Individual Participation in Standards Setting

Abstract

Since standardization is essential and additionally has organizational effects, studying motivation for participating in the standardization processes is important. A phenomenological study of descriptions made by individual participants in project teams for geographical information at the Swedish Standards Institute, SIS, was conducted 2016-2017. The study indicated that participants were motivated, but there were different motivators depending on the participants' differing contexts. For most participants, the main personal meaningful goal was to be at the forefront of development. For participants employed by organizations with frequent interactions with stakeholders, the main personal meaningful goal was to satisfy the stakeholders' needs. This study also showed that several members felt that they do not have sufficient time for working with standardization asks due to the fact that their daily work in their organizations often has higher priority in relation to standardization work. This may slow down the development of standards and other publications due to lack of resources.