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 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 U6 - 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 - CONF A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Asna Ashari, Parsa A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Blind, K. A1 - Castka, P. ED - Jakobs, K. T1 - Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Conformity Assessment: Insights from a Multinational Study N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic has 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, are also affected by the associated disruptions. Their situation 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. Considering the roles and functions of CABs in economy, health, and innovation, the question arises 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 negative development of demand during the pandemic, facing restrictions in all countries. In addition, the pandemic had overall negative impact on the CABs’ investment and innovation activities. However, investments in digital infrastructure were increased as countermeasure, with CABs reporting an increased need for digitalization. Resources relevant to organizational resilience were available to different extents, affecting the speed of response to the challenges of the pandemic. The paper highlights and discusses results from in-depth analyses, which are relevant for policy makers and industry alike. T2 - 25th EURAS Annual Standardisation Conference – Standardisation and Innovation CY - Aachen, Germany DA - 05.09.2021 KW - COVID-19 KW - Corona KW - Crisis KW - Digitalization KW - Laboratory KW - Pandemic KW - Quality infrastructure KW - Conformity assessment KW - Resilience PY - 2021 SN - 978-3-95886-421-4 SP - 379 EP - 398 PB - Verlag Mainz AN - OPUS4-53815 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 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 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-531037 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 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 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-556396 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-55639 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - 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 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 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-524924 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 - de Vries, H. A1 - Jacobs, K. A1 - Egyedi, T. A1 - Eto, M. A1 - Fertig, S. A1 - Kanevskaia, O. A1 - Klintner, L. A1 - Koch, Claudia A1 - Mijatovic, I. A1 - Mirtsch, Mona A1 - Morone, P. A1 - Orviska, M. A1 - Riillo, C. A1 - Scaramuzzino, G. ED - Jacobs, K. T1 - Standardization: Towards an agenda for research N2 - Standardization research is a fairly new and is a still-evolving field of research, with possibly major practical ramifications. This article presents a summary of the authors’ subjective views of the most pressing research topics in the field. These include, among others, standards (e.g. incorporation of ethical issues), the potential impact of standards, the corporate management of standardization and legal issues like Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). In addition, gaps have been identified with a respect to a basic understanding of standardization, suggesting a need for better education in the field. KW - EURAS KW - Impact of standards KW - Intellectual property rights (IPR) KW - Research agenda KW - Standardization research PY - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-467873 SN - 2470-8542 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 52 EP - 59 PB - IGI Global AN - OPUS4-46787 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -