Monday, April 9, 2018 | 2:00pm-3:30pm | Room 337, HSBC Business School Building

Abstract

Standards play a crucial role in the cooperation and connectivity of countries and economic zones. The One Road One Belt (OBOR) Initiative is in need to implement a “standards strategy” – key part of which has been described in the “Action Plan to connect OBOR through standardization”. This paper aims to link the learnings from the broad literature on ISO management systems standards with the strategies that are discussed in the Action Plan. The empirical evidence is drawn from the most credible studies in the field (summarized in the research monograph by the author; Castka and Corbett, 2015) and this is supported by the data on standards adoption, standards development participation and GDP data from the OBOR countries. This empirical basis serves as a platform for a discussion on standards development, adoption of standards and the development of accreditation and certification infrastructure for the OBOR initiative.