ISO 9000 effect on return on investment, market share, sales growth, better sales margins and competitive advantage," "taking a quality approach is unrelated to ISO 9000 registration." In fact, ISO itself advises that ISO 9001 can be implemented without certification, simply for the quality benefits that can be achieved. Abrahamson argues that fashionable management discourse such as Quality Circles tends to follow a lifecycle in the form of a bell curve, possibly indicating a management fad. Pickrell argues that ISO systems merely gauge whether the processes are being followed. It does not gauge how good the processes are or whether the correct
International Standard Book Number on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967, based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) created in 1966. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108 (the SBN code can be converted to a ten-digit ISBN by prefixing it with a zero digit "0"). Privately published books sometimes appear without an ISBN. The International ISBN agency sometimes assigns such books ISBNs on its own initiative. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number