a firm with simple processes has the lowest number of audit days, whereas a firm with high complexity and diversity of processes has the highest). Complexity of interventions was coded as a sum of all interventions that a firm took during their involvement with the ISO 9001 certification. This approach to code complexity of interventions reflects the fact that all firms could potentially pursue all interventions (see Table 1 for the list) and that each new intervention adds to overall complexity of a firm’s approach to certification. Intensity of interventions was coded based on an effort, which each firm put into the maintenance of their ISO 9001 certification. The effort has a temporal and quality dimension (as we already discussed in Section 2.1). In regards to the quality dimension, the approach to adoption of a particular intervention might be symbolic or substantial (Boiral, 2003); meaning low (high) intensity. For instance, a firm might decide to change their Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) because they are offered cost savings on auditors’ fees. Such intervention is an administrative one and has relatively low impact on a firm’s operations – is low in effort hence low in intensity. On the other hand, a firm might change their CAB because they seek better auditors and more value from the eternal audits. This means a thorough research into the new CAB and more effort is associated with the introduction of a new auditing approach. At the same time, a firm may pursue the interventions continuously throughout the certification (or pursue interventions at some periods of

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT certification) – signifying high (low) intensity from a temporal perspective. For instance, a firm may not intervene for long periods of time whereas another firm may pursue several interventions in a short time frame. The values of low/medium/high/very high intensity were assigned to firms based on the temporal and quality perspectives: a low score is assigned to a firm that pursues symbolic interventions over long time frame; very high intensity is associated with firms that pursue interventions in substantial manner and in a short time frame. The coding required two researchers to independently code the data and we measure coding reliability using the level of agreement between the coders (interrater agreement, Miles and Huberman (1994)). The coding was a learning process: the first round of was performed using a random selection of four cases (using all data; a transcript of the semi-structured interview with the main respondent, transcripts of informal interviews and notes on document reviews) and we used the learnings from the first round to improve consistency of the coding. The second round was performed on the entire sample and we reached an agreement on about 90% of the data (a sign of high consistency; Miles and Huberman, 1994). The contradictory cases were discussed and an agreement was reached on the values. The process followed a standard procedure as discussed in the literature (Pollock and Rindova, 2003). As a result, we had an excel spreadsheet with values on all conditions and outcomes. Next, we had to prepare the data for fcQCA software. The fsQCA software requires calibration of the values. All values have to range from 0.00 to 1.00 and these values indicate a degree of membership of the case in each condition (Ragin, 2008a): “0” indicates a full non-membership; “1” full membership. The calibration is computed by the fsQCA software: the breakpoints include 0.1 threshold for full non-membership, 0.50 for the cross over point of maximum membership ambiguity and 0.90 threshold for full membership (Prado and Woodside, 2015 point out that this is analogous to the mathematics involved in calculating partial standard regression coefficients). An overview of the calibration for all conditions is provided in Table 4.

====INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE=== 3.4. Data Analysis

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT To examine the propositions of our theory, we used the fsQCA.com software. Following Ragin (2009), minimum consistency thresholds at 0.80 levels were tested. Using the fuzzy set truth tables to determine the logically possible combinations of causal conditions, in the following section of the paper we report the intermediate solutions from the software (rather than parsimonious and complex). According to Ragin (2008), an intermediate solution is optimal to report because it strikes a balance between complexity and parsimony and in line with usual procedures in case-study research. The results are presented for four outcome conditions: high complexity of interventions and low complexity of interventions; high intensity of interventions and low intensity of interventions in a series of Tables in the next section of the paper. Each table provides a list of all models that surpass the 0.80 consistency threshold and provides values for coverage and consistency or each term (model) and for the solution as a whole. For each outcome condition, solution coverage and solution consistency are reported. The measurement terms are defined as the following (Ragin, 2008b)p. 85: 

Consistency measures the degree to which membership in each solution term is a subset of the outcome. Solution Consistency measures the degree to which membership in the solution (the set of solution terms) is a subset of membership in the outcome.



Solution coverage measures the proportion of memberships in the outcome that is explained by the complete solution.



Raw coverage measures the proportion of memberships in the outcome explained by each term of the solution.



Unique coverage measures the proportion of memberships in the outcome explained solely by each individual solution term (memberships that are not covered by other solution terms).

4. Findings In this section, we report the results from fsQCA analysis and discuss the findings in relation to the theory on interventions and Propositions 1-3. The results are presented in Tables 5-8 and cover four outcome conditions. The results fully support the propositions of our theory. We also discuss the result as related to individual antecedent conditions and their role in firms’ pursuit of interventions.

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P1a - SUPPORTED: No single complex configuration of antecedent conditions is sufficient in predicting (a) the high complexity of interventions and (b) high intensity of interventions—more than one configuration identifies each of the two outcomes (the equifinal proposition in complexity theory applies). This proposition is supported. For both outcomes, more than one pathway of causal configurations has been identified. Table 5 reports the causal configurations for high complexity of interventions and Table 7 for high intensity of interventions. For instance, Model 2 (table 5) reports that a large firm AND more recently certified AND under external institutional pressure AND no board pressure AND with positive motivation AND with complex processes adopt highly complex interventions. Identical configuration also applies for high intensity of interventions (Model 7) suggesting that the same pathway leads to both high complexity and high intensity of interventions.

P1b –SUPPORTED: No single complex configuration of antecedent conditions is sufficient in predicting (a) the low complexity of interventions and (b) low intensity of interventions—more than one configuration identifies each of the two outcomes (the equifinal proposition in complexity theory applies).

This proposition is also supported. Table 6 reports the causal configurations for low complexity of interventions and Table 8 for low intensity of interventions. Both outcomes are explained by two models, one path is identical for both outcomes (Models 3 and 8).

====INSERT TABLEs 5-8 ABOUT HERE. Please insert in one block rather than each table at a separate location===

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT P2a - SUPPORTED: The configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the high complexity of interventions are not the mirror opposite of configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the low complexity of interventions (the causal asymmetry proposition of complexity theory) The results are reported in Tables 5 and 6 and this proposition is supported. The configurations are not mere opposites of each other and therefore the causal asymmetry applies. In fact, one configuration leads to both high and low complexity of interventions (Models 2 and 4). Models 2 and 4 suggest that a large firm AND more recently certified AND under institutional pressure AND no board pressure AND positively motivated AND with complex processes can adopt both high and low complexity of interventions. P2b - SUPPORTED: The configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the high intensity of interventions are not the mirror opposite of configurations of complex antecedent conditions indicating the low intensity of interventions (the causal asymmetry proposition of complexity theory) The results are reported in Tables 7 and 8. As with the previous proposition, the results are supported – the pathways for high (low) intensity of interventions are not mere opposites. However, it is interesting to observe that positive motivation and high process complexity are associated with high intensity of interventions while the opposite applies for low intensity. We return to this discussion later in this section.

P3a- SUPPORTED: Two or more simple antecedent conditions may be necessary but none are sufficient by themselves in indicating (a) the high complexity of interventions and (b) the high intensity of interventions (the complexity proposition indicating the antecedent conditions leading to the same outcome include two or more simple conditions). P3b - SUPPORTED: Two or more simple antecedent conditions may be necessary but none are sufficient by themselves in indicating (a) the low complexity of interventions and (b) the low intensity of interventions (the complexity proposition indicating the antecedent conditions leading to the same outcome include two or more simple conditions). The results support both propositions. In each of the four outcomes, no simple antecedent condition is sufficient in explaining the outcomes. This result holds for complex and intermediate solutions in fsQCA and all models include all antecedent conditions. P3a and P3b are therefore also supported.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Apart from confirming the propositions of the configurational approach and complexity theory, the results also shed a light on the role of individual antecedent conditions on the outcomes. In terms of Firm size and Complexity of Processes, larger firms and firms with more complex processes pursue more complex as well as more intense interventions. This finding suggests that large and more complex firms (or their stakeholders) recognise the enhanced value of certification and therefore are more likely to invest in interventions. In contrast, smaller and less complex firms are less likely to invest in interventions. The institutional pressures (External and Board pressure) alternate in the models that describe high outcomes; the institutional pressure is reduced in the low outcome models (two out of four models - Model 3 and Model 8 – do not contain any form of institutional pressure). This finding suggests that the institutional pressures are an important condition leading to high outcome and that in the lack of an institutional pressure, firms are unlikely to pursue interventions. Out of the two institutional pressures, external institutional pressure is not associated with a pursuit of high intensity of interventions (only Model 7 contains high pressure). A firm’s primary Motivation clearly explains high complexity and low intensity of interventions; for low complexity and high intensity the values for motivation alternate and do not (individually) explain the pursuit of interventions. Year certified does not show a consistent pattern - neither in terms of complexity nor in terms of the intensity of interventions. We further discuss these findings in the next section.

5. Discussion Configurational approach takes a holistic and systemic view of organisations and provides a complex understanding of organisational outcomes (Ragin, 2008a). This approach has been adopted in several fields of management, such as strategy (Fiss, 2007), corporate responsibility performance (Isaksson and Wooside, 2016) or marketing (Woodside et al., 2015) yet much less applied in the field of operations management (Dul et al., 2010) and in the context of voluntary standards (Prado and Woodside, 2015). In this study, we used the configurational approach to develop Theory of Complexity and Intensity of Firms’ Interventions in the ISO 9001 certification. The results of this study reveal strong support for causal asymmetry (Propositions 2a and 2b), complexity (Propositions 3a and 3b) and equifinality (Propositions

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 1a and 1b). In other words, a set-theoretic approach to organisational configurations provides a useful theoretical approach for studying ISO 9001 certification. Our study contrasts with the mainstream approach to studying ISO 9001. Although the studies employ various methods (multivariate statistics, case studies, action research – see Castka and Corbett, 2015), a typical approach is to use conventional methods of multivariate regression analysis where different conditions (variables) compete rather than combine in creating the outcome (Fiss, 2007). A configurational approach is underdeveloped in this field, with exception of Prado and Woodside (2015). Prado and Woodside (2015) show that adoption of voluntary standards and certification is in essence complex, asymmetrical and equifinal. Likewise, our study provided the same conclusion in terms of firms’ interventions in the maintenance stage of ISO 9001 certification. At the outset of the paper, we associated the pursuit of interventions during the maintenance stage with the value of certification: firms that pursue more complex interventions and show more intensity in their interventions, assign more value to certification. Our study demonstrated that the explanation why firms pursue various interventions is a complex phenomenon (as discussed in relation to the configurational approach – see previous paragraph). The study also revealed specific antecedent conditions that lead to such outcomes. Some of the outcomes have been previously identified in the literature. For instance, high external institutional pressure has been associated with high likelihood of adoption of ISO 9001 (Delmas and Montes-Sancho, 2011; Guler et al., 2002), influencing managerial attitudes towards certification (Yeung et al., 2011), and impacting the approach by which firms embed the requirements of a standard in their daily routines (Sandholtz, 2012). In general (and in line with the institutional theory), external institutional pressure forces firms to do “more” with standards and certification. In this study, high external institutional pressure is also associated with high complexity and intensity of interventions albeit only in some models and configurations. More importantly, external institutional pressure alternates in the models with board pressure. This suggests that some form of institutional pressure (either internal (board) or external) in general contributes to firms’ pursuit of interventions. Further important observation is that low external institutional pressure is in particular associated with low intensity of interventions. Intensity (defined in the paper as an effort that a firm puts into the interventions) is equivalent to symbolic/substantial approach of firms’ initial implementation of a standard (see for instance Sandholtz, 2012). The study shows that the external institutional pressure has little impact on how intense (or how substantial – using the language of

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT the implementation studies) is a firm’s effort. Previous studies have similarly shown that external institutional pressure is not impactful forcing firms to implement a standard in substance; i.e. in ISO 9001 (Prajogo, 2011) or ISO 14001 (Castka and Prajogo, 2013; Prajogo et al., 2014). The literature so far has paid little attention to the role of firms operational set-up (structural and infrastructural; Hayes et al. (2005)) and its effect on benefits from a certification. Our study investigated the role of process complexity – as one of the aspect of operational set-up. The study reveals that complexity of processes represents an important antecedent condition in the pursuit of interventions. The study concludes that more complex firms pursue enhanced value from certification by focusing on more complex and more intense interventions – in comparison to firms with low complexity of processes. Previous literature has only partially touched on this topic. For instance, Benner and Veloso (2008) investigated the moderating role of technology coherence on the performance of ISO 9001 certified firms. They argue that firms with a very narrow or very broad technological focus benefit less from the certification. Even though their measure is not exactly matching the measure that we used in this study, it is plausible that very broad technological focus adds to complexity of firm’s processes – hence such firms ultimately require more complex audits. Our finding therefore contradicts the findings in the literature and we recommend that future studies further investigate this topic. From a practical point of view, managers, investors, board members and other stakeholders need to recognize that multiple pathways to an “outcome” exist. The pathways (models) from this paper provide an insight into configurations that lead into interventions - therefore lead into a pursuit of enhanced value in certification. Even though the paper did not quantify the value, it assumed that firms pursue the interventions because the firms (or their stakeholders) value the interventions at the first place. For instance, more complex and larger firms pursue the interventions and therefore similar firms can follow the suit knowing that such firms recognise the value of various interventions. Our research has focused on the mapping of the conditions that lead to outcomes in certified firms. Further research should investigate whether such interventions lead to superior performance in comparison to a comparable set of non-certified firms. Will a firm that adopted complex interventions outperform a similar firm that is not certified? Furthermore, we advocate more research into the effect of a firm’s process complexity on certification. Do firms with more complex process benefit more from the ISO 9001

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT certification? The context of the study was in ISO 9001 certification (and with firms pursuing other ISO standards). We also argue that the findings are not only important for ISO 9001 research but also the research in voluntary certification in general. Other voluntary certifications (social and environmental) adopted similar approaches to ISO standards and the findings could be applicable in these contexts as well (Bowler et al., 2017). However, future studies might investigate whether other contexts (for instance ecolabels for social and environmental certifications), show differences. Such differences might be present due to different governance structures of eco-labels or their higher exposure in media (Castka and Corbett, 2016b). Such research presents an opportunity to link ISO 9001 to other contextual settings. 6. Conclusion The studies of ISO 9001 certification have largely neglected the maintenance stages of certification as well as configuration and complexity viewpoints to explain the outcomes of certification. At the outset of the paper, we posed a question “under what conditions do firms pursue more complex and intense interventions?” In response to this question, we have developed a Theory of Complexity and Intensity of Firms’ Interventions in the ISO 9001 certification and demonstrated that multiple configurations explain firms’ high (low) complexity and intensity of interventions. The study reveals strong support for causal asymmetry, complexity and equifinality and provides nine models to explain complexity and intensity of firms’ interventions. The configurational approach makes our study unique and valuable and we envisage that this approach will be used in the future research in this field. We hope that our study helps to enhance the understanding of the phenomenon of voluntary standards for academia, practitioners and policy makers.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT REFERENCES

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Figure 1 Theory of Complexity and Intensity of Firms’ Interventions in the ISO 9001 certification

TABLE 1 Firms’ interventions in ISO 9001 certification (adopted from Castka and Balzarova, 2018) Interventions Audit quality intervention

Contractual Interventions Integrative interventions

Learning interventions Benchmarking interventions Infrastructural interventions Adoptive interventions

Description Audit quality interventions refer to interventions related to external audits by Conformity Assessment Bodies (CAB). CABs send their auditor(s) on predetermined intervals (typically each 6 months). A firm might intervene to improve the service quality of their audits (i.e. by requesting better feedback report, new audit team, etc.). Contractual interventions refer to termination of a contract(s) with a Conformity Assessment Body (CAB). Firms typically change their contracts ones the certification cycle expires (3 years cycle). Integrative interventions refer to streamlining and optimizing of auditing processes in a firm. Firms typically take a process and systems standpoint and audit multiple processes at once (internal audits) or combine external audits of multiple certifications in one. Learning interventions aim to maximize the benefits from external audits for a business unit and/or other supply chain partners. For instance, audit reports are linked to process improvement projects at firms. Benchmarking interventions refer to efforts to maximize the benefits from audits - by benchmarking performance between business units, facilities and/or supply chains partners. Infrastructural interventions refer to integration of certifications across a set of firms and/or a supply chain. Adoptive interventions refer to adoption of a new certification. Adoptive certifications take advantage of the existing certification competence of a firm to gain further certifications.

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TABLE 2 Case study organisations Sector

Certified since

Size

Main respondent

1

Construction

1994 (ISO 9001)

170

Corporate Services Manager

2

Services

1994 (ISO 9001)

45

Quality

&

Customer

Relationship

Manager 3

Construction

1996 (ISO 9001)

140

Quality Systems Manager

4

Logistics

1995 (ISO 9001)

8

Director and Owner

5

Manufacturing

1997 (ISO 9001)

55

Environmental,

2006 (ISO 14001)

Health

and

Safety

Manager

6

Services

1999 (ISO 9001)

200

Operations Support

7

Services

1999 (ISO 9001)

900

Business processes manager

2001 (ISO 14001) 8

Manufacturing

1994 (ISO 9001)

900

System Manager

9

Manufacturing

1994 (ISO 9001)

275

Quality and Environment Manager

1999 (ISO 14001) 10

Services

1992 (ISO 9001)

450

Quality Manager

11

Services

1992 (ISO 9001)

65

External

consultant

overseeing

certification 12

Manufacturing

1997 (ISO 9001)

990

2001 (ISO 14001)

Superintendent

Manufacturing

1990 (ISO 9001)

350

Quality Manager

14

Manufacturing

1995 (ISO 9001)

90

Quality Manager

55

Quality Manager

2002 (ISO 14001) Services

2003 (ISO 9001)

Health,

Environment and Quality

13

15

of

- 27 -

Safety,

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT TABLE 3 An overview of conditions and outcomes for fsQCA Analysis Condition/ Outcome

Description

Data source/collection

Coding values)

Firm size

Firm size in # of employees

Number of employees

Year certified

Year when a firm achieved their first ISO 9001 certification Evaluates the impact of the institutional environment on a firm’s decision making in relation to ISO 9001 certification Evaluates the impact of the institutional environment on a firm’s decision making in relation to ISO 9001 certification Evaluates a firm’s motivation toward ISO 9001 certification

Data obtained from the main respondent and document review. Data obtained from the main respondent and document review. Data obtained from the main respondent and further verified through informal interviews in a firm

0 = absence of pressure on decision making; 1 = presence of significant pressure on decision making 0 = absence of pressure on decision making; 1 = presence of significant pressure on decision making Firm’s primary motivation is to: 0=comply with the base line criteria; 0.5= to learn; 1= to complex learn 1= simple processes; 2=medium complexity; 3=complex; 4= complex and diverse Complexity of interventions was calculated as a sum of all present interventions; values range from 0 (no interventions) to max of seven interventions 1=Low intensity; 2=Medium intensity; 3=High Intensity; 4=Very high intensity

External institutional pressure Board pressure

Motivation

Complexity of processes Complexity of interventions

Intensity of interventions

Data obtained from the main respondent and further verified through informal interviews in a firm Data obtained from the main respondent and further verified through informal interviews in a firm

Evaluates complexity of firm’s processes as determined by total number of audit days Evaluates a firm’s complexity of interventions in ISO 9001 certification

Data obtained from audit documents (a conformity assessment body classified process complexity based on IAF Guidelines) The set of interventions (see Table 1) were coded as present/absent. Data obtained from the main respondent and further verified through informal interviews in a firm and document review.

Evaluates a firm’s intensity of interventions in ISO 9001 certification

The set of interventions (see Table 1) were coded as present/absent. Data obtained from the main respondent and further verified through informal interviews in a firm and document review.

- 28 -

(Numerical

Year

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

TABLE 4 Calibrations of conditions and outcomes

Condition/Outcome

Descriptive statistics

Calibrations (0.95, 0.50, 0.05)

Firm size

min=8; max=990; mean=312.87

936,170,30.2

Year certified

min=1990; max=2003; mean=1996

2000.6,1995.6,1991.2

External institutional pressure

min=0; max=1; mean=0.40

(0.9, 0.5, 0.1)

Board pressure

min=0; max=1; mean=0.40

(0.9, 0.5, 0.1)

Motivation

min=0; max=1; mean=0.43

(0.9, 0.5, 0.1)

Complexity of processes

min=1.00; max=4.00; mean=2.07

(4.00,2.00,1.00)

Complexity of interventions

min=1; max=6; mean=3.53

(5.5,4,1.5)

Intensity of interventions

min=1; max=4; mean=2.47

(4,2.5,1)

- 29 -

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Table 5 Antecedent Conditions for high complexity of interventions Antecedent Conditions Model

Firm size

Year certified

External institutional pressure 1 • ~ ~ 2 • • • Solution coverage: 0.24, solution consistency: 0.98

Board pressure

Motivation

• ~

• •

Complexity of processes • •

Coverage Raw Unique 0.16 0.12

0.12 0.08

Consistency 1.00 0.96

Table 6 Antecedent Conditions for low complexity of interventions Antecedent Conditions Model

Firm size

Year certified

External institutional pressure 3 ~ ~ ~ 4 • • • Solution coverage: 0.27, solution consistency: 0.99

Board pressure

Motivation

~ ~

~ •

Complexity of processes ~ •

Coverage Raw Unique 0.21 0.09

0.17 0.06

Consistency 1.00 0.96

Table 7 Antecedent Conditions for high intensity of interventions Antecedent Conditions Model

Firm size

Year certified

External institutional pressure 5 • • ~ 6 • ~ ~ 7 • • • Solution coverage: 0.31, solution consistency: 0.99

Board pressure

Motivation

• • ~

~ • •

Complexity of processes • • •

Coverage Raw Unique 0.14 0.14 0.11

0.10 0.10 0.07

Consistency 0.99 0.98 1.00

Table 8 Antecedent Conditions for low intensity of interventions Antecedent Conditions Model

Firm size

Year certified

External institutional pressure 8 ~ ~ ~ 9 ~ • ~ Solution coverage: 0.34, solution consistency: 1.00

Board pressure ~ •

Motivation ~ ~

- 30 -

Complexity of processes ~ ~

Coverage Raw Unique 0.24 0.14

0.20 0.10

Consistency 1.00 0.99