Customer-Driven Standardization in the Forensic Science Market in England and Wales

This chapter aims to contribute to the nascent, but expanding, body of literature concerned with sociologies of standards and standardization. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the creation of standardized forensic “products” within the marketized forensic science sector in England and Wales. This “menu” of standardized forensic products emerged during a period of significant economic and organizational disruption. The implementation of these codified products created further tensions, demonstrating the unintended consequences, which may flow from incomplete application of standards, incomplete understanding of their effect, and the instrumental use of these same standards, not to achieve efficiencies or harmonization but to affect particular institutional goals, and which are not shared across the wider community of practice.

The Role of Internal Standardization in Business Models

This chapter focuses on business models and the role of internal standardization in business models. The authors develop a typology that outlines the role of internal standardization for a set of value configurations that serve as representations of generic business models. The topic is of importance for both managers and researchers in relation to firm level innovation and strategy, as well as how business models relate to internal and external standardization. With regard to business model innovation, this chapter can aid in identifying shifts in the firm's internal standardization focus associated with changes in its business model.

Company IT Standardization

Many companies have embarked on IT standardization initiatives with specific benefits in mind, but some projects fail dramatically whereas others are very successful. The research suggests that successful company standardization projects require good governance and management across distinct lifecycle phases: selection, implementation, and use and change. The authors present a case study from a financial services company to demonstrate effective practices that have led to significant financial benefits, to improved service delivery and support, and to a more stable IT environment. In addition, the authors discuss how an agile way of working could further improve standardization initiatives in organizations.

Licensing Terms for IoT Standard-Setting

The development of 5G and IoT standards requires an active participation of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). These SMEs do not always have the resources and expertise to participate in the work of standard development organizations (SDOs). The valuation of the patents in standards can be based on “license for all” or “end-user” concepts. A specific choice for use-based licensing terms by an SDO might drive SMEs more towards standard-setting in consortia. The chapter will discuss the competition law aspects of both licensing concepts for SMEs and the recent communication in this field by the EU Commission.

Managing Responsible Standardization of Smart Infrastructures and Applications

Interoperability standards are a sine-qua-non for smart applications and the underlying smart communication infrastructure. This chapter looks at two issues that are associated with the standardization of such smart systems and the ramifications they may have for standardization management. These issues include, on the one hand, the necessary multi-disciplinarity of standards setting and the resulting diversity of stakeholders to be involved. On the other hand, they also include the need to standardize responsibly (i.e., to appreciate that various societal aspects also need to be taken seriously and to be integrated into the process). The complexity of proper standardization management will increase because of these needs.

Standardization as an Organizational Capability

This chapter examines the organizational capabilities that firms develop in order to influence and adapt to standards. Standards are voluntary rules or guidelines developed by standard-setting organizations or consortia in order to promote compatibility/interoperability, minimum quality, variety reduction, and information. The authors argue that firms develop specific capabilities for assessing which emerging standards are likely to become dominant, and in order to successfully influence the development of new standards. The argument is illustrated by a case study of a global player in the information and communication technology sector.

Challenges Facing Technology Standardization in the Age of Digital Transformation

It is widely recognized that we are in rapid transition to the so-called fourth industrial revolution, a world of digitalization and mass interconnectedness enabled by a plethora of emergent powerful technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), and distributed ledgers (DLT). A key element of this “revolution” is the move to digital manufacturing. While undoubtedly exciting, this transition presents challenges to policymakers, industry, and societal stakeholders alike. One such challenge is defining an optimum level for any market intervention measure(s), such that a balance is struck between ensuring a pro-industrial and economic innovation-friendly approach and guaranteeing adequate levels of consumer-focused protection. Standardization can be leveraged as one element of interventionary policy designed to help strike the required balance, both in its well-proven bottom-up and industry-led voluntary application and as a tool to support implementation of regulations. With a focus on digital transformation, this chapter will analyze the readiness of the current standardization system to support this significant transition focusing on strengths and challenges to be addressed from the perspective of industry, policymakers, and standards-setting organizations.

Managing In-Company Standardization While Avoiding Resistance

Standards may be an advantage for a company, but employees often resist them because they feel they are forced to behave in a certain way. Even a broad approach like TQM seems to have to too little focus on the “human aspects” to prevent resistance and failure during change projects like in-company standardization. This chapter uses a philosophical approach to study why staff tend to resist company standardization initiatives. Foucault and Habermas provide insights into the reasons for this resistance but do not solve the tension between freedom and control. Dooyeweerd's philosophy seems to be more promising. This chapter uses a company standardization project of an automotive supplier to examine these three philosophical approaches to understand resistance to standards and to investigate how this resistance can be avoided by managing in-company standardization in a more holistic way.

Some Spanish Approaches on Standardization Management

This chapter summarized the Spanish experience on the management of new standards including how the development of national standards has risen from needs not covered by international standards and how the collaboration with international bodies has given new opportunities of business. It will also present the problem of the gap between the needs in the industry to have people read standards versus the lack of university graduated students well prepared for that task. It will discuss the Spanish case on metrology standardization history from 1999 until now as an example of the development new standardization. It will present some new fields for standardization that are already under development in Spain related with health metrology.

Predatory Strategies in Standards Wars

In standards wars, FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is sometimes created to weaken an opponent's market position. Little is known about these strategies, their use in committee standardization settings, and how to respond to them. This chapter explores this phenomenon. It (1) identifies various FUD strategies, (2) their context of emergence, and (3) their effect on the dynamics of a standards war in a historical case study: the European standards war on digital mobile radio communication in the 1990s. The study highlights the need to distinguish “FUD as perceived” from “FUD as intended.” FUD strategies and case-specific characteristics of their emergence are illustrated. The chapter shows that perceived FUD polarizes and entrenches positions of warring parties thereby affecting the course of the standards war. The authors conclude that, given its impact, reflection by corporate standardization managers on (perceived) FUD, preclusion, counter-strategies, and the downscaling of standards wars is warranted.