Several studies highlight the economic benefits of standards, while the benefit of taking part in standardization remains a rather unexplored mystery to date. In theory, standard setters not only benefit from the possibility to monitor and shape the development of standards but also access a wide range of knowledge sources in the standards committee. Therefore, we investigate how the participation within formal standardization is related to the performance of 1561 German companies. A Cobb-Douglas production function is estimated in order to use the Solow-residuals as indicator for the firm performance. Participation within formal standardization is measured by the number of committee seats at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). Our results suggest that participation within formal standardization is positively related to firm performance in the manufacturing sector. In the service sector, no clear evidence for such a relationship is found. This finding also holds true when we test if a service providers' intellectual property is well protected through patents.

The paper aims to identify factors influencing the service providers' decision to participate in formal standardization at national standards bodies. The paper develops firm- and industry-specific hypotheses and tests them based on a sample of 5,812 Dutch service providers of which 174 actively participated in the Dutch standards body NEN. Our results reveal that company size, export activities, internal R&D and innovation activities are positively related to the service provider's likelihood to participate in formal standardization. Additionally, the service industry and the service type are related to the propensity to standardize. The analysis is limited to Dutch companies' involvement at the Dutch standards body and does not consider their engagement in standardization consortia. The paper combines a large and representative sample of service companies with information about service companies' engagement in standardization for the first time. The findings reveal specific characteristics of service companies active in standardization, which allow the derivation of management and policy implications

Several studies highlight the economic benefits of standards, while the benefit of taking part in standardization remains a rather unexplored mystery to date. In theory, standard setters not only benefit from the possibility to monitor and shape the development of standards but also access a wide range of knowledge sources in the standards committee. Therefore, we investigate how the participation within formal standardization is related to the performance of 1561 German companies. A Cobb-Douglas production function is estimated in order to use the Solow-residuals as indicator for the firm performance. Participation within formal standardization is measured by the number of committee seats at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). Our results suggest that participation within formal standardization is positively related to firm performance in the manufacturing sector. In the service sector, no clear evidence for such a relationship is found. This finding also holds true when we test if a service providers' intellectual property is well protected through patents.

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