Abstract
The role of company standards as a strategic tool for the optimisation of internal processes and governance of inter-firm relationships has only recently received researchers’ attention. This paper adds to the very limited body of literature by providing empirical evidence of the motives to implement company standards in general and their importance in corporate groups in particular. Using data on German companies active in standardisation, the empirical analysis confirms that companies that are part of a corporate group utilise a higher number of company standards than single firms. By codifying and transferring company-specific information, internal standardisation enhances legal security, productivity, and quality. In particular for corporate groups, internal standards additionally play a crucial role in the realisation of technical interoperability, which facilitates the development and management of internal platforms. The data, therefore, provides empirical evidence that standardisation can be used as a tool to improve efficiency and communication, and thereby facilitate global governance of multinational firms.
Highlights
As globalisation grows, firms aim to increase their production volumes through exporting, which eventually increases revenue and fosters productivity improvements through the exploitation of economies of scale and scope
Albeit none of the studies explicitly addresses the application of company standards in intra-firm transactions, their results imply a crucial role of internal standardisation for the governance of corporate groups
In contrast to Blind and Mangelsdorf (2016), the focus of this paper is on the motives for internal standardisation and the differences in the application of company standards between firms that belong to a corporate group and single companies
Summary
Firms aim to increase their production volumes through exporting, which eventually increases revenue and fosters productivity improvements through the exploitation of economies of scale and scope. The development of company standards, which are generally not available to the public, provides a tool to transfer sensitive, company-specific information between firms of the same corporate group (Sturgeon, van Biesebroeck, and Gereffi 2008). Albeit none of the studies explicitly addresses the application of company standards in intra-firm transactions, their results imply a crucial role of internal standardisation for the governance of corporate groups. This paper summarises the existing literature on the motives for internal standardisation and draws conclusions on the special role of company standards in corporate groups These theoretical considerations are presented in the first chapter. By codifying and transferring company-specific information, internal standardisation enhances legal security, productivity, and quality For corporate groups, they play a crucial role in the realisation of technical interoperability, which facilitates the development and management of internal platforms. A summary of the results and the conclusion are presented in the last chapter
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