SESKO's survey 2007
Motives to participate in standardization in Finland
Decision-makers in enterprises evaluate the participation of their experts in standardization as an advantage to their enterprises. Experts regard the time which they use in standardization as a fruitful experience. Many an enterprise does not know how they can take part in standardization.
Survey of motives
SESKO is the Electro-technical Standard Organization in Finland. It made a survey of motives among the experts regarding participation in technical standardization of electro-technical area in Finland during the autumn of 2007. At the same time the enterprises were asked, what their motives were in sending experts to participate and work in standardization committees and working groups. As well as trying to find out, why those organizations which should benefit from standardization, do not participate in it. On top of everything else inquiries were made as to what kind of knowledge they had of standardization.
Target groups of survey
The questions were sent to three target groups: firstly to
470 experts of SESKO’s technical committees and follow-up groups, secondly to
350 enterprises which send experts to standardization committees (
involved enterprises) and lastly to
250 enterprises which don’t participate in standardization (
uninvolved enterprises).
37 % (137) of experts, 11 % (39) of involved enterprises and 13 % (33) of uninvolved enterprises responded. A representative sample of experts can be regarded as covered and thus the conclusions of the experts’ survey reflect well the views on standardization. Due to the fact that a number of enterprises were quite small the rate of reliability is not at the same level as the experts’ one. However, these results approximate reasonably well to the views which are highly probable.
Expert gets new and important knowledge
One standardization expert who replied is a man over 30 years old. He works for an expert in his organization. He is in the position of upper clerical worker or middle management and he works mainly for preliminary industry or in supervision, inspection or testing.
Almost 50 % of experts regard standardization as very useful working time, or at least more useful working time than normal. Only 3 % of the respondents regarded their participation in standardization as a waste of time. Over 35 % of experts consider that their employers greatly benefit through standardization and over 50 % of them believe they benefit reasonably well.
Well over 90 % of respondents regard working for standardization as interesting and necessary, as well as useful for the Finnish electro-technical business and also important to the Finnish electro-technical industry as a whole.
About 80 % of experts consider standardization as a little laborious, time-consuming, bureaucratic, slow and complicated.
Even so, the experts like to participate in standardization since their professional skills are developed a great deal or at least reasonably well. They consider participation as a good possibility to make contacts with other players of their own field.
Over 90 % of experts consider that they can gain a reasonable amount of new and important knowledge of electro-technical field and they can make concrete use of this knowledge in their work. They can also understand the logic of electro-technical standards and the criteria of selected solutions of standards, when they are involved in standardization work.
Enterprises searching for knowledge, benefits and know-how
The decision-maker of an enterprise, who sends technical experts to participate in standardization, normally comes from the preliminary industry. The company employs from 20 to 500 people and the office of the company is mostly located in the metropolitan area of Finland. The company has been involved in standardization for over ten years.
The vast majority of the decision-makers agree with the technical experts that involvement in standardization offers concrete benefits for the business of the company. Almost all respondents consider that they will reap the benefits through know-how, knowledge and networking. About 75 % of respondents feel that they are able to influence significantly or at least reasonably, the contents of standards. Most of the decision-makers consider that the internal know-how of the company will improve reasonably through standardization.
The decision-makers regard that participation in standardization work offers quite a few possibilities to keep up with progress in the top flight and have an influence on development. The participation and involvement in standardization is regarded as significant support to the products and services of the company.
Benefits and standardization procedures unfamiliar
The decision-makers of those companies, which are uninvolved in standardization, represent most generally the field of planning, construction or contractors, preliminary industry or educational organizations. The enterprise is usually located in the metropolitan area or in the western part of Finland. The decision-maker of this uninvolved group normally works for a considerably smaller enterprise than decision-makers among the involved one.
Over 50 % of the respondents do not know that anyone can participate in standardization on an international or national level and the activity of the participation can be chosen by oneself. The majority of the respondents in this group do not know how it is possible, in practice, to access into standardization. They do not even know whether their competitors participate in standardization or not. The vast majority presume that their participation in standardization requires many resources. Most respondents consider that their organization has enough resources to follow the important standardization of their own operations. Meanwhile, about 50 % of respondents presume that their organization has enough resources for the participation of standardization on a national level.
Lastly, the vast majority consider that participating in standardization offers many benefits for the business of the company. Most of them know very little or only partly the benefits which can be obtained by standardization.