The geography of standards - a regional analysis of ISO management system standards adoption in Germany

ISO Management System Standards (MSS), such as ISO 9001, are globally recognized for their impact on organizations’ operations and processes. Despite existing country- and firm-level research, regional determinants of MSS adoption remain underexplored. Our study addresses this gap, utilizing novel web data on MSS adoption among German SMEs at the NUTS3 level. We map the regional patterns of MSS adoption and empirically test how they relate to different innovation modes. We find significant correlations between regional MSS adoption and regional science, technology, and innovation indicators, namely publications and R&D, and local standardization activities, supply chains, and competition.