Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

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International diffusion of the information security management system standard ISO/IEC 27001: Exploring the role of culture

2020 , Mirtsch, Mona , Pohlisch, Jakob , Blind, Knut

In the wake of digitalization, organizations are increasingly exposed to risks associated with security breaches and must take measures to preserve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information, and to ensure business continuity. The international standard ISO/IEC 27001 assists organizations in setting up, maintaining and continuously improving their information security management systems. However, despite high growth rates, its international diffusion rates are quite heterogeneous. This paper explores why the diffusion of the international management system standard ISO/IEC 27001 differs across countries. We classify the adoption of ISO/IEC 27001 as a 'preventive organizational innovation' and draw from diffusion studies of other management system standards and information security research to develop a set of hypotheses. These relate to the impact of cultural dimensions and national ICT development. We use a negative binomial regression model with panel data covering 57 countries over a 12-year period from 2006 to 2017 to test our hypotheses. We find that the cultural dimensions future orientation, power distance, and institutional collectivism as well as high ICT development are driving factors for the diffusion of ISO/IEC 27001. We derive policy recommendations and avenues for future research.

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Technological convergence and the absorptive capacity of standardisation

2008 , Gauch, S. , Blind, K.

In this paper we propose a method of identifying trends in technological convergence on the level of technical fields. Defining convergence as an inherently stable process of structuration of inter-technological patterns over time we are using German patent data and project them onto the structure of the output of standards via a concordance list of IPC symbols and ICS classes. Using a set of criteria for a reliable measurement of technological convergence we device a set of methods ranging from explorative identification of agglomerations of technical fields, analyses of the breadth of technical fields to differentiate between focussed and diffused convergence trends and in-depth analysis using a revised version of the Cross-Impact Assessment method to measure the level and trend of technological convergence between 1990 and 2003. We find that the structures of convergence in technological development and standardisation are in general moderately positivly correlated but that there are significant differences on how these converging trends are covered in the stock of active standards at the level of technical fields.

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A welfare analysis of standards competition: The example of the ECMA OpenXML standard and the ISO ODF standard

2008 , Blind, K.

The paper's objective is the analysis of some of the fundamental economic efficiency considerations of parallel standards, in order to thereby enrich the discussion and also the decision process regarding the transfer of the ECMA OpenXML standard into an ISO standard parallel to the already existing ISO ODF standard, producing rather fundamentals than specific technical aspects and arguments. The following questions are central to the analysis: How should multiple parallel existing standards, which exist in the same technological area, be fundamentally evaluated in terms of theoretical-static welfare, and most importantly with respect to their dynamic effect on innovation and competition? How can these questions be evaluated, in particular in the area of standardisation of open document formats? How is the standardisation of open document formats to be evaluated with respect to their effect on innovation and competition - in particular in the downstream markets and therewith from the point of view of the medium-sized software industry? From a general economic welfare perspective it is superior to select only one specific standard within a static model. In contrast, the much more realistic dynamic models present a set of efficiency improvements generated by a competition between standards, which counterbalance the static efficiency gains caused by an intermediate decision for a specific standard. Based on several economic models a number of parameters are identified that have to be taken into account in the decision for or against a competition between competing standards. If one ultimately summaries the parameter characteristics in the concrete cas of competition between ODF and the OpenXML standard, one clearly finds characteristics in the majority of the parameters that do not speak for an immediate decision for either of the two standards at the current time.

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The impact of patents and standards on macroeconomic growth: A panel approach covering four countries and twelve sectors

2006 , Blind, K. , Jungmittag, A.

Based on the assumption that codified technological know-how contributes to economic growth, this paper presents the estimation of a Cobb-Douglas production function, pooling data over four European countries and twelve sectors. The empirical results confirm that both the stock of patents and the stock of technical Standards contribute significantly to economic growth in the 1990. Whereas the results of the country models are rather similar, we observe significant differences between the sector models, which indicate that Standards are more im-portant for growth in mature industries and patents in more dynamic industries.

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The ICT standardisation policy of the EU: Changes ahead!?

2009 , Jakobs, K. , Blind, K.

The paper first briefly discusses the current situation in the field of ICT standardisation, with a certain focus on Europe. Here, the perceived diminishing influence of Europe in the international standards arena has led to first (minor) initiatives by the European Commission, aiming at changes in their ICT standardisation policy. Some options currently under discussion are addressed.

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Identification of innovative standardisation fields in Germany: Methodology and results for nanotechnology

2008 , Blind, K. , Goluchowicz, K.

Facing worldwide competition with its increasing dynamic and more complex technological developments innovation friendly regulative frameworks are required which respond to changes on the markets for high-tech products and service on the one hand and take recent scientific findings and technological innovations into account, on the other. At this juncture, national standardisation acts are an important part. As the timely identification of innovative topics for standardisation activities helps to strengthen the competitiveness of the national industries, national activities also influence the European and international standardisation activities, and thus help shaping international markets. In addition, national research activities are strenghtened by effectively partaking in building the conception of new research topics in fundamental research, and directing measuring and testing standards in more applied research. As of now there are no regular efforts being made by formal standardisation bodies to identify crucial innovative standardisation topics systematically, and to involve the science and research community in their work. The method applied is based on a combination of science and technology indicators. Due to the surveys carried out until now, patent applications and scientific publications are particularly suitable to identify dynamic and innovative technology fields. Based on a conceptual approach for the determination of the standardisation demand in the innovation life-cycle we assume further than these growing and dynamic science and technology fields require future standardisation work. On the next step a detailed Delphi survey analyses specific standardisation types required. In particular patent applications and scientific publications provide bibliometric data to precisely address experts related to these specific fields, such as scientists, inventors, research facilities and innovative companies for the Delphy surveys. Besides the identification of these topics, this method aims at increasing the awareness of the science and research community on the strategic benefit of standards and standardisation and may additionally encourage participation in standardisation processes. The paper will exemplarily describe the developed approach and its method for the field of nanotechnology.

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How stakeholders view the impacts of international ICT standards

2007 , Blind, K. , Gauch, S. , Hawkins, R.W.

Assessing the impacts of standards is a challenging task. Concerning ICT standards, mostly we have case studies of individual standards within specific impact dimensions rather than broader surveys of the impacts of standardization as a whole. Econometric studies also address mainly the network effects of individual ICT standards, whereas macro-economic analysis does not yet show the impacts of standards in specific industries. To bridge this gap, we developed a survey instrument aimed at assessing standard impacts from the point of view of stakeholders in the standards development process. We administered the survey to members of ETSI, ITU and CEN/ISSS standards committees. Many of our findings either countered the predictions of much current theory of otherwise raised new grounds to question many common assumptions about the economic and business impacts of standards. Although many variations were found according to whether the standards were formal, informal of proprietary, several strong general findings emerged also. Overall, we found that cost-related impacts (especially savings) are less relevant to stakeholders than various market shaping aspects. Stakeholders perceived the main positive impacts in terms of the ability to increase product variety, and to develop new global outsourcing opportunities for R&D as well as production. We found also that the impacts of formal standards were rated significantly higher and more positively than the other types of standards. Consortia standards showed a rather similar pattern of impacts to formal standards, but ere associated by stakeholders with different roles in the market. Most of the impacts of proprietary standards were viewed negatively. We conclused that the changes in the institutional landscape of standardisation in the ICT sector represent a challenge both for the theory of standardisation and for the development of adequate methodologies to assess their impacts.

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Standardization and standards in security research and emerging security markets

2008 , Blind, K.

This paper addresses the role of standardization and standards for promoting security research and the development of future security markets. The first section presents different functions of standards and standardization in security research. The second section introduces the potential of standardization and standards for the development of future security markets. The final section spells out what challenges have to be tackled in order to fully exploit the catalytic functions of standards and standardization for security research and market development.

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The influence of companies' patenting motives on their standardisation strategy

2008 , Blind, K.

The protection of intellectual property (IPR) has several implications for the decision to join a formal or informal standard setting body. We start our analysis based on the model of forum shopping developed by Lerner and Tirole (2006) and modify it in order to take differences in IPR rules of stadrds setting bodies, companies' IPR protection strategies and patenting motives into account. Based on a sample of more than 500 German companies responsible for more than 40% of German applications at he European Patent Office, we are able to test first whether patent intensity of those involved in formal or informal standardisation is different from those not involved in or familiar with standardisation processes. The results of our regression analyses controlled for several variables like sector or company size show that companies involved in formal standardisationhave lower patent intensity, weheas those engaged in informal consortia standardisation are characterised by a higher patent intensity compared to htose not involved in standardisation at all. In a second step, we investigate whether various motives to paten (Blind et all 2006) have implications for the likelihood to join formal or informal standardisation processes. Especially companies with "collaborative" patenting strategies are more likely to join informal standardisation processes, whereas companies using patents to block competitors are more likely to join formal standardisation strategy. These results underline again the challenges for the formal standardisation bodies from the perspectve of companies' IPR and therefore also innovation strategies. Furthermore, the new insights provide new challenges for policy makers, who should reconsider the balance and the coordination between standardisation and IPR policies.

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Using standards in public procurement processes to promote innovation - a conceptual framework

2007 , Blind, K.

This paper explores for the first time the possible synergies and problems of referencing standards in public procurement processes in order to promote innovation. Embedded in the current policy context, which meanwhile focuses also on the demand side and public procurement, the paper presents options to use standards in public procurement in order to promote demand-driven innovation policy. The paper closes with a critical discussion of the presented approach.

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