Developing an IS Quality Culture with ISO 9001: Hopefully, a Never Ending Story

Abstract

We present an approach to develop IS Quality Culture, in the context of ISO 9001. The research design begins with semi-structured interviews with eight auditors, followed by action research. We confirmed that auditors recognize the importance of five distinct IS Quality dimensions: information/data, software, administrative, service, and infrastructure. However, the audit practice reveals the risk of considering IS as mere support, disregarding the cultural aspects of IS Quality. Our contribution addresses this gap by providing an audit checklist and an approach accessible to IS non-experts. An IS Quality Culture is vital in regulatory environments, and may raise the audit effectiveness and confidence in ISO 9001 as an improvement model. ISO 9001 diffusion and acceptance by more than one million companies worldwide creates an exceptional opportunity to continuously development of the IS Quality Culture. The obtained findings can also contribute to the discussion of the next ISO 9001 revision, expected to be published in 2016.