Certification Intensity and National Logistics Performance: A Cross-Country Analysis of ISI Management System Standards and the World Bank Logistics Performance Index

Creative Commons License

Öztürk Koçali E.

Sosyal Araştırmalar ve Yönetim Dergisi, cilt.2026, sa.1, ss.89-110, 2026 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Unlike what can be inferred from a bivariate correlation, ISO certification intensity is not a reliable independent predictor of national logistics performance in the presence of controls on income and institutional capacity. To evaluate the claim, I regress the World Bank’s 2023 Logistics Performance Index (LPI) on the 2022 ISO Survey of Management System Standard Certifications and World Bank development and governance data for 127 countries. There exists a strong relationship between per capita ISO 9001 certificates and LPI without controls (b = 0.225, p < .001, R² = .613); yet, after controlling for income, trade openness, government effectiveness, and population, the effect of certification intensity drops by 81% to b = 0.042 (p = .0503), and the residual becomes insignificant by any normal standards. There are two more reasons to interpret the result with caution. Firstly, as both government effectiveness and LPI are based on perceptions, the regression is specification sensitive, and when government effectiveness is removed from the list of controls, significance is restored (b = 0.064, p = .021). Secondly, specification testing shows that there is no statistical difference between the current model and the same specification but using the two-year-mismatched certification (interaction p = .22). After Holm correction of multiple testing of the six LPI dimensions, only international shipments remain significantly related to certification intensity (adjusted p = .041). As per the 2022 ISO Survey, the number of ISO 9001 certificates was 1,265,200 globally in contrast to 521 ISO 28000 certificates, which gives a ratio of about 2,429 to 1; and the total numbers differ much between survey editions due to voluntary character of reports by national certification bodies.