3.1. Users of standards | EDU4Standards

Short instruction

Generally, there are two types of standard users: direct and indirect. Direct users are those who implement the standards – organizations or individuals who apply standards across a wide range of activities. Indirect users are those affected by the application of standards, such as consumers of products and services that comply with standards. Two aspects of standard users are receiving increased attention: the participation of indirect users in standards development and the influence of indirect users on the evolution of standards implementation. Standards are developed to be used, and a successful standard is one that is widely accepted in the market. Most experts involved in developing standards represent organizations that also implement them. However, the pool of direct users of standards (those who implement them) is larger than the pool of those who develop them. Gaining insight into the users of standards could be pivotal in understanding the needs of a particular standard. Yet, identifying who uses specific standards is not straightforward. Formal standardisation bodies do not collect data on who uses the standards, how they are used, or under what conditions.

The ILOs examples

K6.1., K6.2., K7.1.

Recommended Teaching Case studies/Serious games/Оther

1. Case study

Case Study: Why do we use QWERTY| You're Doing it Wrong! Episode 5 | BBC Ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watchtiv=AB9-qdPO1Eg

2. NSB material

Many NSBs provide free access to standards to educational institutions.
Please contact your NSBs for more details, the complete list of the European NSBs can be found here: https://sbs-sme.eu/standards-and-smes/standardisation-bodies/

Good practice

To increase understanding of the role and power of users of standards the case on QWERTY keyboard can be used. The same case can be used for other topics too. The case QWERTY keyboard is good for explaining concepts installed base (in standardisation), dominant design, lock-in, and bandwagon effect.

Recommended sources

If you are new to the topic, the basics can be found at:

https://hsbooster.eu/training-academy/users-standards

Other sources on the installed base:

Farrell, J., & Saloner, G. (1986). Installed base and compatibility: Innovation, product preannouncements, and predation. The American Economic Review, 940-955.
Kauffman, R. J., & Techatassanasoontorn, A. A. (2005). Does one wireless standard promote faster growth?. In Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science, Waikoloa, HI. IEEE Computing Society Press Los Alamitos, CA.
Schilling, M. (1999). Winning the standards race: Building installed base and the availability of complementary goods. European Management Journal, 17(3), 265-274.
Wang, S., Zheng, Y., & Wang, Q. (2023). Technical standardisation and total factor productivity in innovation-driven development: Evidence from China. Plos one, 18(10), e0287109.
Zoo, H., de Vries, H. J., & Lee, H. (2017). Interplay of innovation and standardisation: Exploring the relevance in developing countries. Technological forecasting and social change, 118, 334-348.

Other sources on the dominant design:

Abdelkafi, N., Bekkers, R., Bolla, R., Rodriguez-Ascaso, A., & Wetterwald, M. (2021).
Understanding ICT Standardisation: Principles and Practice, ETSI 2021, URL: https://www.etsi.org/images/files/Education/Textbook_Understanding_ICT_Standardisation.pdf, 2nd Edition, Chapters 3 and Chapter 5.
Brem, A., Nylund, P. A., & Schuster, G. (2016). Innovation and de facto standardisation: The influence of dominant design on innovative performance, radical innovation, and process innovation. Technovation, 50, 79-88.
Brem, A., & Nylund, P. (2022). The inertia of dominant designs in technological innovation: An ecosystem view of standardisation. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 71, 2640-2648.
Costabile, C., Iden, J., & Bygstad, B. (2022). Building digital platform ecosystems through standardisation: an institutional work approach. Electronic Markets, 32(4), 1877-1889.
Fernández, E., & Valle, S. (2019). Battle for dominant design: A decision-making model. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 25(2), 72-78.
Murmann, J. P, Frenken, K. (2006). Toward a systematic framework for research on dominant designs, technological innovations, and industrial change, Research Policy, Vol. 35, pp. 925–952.

Other sources on the lock-in phenomenon:

Gillette, C. P. (1998). Lock-in effects in law and norms. BUL Rev., 78, 813.
Haoqi, Q., Libo, W., & Weiqi, T. (2017). “Lock-in” effect of emission standard and its impact on the choice of market-based instruments. Energy Economics, 63, 41-50.
Kim, J. E., & Tang, T. (2020). Preventing early lock-in with technology-specific policy designs: The Renewable Portfolio Standards and diversity in renewable energy technologies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 123, 109738.
Miller, J. S. (2006). Standard setting, patents, and access lock-in: RAND licensing and the theory of the firm. Indiana Law Review, 40, 2007-6.
Opara-Martins, J., Sahandi, R., & Tian, F. (2014, November). Critical review of vendor lock-in and its impact on adoption of cloud computing. In International conference on information society (i-Society 2014) (pp. 92-97). IEEE.
Unruh, G. C. (2000). Understanding carbon lock-in. Energy policy, 28(12), 817-830.