The literature on the ISO standards is multidisciplinary and scattered around a broad collection of journals, making it near-impossible to get an overview of what we do and do not know about Management Systems Standards.

This monograph fills that gap by providing an integrated perspective on the entire body of academic literature related to ISO 9000, ISO 14000, and related standards. The aim is to provide an overview of the academic empirical literature on ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and related management systems standards to improve the quality, relevance and coherence of that literature.

The authors provide an overview of the design, governance and evolution of the ISO 9000 and 14000 standards. They then offer a very short chronological overview of the evolution of research into ISO management standards. The monograph contains a section ""about this monograph,"" which provides details about the methodology we followed, and refers to the intended audience and novelty of the work.