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Top1. Standards And Regulation: Is Non-Differentiating A Problem?
It is not uncommon for laypersons as well as professionals to talk about rules in an undifferentiated manner, for example, in the context of bureaucracy. Rules, among which customs, norms, regulations and standards guide human behavior (Baer, 2011, p. 277) “[These] terms (…) are often used indiscriminately (or at least interchangeably) and no agreed set of definitions exists.” (Carmona, 2017, p.6) Likewise, studies on effects of standards and regulation on innovation1, the setting of this article, often also do not distinguish the two – neither theoretically nor empirically (Hawkins & Blind, 2017, p. 5; Blind, Petersen & Riillo, 2017, p. 258). Is this a problem? Before continuing, let us illustrate lack of differentiation in this field by taking a closer look at the formal definition of standards (section 1.1) and at the UK version of the Community Innovation Survey, a data gathering tool used in high profile innovation research (section 1.2).
1.1 ISO/IEC Definition of Standard
One might expect formal standards bodies, under whose auspices standards are developed, to define standards in a way that sets them apart from regulation. The official international standardization bodies of ISO and IEC define a standard as:
(…) a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context. (ISO/IEC, 2016)
Table 1. Key elements of the ISO/IEC definition of standard applied to regulation
ISO/IEC definition of standards
Rules/ Institution | Rules, guidelines, characteristics for activities or their results | Documented | Consensus (negotiated agreement) | Approved by a recognized body | For common & repeated use | Aim: optimum degree of order in a given context |
| Standard | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Regulation | X | X | X | X | X | X |
However, examining the definition element by element standards do not differ significantly from regulation.2 See Table 1. Note that the demarcation problem exists specifically between standards and regulation. The ISO/IEC definition is not so general that it could encompass any rule-type. For example, a ‘de facto standard’ concerns a product or service that emerges from the market; it is not established by consensus and is not a priori meant to achieve an ‘optimum degree of order in a given context’; and a social norm, a cultural phenomenon, is typically not documented or explicitly ‘approved by a recognized body’.