13.1 Introduction
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has grown to become one of the world’s most influential standards development organization (SDO) since its creation in 1946 (formally in 1947). A main source of its influence resides in its epistemic authority and standard-setting capacity, reflected, among others, in the increasing number of International Standards and standard-like instruments it has developed over the years, totaling 22,913 by 2020.Footnote 1 These standards cover a wide spectrum of issues in the economic, environmental, and social spheres. These issues range from terms and definitions and the dimensions and physical interoperability of goods, to product and service quality and safety requirements, management standards, conformity assessment practices, social responsibility, and climate change.Footnote 2 ISO standards and deliverables have an important role in the global economy; their use can improve the efficiency of production, the dissemination of innovation and best practices, and facilitate trade and market access. ISO standards are voluntary in that individuals or organizations have no legal obligations to use or adhere to them.Footnote 3 Nonetheless, ISO standards are influential in shaping global markets and the behavior of companies and organizations, including their management of environmental and social impacts, thereby affecting the conditions under which people live. ISO does not develop its standards with the intention to establish regulation, nor does it perceive its organization to engage in any rule-making activity.Footnote 4 However, public authorities use and reference ISO standards in legislation and regulation and rely on them in support of public policy decisions and actions or as an alternative for regulation.Footnote 5
ISO’s history and evolution has been well-documented in the literature. This chapter builds on this literature to illuminate how many changes within ISO’s organizational system and its standard-setting activities are a response to trends, changes and related challenges within the environment in which ISO operates. ISO’s evolution can be explained in relation to its ability to respond and adjust to meet these challenges, in order to ensure its continued relevance. While it is possible to examine ISO’s growth over the almost seventy-five years of its existence, this chapter posits that it is especially during crisis moments that ISO has undergone rapid transformation and change. During such decisive moments, the viability of the organization is threatened. The organization itself may be affected and its legitimacy and capacity to realize its goals questioned. Such organizational crises “require an urgent response by the organization under conditions of considerable uncertainty as to the precise causes and probable consequences of the situation at hand.”Footnote 6
Kuipers and Wolbers distinguish between three types of crises: a crisis whose cause and problems both originate from within an organization, upsetting its primary process or performance; a crisis to an organization that is caused by an exogenous event or development but implicates the organization, having caused or allowed it to occur; and a crisis about the organization, or an institutional crisis, in the form of a perceived performance deficit becoming “so deeply problematic that the organization itself is subject to intense scrutiny and criticism.” According to the authors, “even the most tangible crises in organizations do not only prompt a functional response (putting out the fire, informing those directly affected), but have a political dimension too (regarding the legitimacy of the organization, and accountability for the problems and its functional response to the crisis).”Footnote 7
This chapter adds to the existing literature an empirical account of how ISO has responded and transformed in connection to such critical moments throughout its history. ISO has experienced various and different types of crises compelling it to change. ISO’s continued existence and relevance despite and because of these challenges demonstrate its resilience as an organization. An analysis of ISO’s resilience is also justified at this moment, in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. ISO is considered to have demonstrated “agility, flexibility and solidarity” during this crisis.Footnote 8 It seized opportunities to promote and rapidly disseminate existing ISO standardsFootnote 9 and initiated the development of new standards in support of the global effort in dealing with this pandemic. ISO promoted the International Standard ISO 22301 (updated in 2019) Security and resilience – Business continuity management systems as a dynamic tool that can assist businesses and other organizations in navigating through it.Footnote 10
This chapter builds on the theoretical framework provided by DelimatsisFootnote 11 and tests some of its claims against the empirical findings. This framework captures how crisis moments present both challenges and opportunities for private or hybrid standard-setting organizations, such as ISO, to grow more resilient and more influential as an organization. When an organization experiences a crisis, its adaptability is put to the test. Such crisis moments create a need and incentives to respond and adopt strategies that activate internal processes of change to restore the equilibrium. Opportunities arise to accumulate knowledge and develop the capacity to expect the unexpected and absorb it. Resilience is viewed as “the capacity to absorb stress and reorganize after the occurrence of a disturbance that upsets the equilibrium.”Footnote 12
This empirical study is based on eleven semi-structured interviews with officials currently or formerly working for ISO. Next to the empirical data collected from the interviews, this study is based on research of primary sources (ISO official documents, minutes of meetings, brochures, etc.) and secondary sources (mainly but not exclusively empirical studies about ISO).Footnote 13
Section 13.2 explains the origins of ISO and its rise to prominence. Section 13.3 provides an illustrative example of ISO’s responses and adaptations to one of its first crisis moments, originating from the needs of its new member national standardizing bodies (NSBs) from developing countries, including ISO’s creation of its Committee on Developing Country Matters (DEVCO) in 1961. Section 13.4 identifies ISO’s most essential qualities, how ISO acquired or leveraged these qualities in face of crises, and their cultivation over time. Finally, the chapter concludes and reflects on ISO’s future (Section 13.5).
The empirical research points to several (external) events being of special importance in driving transformative change of the ISO system. This chapter identifies key crisis moments during which ISO was compelled to change, their drivers, and some of the resilience strategies enacted by ISO during these episodes. Discussing these events and their implications for ISO in detail goes beyond the scope of this chapter. The author therefore views merit in further empirical research on ISO’s organizational responses and adaptations to these crisis events and the internal dynamics behind decision-making and ISO’s enactment of resilience strategies.
The chapter finds confirmation in the empirical data for the claim that ISO’s core standard-setting capacity and flexibility, and specifically ISO’s ability to promulgate voluntary standards rapidly and to ensure their quality and diffusion on a global scale, is a key dynamic property of ISO. This property is essential for ISO to achieve its strategic goals and mission. It confers resilience onto ISO in the face of adversity and enables it to establish or expand its (relative) influence within and across various domains of standard-setting. The research also points to ISO’s institutional structure and its complexity and its continued adherence to certain governance principles founding this structure, along with its business model, as key strengths of the ISO system. These qualities render ISO stronger and more influential today, as it seeks to contribute to the realization of the United Nation’s (UN) 2030 global agenda for sustainable development and meeting the many global challenges under the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thereby also ensuring its continued relevance.
13.2 ISO’s Origins and Its Growth in Strength and Influence
ISO was created in 1946, in response to a need for international standards that could support the economic recovery after World War II and facilitate industrial growth worldwide. At the initiative of the UN Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC), under the direction of Charles Le Maistre, sixty-five delegations representing twenty-five countries gathered at the London Conference in 1946. The first Statute and Rules of Procedure for ISO were drafted at this conference. ISO formally came into existence on February 23, 1947, after their formal ratification by the necessary fifteen countries. ISO succeeded the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA); this main prewar standard-setting organization with a generic mandate had ceased to exist during World War II.Footnote 14 ISO adopted many of ISA’s statutes and standard development procedures. ISO’s standard-setting work began in 1947 with the creation of sixty-nine technical committees. These committees were concerned with the development of technical standards. ISO’s approach to standard development was to harmonize existing “national standards,” to then recommend the re-implementation of the international standard nationally. The purpose of these international standards, referred to as “Recommendations” then, was to enable “industry to operate smoothly by having technical standards to refer to in order to harmonize terminology or ensure interoperability, exchange information, test performance etc.”Footnote 15
ISO was legally established as a nonprofit association under Swiss law, with its main seat in Geneva. It was structured as a federation of NSBs, one representing each country in the world. ISO’s membership was made up of a heterogenous group of NSBs, whose statute (public/hybrid or private) and membership composition varied, depending on the country context. Decision-making within ISO was based on the principle of “one country, one vote.” ISO was given three official languages: English, French, and Russian. The ISO Constitution defined the organization’s institutional structure, consisting of a General Assembly (GA), a Council, a president, a vice-president, a secretary-general, and a treasurer. Members would meet once a year in ISO’s General Assembly (GA), its plenary organ. The secretary-general would oversee the secretariat, its executive organ, which coordinates the system and runs its day-to-day operations. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) was formally integrated within the ISO structure by its constitution, treating it as an autonomous “technical division” within ISO.Footnote 16
ISO experienced rapid growth in output from the 1960s onwards. An important transition facilitating this growth was ISO’s change of approach to standard development. That is, from harmonizing national standards, ISO moved to the direct development of international standards at ISO level.Footnote 17 ISO’s renaming of the output of its technical work from “Recommendations” to “International Standards” in 1971 exemplified this change.Footnote 18 ISO, as a developer of these International Standards, became directly involved in the international community by supporting international organizations in their efforts to facilitate trade by way of harmonizing technical regulations, in which reference could be made to ISO standards.Footnote 19 This involvement increased as international trade grew and markets opened throughout the 1960s and 1970s.Footnote 20 ISO’s standard-setting activities accelerated in the 1980s after ISO began its development of product quality–related standards for an increasingly globalizing market. The scope of ISO’s standard-setting activities further broadened after that, to management and organizational issues, service standards, and conformity assessment practices. ISO standards now cover practically all technical and economic activities.Footnote 21
13.3 Meeting the Needs of Developing Countries and DEVCO’s Creation
One of the first critical episodes ISO encountered after its creation was between 1950 and 1960, resulting in ISO expanding its membership from developing countries and adapting to accommodate their evolving needs and requirements. The so-called new countries had recently gained their autonomy or independence from their colonial rulers. They were aware that adherence to international standards was a quid pro quo to access international trade and supply chains.Footnote 22 These developing countries were less interested in the “threads, bolts and nuts” that ISO standards had addressed previously and preferred ISO to develop standards on topics for which they required a solution.Footnote 23 ISO recognized that most countries in the world were developing countries and that these countries should have a say and actively participate in ISO in order for ISO to meet global needs and create globally relevant standards.Footnote 24 Against this background, and to the end of being able to identify and respond to the specific needs and requirements of developing countries in the fields of standardization and related areas, ISO created its Committee on Developing Country Matters (DEVCO) in 1961. A main objective of DEVCO was to provide a forum for discussion about all aspects of standardization and related activities in developing countries and the exchange and sharing of experiences among developed and developing countries.Footnote 25
Further organizational changes followed to meet this challenge of ensuring active involvement of ISO’s membership from developing countries. In 1964 and 1992, ISO created the new membership categories of “correspondent” and “subscriber” to facilitate their access in the ISO system. This status enabled developing countries to be informed about international standardization without having to incur the full costs of membership.Footnote 26 Changes were made to ISO’s governance structure to ensure that the ISO Council would have a fair representation of the various sizes of the economy. For instance, in 1980, the ISO Council passed a resolution recommending to member states that “when they make nominations to fill seats of Council … they should bear in mind that six members should be member bodies from developing countries.”Footnote 27 In 1985, ISO created the ISO Programme for Developing Countries (DEVPRO), to provide training on topics related to standardization, sponsorship to attend technical meetings, and manuals on technical matters related to standardization, free for use by developing country members.Footnote 28
The adoption of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement) in 1994 created new impetus behind this effort.Footnote 29 Many of ISO’s members from developing countries belong to or operate under the policy direction of the public service of their countries, for instance, the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Most importantly, the TBT Agreement sets the requirement for WTO members that when having identified a need to regulate to fulfil certain public policy objectives, their technical regulation must be based on international standards, or the relevant parts thereof – if these standards exist or their completion is imminent (Article 2.4).Footnote 30 This harmonization of the development of technical regulations by use of international standards serves the TBT Agreement’s objective of ensuring that national regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade. The TBT Agreement also establishes criteria for the development of standards by NSBs through the TBT Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of Standards (the TBT Standards Code) in Annex 3 to this agreement, related to balanced representation of interests, coordination to avoid overlap, and the availability of the standards to the public.
ISO has responded to the TBT Agreement’s adoption by actively promoting the implementation of its provisions, of which certain aspects are of special relevance to developing countries.Footnote 31 As an observer to the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Committee), ISO has been “aware and attentive” to the issues that arise within the WTO in relation to standard development.Footnote 32, Footnote 33 An important development was the adoption by the TBT Committee of the six WTO principles that guide the development of international standards,Footnote 34 of which principle 6 requires WTO members to facilitate the effective participation of developing countries in international standardization. ISO has pledged alignment of its standard development processes to these principles. A response by ISO that can be linked to this change was ISO’s creation of a TMB task force to facilitate the participation of developing countries in ISO’s work.Footnote 35 ISO updated its Directives in 2003 to introduce provisions on “twinning,” that is cooperation between a developed and developing country, for instance, in leading a working group or a technical committee,Footnote 36 a concept that was expanded to “partnering” in 2007.Footnote 37
In September 2004, the ISO Council endorsed ISO’s first Action Plan for developing countries (2005–2010).Footnote 38 ISO’s Developing Countries Task Force (DCTF), created in 2002, had issued a report on developing a program of action to increase the immediate involvement of developing countries in ISO’s standard-setting work. A high-level ad hoc group was established in 2003 to study this task force’s recommendations relating to ISO governance, which resulted in ISO converting DEVPRO into a five-year Action Plan.Footnote 39 ISO’s first Action Plan covered the entire spectrum of ISO’s activities of interest to developing countries and structured these activities with five clear objectives.Footnote 40 This Action Plan was intended to more effectively link ISO’s organizational structure for developing countries to ISO’s strategy. It implemented those elements of the ISO Strategic Plan 2005–2010 relating to developing countries. This ISO Strategic Plan set out ISO’s view that support for developing countries is essential to realizing its global vision of contributing to a more efficient and sustainable world economy.
The first five-year ISO Action Plan for developing countries was in place from 2006 to 2010. Subsequently, a new Action Plan came into force every five years. These Action Plans are designed in consultation with ISO members from developing countries, to ensure the relevance and alignment of its programs with their needs.Footnote 41 DEVCO monitors the Action Plan’s implementation. DEVCO’s terms of reference were reviewed to include this monitoring function, and ISO created the DEVCO Chair’s Advisory Group (CAG) to assist DEVCO in fulfilling this function.Footnote 42 A key focus of the latest ISO Action Plan for developing countries (2021–2025) is the UN 2030 Agenda and the seventeen SDGs. ISO’s strategic plan for 2030 aligns ISO’s ambitions for 2030 with the SDGs, viewing standards as instruments, and their development as an opportunity for ISO, to contribute to their delivery and achieve a sustainable future. The Strategy is meant to ensure ISO’s position within a rapidly changing global context and the potential of standard-setting in realizing ISO’s vision for 2030, that is “making lives easier, safer and better.”Footnote 43
13.4 ISO’s Key Traits of Resilience
Section 13.3 provided an illustrative example of how a crisis episode created a need and incentives for ISO to respond and adapt in order to ensure the responsiveness of its International Standards to the needs of developing countries, their global relevance and uptake, and ISO’s continued relevance as an organization. ISO’s creation of DEVCO and other subsequent organizational changes strengthened ISO’s capacity and its position as a standard-setting organization in the face of future crisis events. As will be further illustrated, the adoption of the TBT Agreement, and its interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body, was a change in ISO’s (regulatory) context that had a significant impact on ISO. This event created opportunities for ISO to assert its competence and legitimacy as a developer of “relevant” international standards in contribution to the realization of the objectives of the WTO agreement, for its International Standards to obtain relevance and a legal status within the WTO regime, and to consolidate ISO’s (dominant) position in the standard-setting community.Footnote 44
The empirical research points to ISO having witnessed various such crisis moments throughout its history and related challenges driving transformative change within its system. Such crisis moments seem to have never affected ISO to such a problematic degree that the organization’s continued survival was truly at stake:
ISO has not had a significant institutional crisis, I’m happy to say, in the sense that over the years, internationally, ISO has been recognized as a very useful organization and has managed to adjust to the evolution of the international scene. Of course, there have been some adjustments and tensions.Footnote 45
The findings suggest that ISO successfully recovered and reorganized after experiencing a crisis moment. ISO’s ability to realize such internal organizational change attests to its resilience. As Section 13.3 showed, ISO has retained and acquired new capacities in face of crises that have rendered ISO stronger in the face of future threats, though issues remain.Footnote 46 This section identifies key strengths of ISO, draws linkages to crisis moments during which ISO acquired or built these capacities, and reflects on their cultivation over time.
13.4.1 Standard-Setting Capacity and Flexibility
The research provides empirical evidence for the claim that ISO’s core standard-setting activities and its flexibility are essential properties that have rendered ISO stronger in the face of adversity. ISO’s flexibility in the fulfillment of its standard-setting functions is apparent from certain shifts in ISO’s work over the years. The change in ISO’s approach to standard-setting from the harmonization of national standards to the development of International Standards in the late 1960s is a case in point.Footnote 47 ISO has also demonstrated an ability to enter into new domains of standard-setting by promulgating voluntary standards rapidly and to interpret its standard-setting procedures flexibly in face of changing stakeholder expectations about the ISO system. As will be illustrated, this evolution of topics has followed wider trends in society.Footnote 48 ISO’s ability to develop standards rapidlyFootnote 49 was strengthened during an important episode in the 1980s when the organization was under pressure to self-organize to improve the efficiency of its standard development process.Footnote 50
ISO’s flexibility in standard-setting is evident from its shift in focus in the 1960s from technical standardization to the development of product standards, which relate to the performance, safety, and health aspects of products.Footnote 51 ISO’s decision to promote consumer participation in its work was a consequence of its entry into this domain of standards.Footnote 52 The products that were covered by these products standards were used by consumers (not industry) and impacted on their welfare.Footnote 53 Impetus to reconsider ISO’s structure to facilitate consumer participation came at a time when the consumer movement in the United States, under the leadership of Ralph Nader, had gained traction in the 1970s–1980s and demands increased for consumers to have a greater say in ISO’s policymaking and its standard-setting work. Against this background, ISO made a proposal that led to the decision of the ISO in 1977 to establish the ISO Committee on Consumer Policy (COPOLCO), which held its first meeting in 1978.Footnote 54
ISO’s publication of its first quality management system standards in 1987 marked another shift, away from performance standards toward process standards. ISO 9001 was adopted against the background of a proliferation of quality standards and big purchasers, including government wanting “zero defects” in the manufacturing of weaponry or nuclear power plants, imposing many different quality standards to avoid quality problems.Footnote 55
Rapid developments in the global high technology sector created opportunities for ISO to meet a demand for rapid standardization in the 1980s. ISO experienced competitive pressure from a proliferation of consortia and other types of standard-setting organizations developing “open standards” and “proprietary standards” for a global high-tech sector. ISO was criticized for its process of developing ISO standards being “too bureaucratic and slow”Footnote 56 and not responding to market needs. There were concerns that unless ISO improved its performance, international standards would be developed through other organizations, especially in these industry consortia, which could develop standards “in a faster and cheaper way.”Footnote 57 ISO standards could become less relevant to the need of industry and the world economy in general.Footnote 58
According to an interviewee, there were around 7,300 projects running in 1996. Many of these projects had been registered twenty, fifteen, or twelve years before. There were three projects with a lifespan of thirty years in the work programs of ISO committees. ISO had introduced a harmonized stage code system in 1993 for use to describe the process and indicate where in the process an item had reached. “I saw that there were projects that stayed for 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 years in the same stage. So, there was absolutely, in my opinion, no management of the technical program.” Addressing these problems posed challenges for the ISO; the experts participating in its technical work are volunteers, and ISO could not “dictate the speed of development or the making available of resources for ISO work.” “There was also no higher-level monitoring system across all the committees, the technical fields and so on to see all these problems.”Footnote 59
ISO created the Technical Management Board (TMB) in 1986, which after its first meeting in 1994, systematically addressed ISO’s problems. ISO put in place a new management structure to speed up the process for the preparation of standards. It stressed the need, in a decentralized organization like ISO, to strengthen the self-responsibility of the committee.Footnote 60 ISO introduced certain disciplines for project management: work programs of ten years and older were cancelled, unless a plan was developed to produce a Draft International Standard (DIS) within one year. ISO introduced clear rules for standard development, such as that requiring a work-item to reach a certain stage by a declared target date. When a committee failed to meet this target date, and could not justify this delay, the respective work-item would be cancelled.Footnote 61
The adoption of ISO 14000 Environmental Management System (EMS) was another important milestone in ISO’s history. Various trends coalesced that pushed this project onto ISO’s agenda in advance of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit.Footnote 62 According to an interviewee, “environmental issues were becoming important to the point that there was a need to have a reference document internationally recognized to deal with how a company may be organized to achieve and demonstrate that it is working properly in relation to the environment.”Footnote 63 An important driver behind the development of the ISO 14000 series was the interests and need of industry, ISO’s traditional constituency, for a common international EMS standard and their preference for ISO to take a lead in its development, owing to their influence in ISO.Footnote 64 Importantly, developments in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations indicated that States, which were unable to monitor and enforce compliance with the many environmental regulations, were willing to accept an approach of compliance with an EMS.Footnote 65 Industry believed that having a common international EMS standard could justify such an approach to legislation, which would bring “regulatory relief” to companies.Footnote 66
Around the turn of the century, ISO reoriented the strategic goals behind its standard-setting toward addressing the complex challenges posed by globalization and sustainable development.Footnote 67 ISO viewed global relevance for its voluntary standards as tools in supporting societal actors in meeting these challenges.Footnote 68 ISO 14000 was one of the first standards that marked ISO’s entry into the public policy arena. ISO further broadened the scope of its work from 2000 onwards, entering many other new areas of standard-setting, including “tourism, water distribution and sewage, financial services, IT services or health services.”Footnote 69 This expansion in ISO’s work program was a response “to current and new stakeholder needs” and was seen as essential for ISO “to maintain itself as a highly relevant international standards developer.”Footnote 70 Further institutional changes followed this shift in support of the delivery of these standards and to ensure the protection of public interests within the ISO system.Footnote 71
With ISO’s decision to develop standards in support of sustainable development, whose content is of public interest, also came changing expectations about the ISO system and quests to legitimize its authority by ensuring the involvement of a broader group of stakeholders in its standard development procedures. This trend already took off with ISO’s development of the ISO 14000 standards series.Footnote 72 The potential policy implications of ISO 14001, addressing environmental aspects of organizations’ activities, raised its importance to NGOs. ISO was criticized for the underrepresentation of environmental NGOs in the TC 207 process, especially in the early stages.Footnote 73 This resulted in varying and increasing efforts by NSBs to engage environmental NGOs at the national level.Footnote 74 ISO approved “ISO Long-Range Strategies 1999-2001,” expressing its commitment to “balanced representation,” including to ensuring “more effective representation of consumers and of other social forces’, and its concern about the ‘transparency of [ISO] activities.”Footnote 75
ISO experimented with a novel construct and an approach to direct stakeholder involvement in its technical work at the ISO level in its development of ISO 26000.Footnote 76 This out of the box project demonstrated ISO’s ability to interpret and apply its ISO/IEC Directives and rules for standard development flexibly; ISO 26000 was developed within a Working Group (not a technical committee), through an intense multi-stakeholder process that engaged subject matter experts from six stakeholder groups, acting in their own capacity (not as representatives of their NSBs or governments). ISO also signed Memoranda of Understanding with the ILO, GRI, and SAI to coordinate its work with these organizations and to facilitate their participation and expert input into the process.Footnote 77 ISO opening up its standard-setting process to include a broader range of stakeholders can be viewed as a resilience strategy. ISO has not applied a similar process and multi-stakeholder approach in its standard-setting work since. This was despite NGOs considering this approach a “major improvement”Footnote 78 and calling for ISO to broaden it to cover all ISO TC work in similar areas of fundamental interest.Footnote 79
In 2008, that is, before the publication of ISO 26000 in November 2010, the TMB decided to form a mechanism in the form of a Process Evaluation Group (PEG) to investigate the responsiveness of ISO’s standard development processes to changing dynamics. The experience of ISO 26000 informed this investigation.Footnote 80 The PEG’s investigations resulted in the publication of two ISO brochures: Guidance for LiaisonsFootnote 81 and Guidance for NSBs.Footnote 82 These brochures confirm and uphold the commitment of the ISO system “to participation via national standards bodies, as well as through the consideration of the input received from liaison organizations.” ISO sought to “safeguard the outcomes of the ISO system and to promote the existing value, strength and authority of International Standards and the processes by which they are produced.” ISO also alleged that “the existing ISO model works well, is well defined and is accepted by stakeholders.”
ISO’s approach to stakeholder involvement in its standard-setting work has thus remained unchanged in essence; ISO ensures stakeholder representation via two streams, that is, through NSBs and organizations in liaison with ISO committees.Footnote 83 “ISO/IEC Directives are reviewed each year and small incremental changes have been made to the standard-setting process to improve stakeholder engagement and to ensure that the process keeps meeting the needs of those involved.”Footnote 84 ISO’s standard development relies on the input from these stakeholders that view ISO as carriers through which they can influence how industry operates and bring in their own competence and experience. The involvement of diverse stakeholder interests also creates conditions of legitimacy,Footnote 85 enables ISO to foster acceptance, and facilitates the widespread diffusion of its standards and deliverables.
13.4.2 Coordination of Activities through Partnerships
ISO has demonstrated an ability to establish connections and coordinate its work with other organizations in support of the realization of its goals. ISO’s recognition of having consultative status in the UN, and its cultivation of this recognition since the 1970s, is said to have been key to ISO’s strong position in international standardization. “As early as the 1970s, the ISO Council decided ‘that ISO should continue to overcome problems of conflict of competence with other international organizations through direct contacts with the latter.’”Footnote 86 Over time, ISO has sought to partner as much as possible, which is reflected by the different types of relationships ISO has entered into with other organizations.Footnote 87 ISO’s involvement in the SDGs resulted in ISO renewing existing and creating new partnerships, including with the UN.Footnote 88
An illustrative example of a crisis moment that ISO managed through cooperation was the EU’s adoption of a “new approach” to EU legislation in 1985.Footnote 89 This new approach meant that EU Directives would set essential requirements that products and services placed on the community market must meet and rely on voluntary, consensus-based European standards to provide the technical specifications to implement and verify conformity with these requirements. Products manufactured in compliance with these standards are presumed to be in conformity with essential requirements of EU legislation. European standards are defined as technical specifications adopted by a European Standards Organization (ESOs).Footnote 90 This approach recognized the role of European standardization in supporting public policy objectives and, in particular, the creation of the Single European Market. It called for “a considerable expansion of European standardization activities, diverting a significant amount of interest and resources away from international standardization work.”Footnote 91 This posed challenges to ISO in that the key European players in ISO at that time (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy) withdrew their resources and focused on European standardization instead. This gave rise to the question of how ISO could continue to be relevant while at the same time being so dependent on key standard-setting bodies from Europe.Footnote 92
ISO responded by signing the Vienna Agreement with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), its European equivalent, which was formally approved in 1991 (and revised in 2001) and issuing common guidelines for its implementation.Footnote 93 The Vienna Agreement governs technical cooperation between ISO and CEN, with the aim to avoid duplication and increase the efficiency of standardization at the international and European level. It recognizes the primacy of international standards and offers the opportunity for a joint development of standards, the exchange of information and mutual representation at meetings, and the recognition of the same standard as an ISO and European standard. Either CEN or ISO can take the lead in developing a standard, which will then be presented for approval by both organizations. A Joint ISO-CEN Coordinating Group of the Technical Boards consisting of representatives of both organizations was created to monitor application of the Agreement and to advise the boards of both ISO and CEN on issues relating to the agreement.Footnote 94
13.4.3 Alignment of Principles with Strategic Goals
ISO has demonstrated an ability to align its principles of governanceFootnote 95 with the strategic goals and priorities of the organization, which ISO has adjusted over the years in response to changes in its external environment.Footnote 96, Footnote 97 This alignment has affected the evolution and resilience of the organisation, as the following crisis moment illuminates.
ISO’s adoption of the TBT Agreement in 1994 created both risks and opportunities for ISO to grow in strength and influence. More specifically, it created opportunities for ISO to demonstrate its relevance (and legitimacy) in contributing to freer trade by reducing barriers to trade and realizing the goals of the WTO. The TBT Agreement did not expressly recognize ISO, or any other standard-setting organization, as a developer of “relevant international standards” for the purpose of Article 2(4). Amidst debate about whose standards could be utilized for this purpose, ISO was among the organizations most likely to qualify.Footnote 98 ISO had risen to authority and acquired credibility and a dominant position in standardization at the time of the TBT Agreement's adoption.Footnote 99 Also, there was synergy between ISO’s governance model and the terms in the TBT Agreement, which had adopted these terms from ISO/IEC Guide 2: 1991,Footnote 100 with some modification (Annex 1).Footnote 101 Moreover, the purpose of ISO standards to facilitate international trade aligns with that of the TBT Agreement.Footnote 102
The adoption of the TBT Agreement created incentives on the part of ISO to respond and adapt to ensure its continued relevance and to build and maintain its legitimacy within the WTO regime.Footnote 103 This meant meeting the evolving requirements of the TBT Agreement, as interpreted by the WTO Appellate Body. ISO confirming adherence of its standard development process with the six WTO principles, shortly after the TBT Committee’s adoption of these principles in 2002, was an important response. ISO also claimed that ISO and its NSB members adhered to the disciplines of the TBT Standards Code.Footnote 104 ISO has taken various reform initiatives in response to developments in the WTO, which have enabled the further recognition and implementation of the WTO principles in its governance structure and technical standard-setting work, with a special focus on enhancing the effective participation by developing countries and engaging a broad range of stakeholder interests.Footnote 105
ISO further aligning its governance principles with the WTO principles and disciplines, for the purpose of facilitating international trade, can be interpreted as a resilience strategy.Footnote 106 For instance, in 2003, ISO approved a definition of global relevance and a set of principles and implementing guidance to ensure the global relevance of its technical work and publications.Footnote 107 This was in response to the TBT Committee’s decision that an international standard should meet a set of seven criteria in order to meet the WTO principle of “relevance.”
ISO’s alignment of its own principles of governance with the WTO principles has affected stakeholder perceptions of ISO and has led to increased social sensitivity and scrutiny of ISO’s performance against these principles. As illustrated above, ISO standards are influential in shaping economic activity and take on de facto or de jure binding effects when referenced, and rendered mandatory, under national regulation and international regulation.Footnote 108 This increasing influence of ISO standards, also in relation to the state, has raised concerns among NGOs. According to an interviewee, critical studies by NGOs and academics scrutinizing ISO procedures against its standardsFootnote 109 have caused ISO to reflect and “to become more principle oriented, and to implement these principles in practice to the extent they can or are willing.”Footnote 110 Illustrative is ISO’s adoption of the ISO code of ethics in 2004. This code expresses the commitment of ISO members and each of ISO’s organizational entities to ensuring fair and responsive application of a set of principles (“due process, transparency, openness, impartiality and voluntary nature of standardization”), which mirror the WTO principles.Footnote 111
ISO has relied on adherence to the WTO principles to instil confidence by public regulators that when using ISO International Standards in support of their policy decisions and actions, Footnote 112 they are not creating unnecessary barriers to trade.Footnote 113 ISO emphasizes in its communication to public regulators that they can be confident they meet their obligations under the TBT Agreement when using ISO standards as a basis for their technical regulation and that the standards they use are globally relevant.Footnote 114 The reliance by public regulators on ISO standards to avoid technical barriers to trade has further increased the significance of ISO’s work.Footnote 115
Adherence to the WTO principles has enabled ISO to distinguish itself from other standard-setting organizations. It has aided ISO to consolidate its position as a dominant global standard-setter in areas of standardization in which it is the sole standardization body and to expand its influence in specific domains in which more organizations develop substitutive standards and are thus more competitive, such as sustainability standards. In 2014, ISO issued a brochure in which it differentiates its ISO International Standards from “private international standards” developed by other standard-setters.Footnote 116 ISO relies on the argument that ISO standards and those of its members are developed through processes that use the WTO principles and disciplines and therefore are “superior” to “private” standards by other organizations that are not developed according to these principles.Footnote 117
13.4.4 Institutional Setup, Complexity, and Governance Principles
ISO’s institutional structure was established at its creation, and while it retains its core, it has grown more complex.Footnote 118 ISO has adapted its statutes in response to (geopolitical) changes and challenges in its environment.Footnote 119 ISO created policy committees to provide forums to include the perspectives of developing countries (DEVCO) and consumers (COPOLCO) into ISO’s decision-making. ISO created CASCO to provide guidance on conformity assessment.Footnote 120 In addition, ISO created a President’s Committee to advise the Council on matters decided by the Council, four Council standing committees, and Advisory Groups to advise ISO on matters relating to commercial policy and information technology. The mechanisms ISO built into the system in order to give application to its governance principles further adds to its complexity. ISO’s institutional structure and its complexity is an important feature that ISO can harness in its crisis responses.Footnote 121
ISO has never revisited the governance model that was chosen for the organization at its creation. ISO has continued to adhere to certain core governance principles founding its institution. Adherence to these governance principles is meant to ensure, inter alia, neutrality in ISO’s institutional setting, thereby protecting against the risk of abuse of dominant positions.Footnote 122 More specifically, ISO’s institutional structure, and in particular ISO’s adherence to the national delegation principle and its one-country-one-vote modality, serves to protect against the risk of undue influence of individual NSBs within the organization and capture by certain country interests. Moreover, the requirement that ISO standards reflect a consensus between all parties affected by the standard, and that the standard development process seeks to balance the interests of these parties, serves to prevent a single interest from dominating the standardization process. It follows from ISO’s definition of a consensus that its members can reach an agreement on standards despite opposition by a particular interest (e.g., dominant firms, leading states, or states acting together, like those belonging to the EU).Footnote 123 ISO’s continued adherence to its governance model and its underlying principles is an important strength, and ISO derives legitimacy from it.Footnote 124
Whether ISO achieves neutrality in its decision-making and standard-setting work in practice is subject of discussion. ISO was and still is perceived as a business-driven organization.Footnote 125 The degree of influence of NSBs in standard development varies depending on their membership rights, roles, capabilities, and preferences. The barriers facing developing countries to effective representation and participation in ISO’s technical standard work, and to influencing the content of ISO standards, are well documented.Footnote 126 NGOs have criticized how decision-making in ISO is unbalanced in practice and dominated by private industry interests (especially in industrialized countries). As illustrated above in connection to the development of ISO 14000 and ISO 26000, ISO has adapted to internal dynamics and pressures, inter alia, by creating multi-stakeholder committees to advise on ISO’s involvement in new areas of standard-setting, by interpreting ISO standard-setting rules flexibly and investing resources to create opportunities for more balanced stakeholder representation and participation. Nonetheless, issues of (un)equal access and influence remain and result in NGOs and other stakeholders to deny ISO legitimacy.Footnote 127
ISO’s ability to withstand pressure from within its membership to make changes to its institutional setup and governance principles attests to its resilience. An illustrative example is how ISO has resisted challenges by the United States, an influential member with a long tradition in standardization, at several occasions, in what can be interpreted as attempts by the United States to exert a dominant influence within ISO.Footnote 128 For instance, the United States has challenged the representation of EU countries within ISO. A concern by the United States has been that the EU countries benefit from the one-country-one-vote modality, and that the EU has gained economic advantage by dominating the ISO process. According to an interviewee, after the creation of the EU internal market in 1993, the EU was perceived as an economic block. Since the EU had been formed as such, with its ESOs – CEN was viewed as a counterpart of ISO in terms of scope – the United States argued that the EU should be represented as such, that is, through CEN, and not the individual member countries. This attempt failed “because of the realization that the individual EU members were an asset for the organization.” The one-country-one-vote modality and the representation of EU countries within ISO remain unchanged.
It seems that giving into these pressures and departing from its governance model can pose a risk (of capture) to the organization and have implications for ISO’s attractiveness as a forum for standard development, especially in the view of NSBs and governments.Footnote 129
13.4.5 Business Model
Another key property that aids ISO in its navigation through crisis episodes is its business model, which ensures that the ISO system can access and leverage resources to achieve its objectives and recover its costs. ISO International Standards are not available for free in the public domain and ISO asserts and maintains copyright in International Standards.Footnote 130 It follows from ISO’s business model that the activities of the ISO secretariat are funded through the membership fees paid by NSBs (“which give them the right to participate in the International Standardization process, to use, nationally adopt and sell the International Standards produced”) and the sale of International Standards. ISO members bear the costs of running the secretariats of the technical committees. The expenses of experts working on the technical committees are borne by their employers or themselves. ISO views the financing of its system through the sale of its standards as fair: “the user who wants to benefit from a standard pays to use it.” ISO also claims to be “constantly looking for new ways to improve access to standards, while ensuring that the costs of developing them can be recovered.”Footnote 131
An event within ISO’s history that implicated ISO’s business model and strengthened its resources (and its authority) was the adoption of ISO 9001. The publication of ISO 9001, and especially the opportunities that the extra source of revenues from the sale of this standard created, resulted in ISO reflecting on how to further finance standardization and expand the scope of the organization. ISO came to rely more on the sale of standards and less on membership fees to generate an income for the organization. The sale of this standard also supported further evolutions within both ISO and its NSB members. According to an interviewee, the publication of the ISO 9000 series resulted in NSBs expanding their activities “both in terms of standards development, because this was bringing additional resources to support finance, and then expand also the scope of the activities, going into at some point training activities, training, consulting services. Some became actually fully independent organizations, which was quite an interesting evolution.”Footnote 132
ISO’s model of financing has created both challenges and opportunities for ISO. According to ISO, it keeps participation costs down and allows for the broadest possible stakeholder participation. As is well known, however, developing countries have fewer resources and technical capabilities than developed countries to exert influence, especially at the technical standard-setting level. In fact, developed countries remain most active in leading technical committees and subcommittees in practice. Chairpersons and secretaries may be required to act in a “purely international capacity,” and experts participating in standard-setting, at least at working group level, in a personal capacity.Footnote 133 However, in practice, these individuals have had difficulty making decisions independently from the interests of their employer (who funds their participation in the process) or the NSB (who appoints them).Footnote 134 ISO’s claim that, because of its financing model, its International Standards are developed in a neutral environment without undue influence from individual sponsorsFootnote 135 is debatable.
According to an interviewee, the revenues obtained from the sale of standards enables ISO to develop standards, to better promote ISO’s work, and have a broader scope. ISO’s pricing policy has had implications for the relevance of its standards (and its claim for authority), especially in the ICT domain.Footnote 136 Upon its entry into the domain of sustainability, ISO has been challenged by criticism that charging money for ISO standards whose content is of public interest is inappropriate and creates barriers to acquisition, and pressure to make them available in the public domain, free of charge.Footnote 137 ISO’s pricing policy can be a particular concern to States that reference International Standards in their legislation. ISO’s adjustments to its pricing policy in relation to certain standards in specific contexts, to the extent needed to ensure stakeholder support and realize its mission, demonstrate its flexibility. More generally, however, ISO has demonstrated resistance to pressure to adjust its financing model.Footnote 138 ISO’s responses and ability to retain its business model despite these pressures attests to its resilience.
13.5 Conclusion
This chapter examined how ISO has evolved and grown more resilient, and influential, over the course of its seventy-five-year existence, in relation to crisis. An assumption is that ISO’s evolution and resilience can be explained in relation to the continuously evolving environment in which it operates. It finds that the ISO system is flexible and adaptable to account for changes and to meet related challenges within its environment, in order to ensure its continued relevance. This chapter focused on ISO’s responses and adaptation during crisis moments when its resilience was put to the test. It finds that ISO has experienced multiple and different types of crisis events; however, developments have never cumulated to a point where ISO was subject to an (institutional) crisis of such problematic scale that its continued existence was truly in jeopardy.
The chapter provides empirical evidence for the theoretical proposition that ISO’s core standard-setting activities and its flexibility are key dynamic properties that render ISO stronger in the face of crisis. ISO has demonstrated a capacity to expand quickly to include new members from across the world, and in doing so, also the potential global reach and use of its standards. It has also demonstrated an ability to identify and enter into new areas of standardization and to rapidly promulgate and disseminate voluntary standards while ensuring their underlying potential and quality. ISO’s ability to align its principles of governance and the value and impact of its standards with the strategic objectives behind its standard-setting work, and trade facilitation in particular, is an important trait. ISO has proven able to interpret its rules and procedures flexibly to meet changing expectations in stakeholder involvement and to experiment and draw lessons from previous experiences. ISO’s institutional structure in conjunction with its complexity, and its continued adherence to the governance principles founding it, confers strength onto ISO. ISO’s ability to safeguard these principles, and its continuing adherence to its business model, despite and because of criticism and pressure, attests to its resilience. Most importantly, this study showed how ISO has built these qualities by overcoming adversity during crisis moments, and how these qualities shape ISO as an organization and its resilience today.
Overall, the interviewees point to the aforementioned qualities of ISO as strengths, giving optimism for ISO’s future. These qualities render it stronger and more influential today, as it seeks to ensure its continued relevance in contributing to the delivery of the UN 2030 global agenda for sustainable development and meeting the many global challenges that appear in the seventeen SDGs as part of this agenda. The interviewees highlighted opportunities offered by the SDGs to promote ISO’s existing portfolio and to expand into new domains of standard development to resolve these global challenges, which facilitates further growth. New challenges abound as ISO might lose in influence to other organizations that, mainly because of their specialized expertise, can act more efficiently and swiftly in identifying and responding to the needs of users in the domain of sustainability standards. In this light, future research could examine how ISO has grown resilient through competition with other actors, claiming authority through its standard-setting activities, and offering the most attractive institutional setting for the development of standards.
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