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The ISO 9000 standards were first published in 1987. A first, more limited revision was completed in 1994. There is now a more thorough revision underway. A first draft of the suggested new standard has been published in July 1998 and a second draft, expected to be very close to the final version, in February 1999. The changes proposed in these drafts are described and discussed. Summing up, the standard is changing from a technical‐practical tool to a management tool. Four problems with this development are discussed: the sum of demands on management; the comparative strength of the ISO 9000 standard concept; the changed role of the certifying bodies that this change implies; and the implied paradigm of management. The consequences of this may be that the standard turns into a legitimacy seeking management concept alongside other popular “three‐letter acronyms” and thereby adds to the growing amount of hypocrisy in management. This is the year 2000 problem for the ISO 9000 standards.

This paper presents some of the most important findings of a study of the financial consequences of ISO 9000 registration for Danish companies, based on data from annual accounts available to the public. The purpose of the article is, firstly, to present the results from a survey of the conduct of all Danish registered companies in order to assess the financial effects of registration and, secondly, to discuss the findings in the light of previous research within the area.

The latest Mobile oil survey tells us that up to September 1997 more than 200,000 accredited ISO 9000‐family certificates had been issued worldwide. This figure reminds us of the fact that certified quality management is no longer a matter solely for production companies, but is nowadays practised in almost any industry around the world. In this article the implementation of an ISO 9000 system in a public‐owned home for mentally retarded and disabled people in Denmark called “Ebo”, is being analysed. The analysis focuses on three major areas: the motivation for choosing certification, the interpretation of the standard in the social sector, and finally the effects of the implementation process at Ebo. The research project has been conducted through action research methodology in which the author has been involved in the implementation process as a consultant.

Although the latest Mobile Oil survey tells us that more than 200,000 accredited ISO 9000‐family certificates have been issued world‐wide up to September 1997, few of these have been given to organisations in the social sector. In this article the implementation of an ISO 9000 system in a public owned home for partially blind and mentally retarded people in Denmark called “Ebo” is analysed. The analysis focuses on three major areas: the motivation for choosing certification, the interpretation of the standard in the social sector, and finally the effects of the implementation process at Ebo. The central findings are that managerial technologies like ISO 9000 have little or no inherent core that makes them more or less compatible with any type of institution. They also have little or no core effects, but effects are a result of social sense‐making processes in an ambiguous situation. If ISO 9000 certification has any non‐socially constructed effects, they will be more pronounced when the cultural distance between the standard and the company culture is the largest. The research project has been conducted by action research methodology, where the authors have been involved in the implementation process as consultants.