TY - JOUR A1 - Schlegel, Moritz-Caspar A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Harrer, Andrea T1 - Smart Products Enable Smart Regulations—Optimal Durability Requirements Facilitated by the IoT JF - Sustainability N2 - The challenges and opportunities linked with IoT have been intensively discussed in recent years. The connectivity of things over their entire life cycle and the smart properties associated with it provide new functionalities and unprecedented availability of (usage) data. This offers huge opportunities for manufacturers, service providers, users, and also policymakers. The latter May impact policy areas such as the regulations on resource and materials efficiency under the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC. With the general approach as it is practiced today, legal requirements are usually set for entire product groups without considering the products individually, including user behavior and environmental conditions. The increasing number of smart products and the growing availability of product data are sparking a discussion on whether these requirements could be more product and application-specific. This paper presents a method for calculating the economically and ecologically optimal durability of a product. It allows determining the point in time when a product should be replaced by combining consumer data with product design data. This novel Approach could contribute to making product regulation more flexible and possibly more efficient. In this context, fundamental challenges associated with smart products in policymaking are also discussed. KW - Ecodesign KW - Internet of Things KW - Connectivity KW - Resource efficiency KW - Policy making PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-524924 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084395 VL - 13 IS - 8 SP - 4395 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-52492 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Asna Ashari, Parsa A1 - Blind, K. A1 - Castka, P. T1 - Quality assurance in supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: Empirical evidence on organisational resilience of conformity assessment bodies JF - Total quality management & business excellence N2 - Global supply chains rely on the compliance and safety of their products, processes, and facilities. These vital services (often referred to as ‘quality assurance’ or ‘conformity assessment’ services) are provided by Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). This empirical study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CABs as well as their response to the resulting challenges. Data was gathered through an online survey among all accredited CABs in Germany, which resulted in 555 valid responses. Taking a resilience perspective, we reveal that CABs were hit hard by the disruptions caused by the pandemic, albeit to different degrees, in part due to their type of services, size, and sectors served. Furthermore, we find that contingency plans do not directly cushion order declines (as the main indicator of the economic impact of the pandemic) but rather indirectly through helping CABs respond more quickly, which in turn mitigates their order declines. However, our results show that contingency plans can also have adverse effects if they hinder flexible reaction to the crisis. The findings of our study help managers and policymakers learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and improve the resilience of the conformity assessment sector and quality assurance in the event of future crises. KW - Quality Infrastructure KW - Digitalization KW - Testing laboratories KW - Organizational resilience KW - COVID-19 KW - Conformity assessment PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2022.2078189 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - Taylor & Francis AN - OPUS4-55066 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Blind, K. A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Dudek, Gabriele T1 - Information security management in ICT and non-ICT sector companies: A preventive innovation perspective JF - Computers & Security N2 - Despite the growing dependence of companies on information technology and the increasingly negative impact of security incidents worldwide, there is little research on the management of information security at the company level. This paper seeks to expand knowledge on the implementation of an information security management system based on the widely used international standard ISO/IEC 27001. We present motives, experienced impacts, and obstacles related to ISO/IEC 27001 implementation using data from a survey of 125 ISO/IEC 27001 certified companies in Germany. Since adoption rates vary between ICT and non-ICT sector companies, we highlight sector-related variations. We classify the adoption of this standard as a preventive organizational innovation and apply Structural Equation Modeling to unearth explanations for the comparatively low adoption of this management system standard among companies outside the ICT sector. We, therefore, derive recommendations for policymakers, standardization, and certification bodies to foster its diffusion. KW - Information Security KW - ISO/IEC 27001 KW - Management system standard KW - Certification KW - Information security management system (ISMS) KW - Preventive Innovation KW - Resource-based-view KW - Institutional theory PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-531037 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2021.102383 SN - 0167-4048 VL - 109 IS - 10 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-53103 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Asna Ashari, Parsa A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Blind, K. A1 - Castka, P. T1 - Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on accredited conformity assessment bodies: insights from a multinational study JF - Accreditation and Quality Assurance N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic posed new and manifold challenges to organizations and their operations worldwide. Conformity assessment bodies (CABs), such as testing or medical laboratories, certification, and inspection bodies, were also affected by the associated disruptions. Their role in this crisis is highly relevant, as CABs are essential pillars of the quality infrastructure: their activities ensure that products and services meet requirements as defined in standards and regulations, thereby contributing to their safety and reliability. The question arises of how CABs and their operations were affected by the pandemic and how they responded. To this end, we present the results of an international survey of 986 CABs of all types in Germany, the UK, Italy, and New Zealand. Overall, CABs reported, on average, a reduction in demand for their services during the pandemic, facing restrictions in all countries. In addition, the pandemic had an overall negative impact on the CABs’ investment and innovation activities. However, investments in digital infrastructure were increased as a countermeasure, with CABs reporting a higher need for digitalization. The paper highlights and discusses results from in-depth analyses relevant to policymakers and industry alike. KW - Quality Infrastructure KW - Digitalization KW - Testing laboratories KW - Conformity assessment KW - Certification KW - Conformity assessment body KW - Corona KW - Covid-19 KW - Resilience PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-556396 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-022-01514-x SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-55639 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Kinne, J. A1 - Blind, K. T1 - Exploring the Adoption of the International Information Security Management System Standard ISO/IEC 27001: A Web Mining-Based Analysis JF - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management N2 - In the light of digitalization and recent EU policy initiatives, information is an important asset that organizations of all sizes and from all sectors should secure. However, in order to provide common requirements for the implementation of an information security management system, the internationally well-accepted ISO/IEC 27001 standard has not shown the expected growth rate since its publication more than a decade ago.In this article, we apply web mining to explore the adoption of ISO/IEC 27001 through a series of 2664 out of more than 900 000 German firms from the Mannheim Enterprise Panel dataset that refers to this standard on their websites. As a result, we present a “landscape” of ISO/IEC 27001 in Germany, which shows that firms not only seek certifications themselves but often refer on their websites to partners who are certified instead. Consequently, we estimate a probit model and find that larger and more innovative firms are more likely to be certified to ISO/IEC 27001 and that almost half of all certified firms belong to the information and communications technology (ICT) service sector. Based on our findings, we derive implications for policymakers and management and critically assess the suitability of web mining to explore the adoption of management system standards. KW - Adoption KW - Information security KW - Management system standards KW - Standards KW - Web mining PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-513284 DO - https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2020.2977815 VL - 68 IS - 1 SP - 87 EP - 100 AN - OPUS4-51328 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mirtsch, Mona T1 - Adoption of the information security management system standard ISO/IEC 27001 - A study among German organizations JF - International Journal for Quality Research N2 - Against the backdrop of numerous security breaches and cyber-attacks, organizations need to take measures to secure their data and information. However, the well-known management system standard ISO/IEC 27001 for information security has shown a lower adoption rate – in terms of annual ISO survey data – than was previously expected by scholars and practitioners. Through the lens of Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory, we consider the adoption of ISO/IEC 27001 as a 'preventive innovation' and aim to identify factors that help gain a better understanding of its adoption. Therefore, we conducted a survey among German organizations on the use and impact of management system standards, explicitly distinguishing between organizations that implement ISO/IEC 27001 and those that are additionally certified against this standard. This study provides insights and contributes to an advanced understanding of motives, impacts, barriers, and useful measures to increase adoption of ISO/IEC 27001. Our findings may be useful to organizations considering the adoption of this management system standard, to certification bodies providing certification services, and to policymakers seeking means to improve information security in organizations. KW - Management science and operations research KW - ISO/IEC 27001 KW - Management system standard KW - Information security KW - QI-FoKuS KW - Certification PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-594704 UR - http://ijqr.net/paper.php?id=1098 DO - https://doi.org/10.24874/ijqr17.03-08 SN - 1800-6450 SN - 1800-7473 VL - 17 IS - 3 SP - 747 EP - 768 PB - Center for Quality, University of Montenegro CY - Podgorica AN - OPUS4-59470 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -