Organizational Structure And Standard Development Procedures Of standard Development Organizations——Comparative Research Based On Domestic And Foreign Perspectives

This paper takes the typical foreign standard development organizations IEEE, ASTM, W3C, and IETF as examples to analyze the characteristics of organizational structure and standard developing procedures. These four organizations are typical representative of foreign SDOs which can be divided into two categories, one is represented by IEEE and ASTM which are legal entities and their standardization organization structure and standard development procedures are relatively fixed. The other is represented by W3C and IETF, which are relatively loose and open and their standardization organizations and standard development process are more flexible. At the same time, this paper also selects the top ten social organizations that are active on the Chinese national information platform of social organization standard. Compared with foreign social organizations, it is found that their standardization organization structures are not transparent enough and too concentrated. It also found that the standard development process of Chinese social organization is relatively simple and lack of innovation.


IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
is the world's largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology with an active portfolio of nearly 1,300 standards [1] .

standard development procedure of ASME
The ASTM standard development process mainly includes the following stages, which are suggestions, proposal, standard drafting, subcommittee balloting, main committee balloting, standards committee approval, approval and release [3] .

Interaction between IEEE standardization organization and process
In ASTM the approval of ASTM standard item suggestion shall be decided by vote of the sub-technical committee. Working group will draft the standards. After the standard is drafted, there will vote in both subcommittee and main committee. Then COS determines that the procedural requirements of the Society have been satisfied and the standard will be published by ASTM. Cooperation of various institutions during the development of ASTM standards are listed as Figure II.

standard development procedure of W3C
The procedure of W3C's recommendation consists of six stages, which are Working Draft, Candidate Recommendation, Proposed Recommendation, W3C Recommendation.

Interaction between W3C standardization organization and process
W3C's recommendations are developed in a way that is similar to the standard development process of a traditional standards organization, which should be gained consensus at each maturity levels. But unlike the traditional standards develop process the W3C's is more flexible. During the development of W3C recommendations, if Working Groups or Advisory Committees recommend that standards require further review or modification, the process may even return to the previous stage, which is listed as Figure III   It is open to any interested individual [5] . The interaction between IETF standardization organization and process is as Figure  IV [6] . Figure IV. Interaction between IETF standardization organization and process

Interaction between W3C standardization organization and process
Most of IETF's standardization work is done on email lists. In the process of IETF' standard track, with the change of practice, the stages of different maturity levels will be constantly discussed and modified, and the whole standard may be overturned and restarted.  Table I. On the other hand, W3C and IETF standardization organizations structure are flatter and generally have a large number of working groups which have their own charters to manage the standardization job. Due to the openness of the Internet, membership of such organizations is more flexible. There is even no formal membership in IETF and no physical headquarter W3C. In IETF anyone can register and attend any meeting. In IETF Working Groups are typically created with a charter that describes the specific problem or deliverables (a guideline, standards specification, etc.)

Characteristics of standard development procedures
The standard development process of IEEE and ASTM is relatively stable, and are one-way propulsion. Standard item can be pushed to a higher stage after reaching consensus according to the established procedure requirements. The W3C and IETF have a more flexible standards development process, probably because both of them work in the field of Internet where there are more open, loose and flexible. During its standard development process, the communications are often carried out on Internet or email. In these SDOs, even if the standard item has advanced to a higher level, it can still be return back to a former status when the requirement is not satisfied.

standardization organization is lack of Transparency
Foreign social organizations own their own official websites, on which they publish detailed information on their standardization work to ensure that their work is open and transparent. In terms of ten social organizations in China, six social organizations have official websites, on which information related standardization work is disclosed. The four social organizations without official websites are: Shenyang Citizens' Education Association, ZhongGuancun Material Testing Technology Alliance, Zhejiang Product and Engineering Standardization Association, and Standardization Association of Shandong. It concludes that the social organizations registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the State Council are relatively more orderly and transparent, which can be seen from the fact that they have established their own official websites and disclosed relevant information on them. But the transparency and normativity of local social organizations need to be improved. Even for the above-mentioned social organizations that have established official websites, the various regulations of standardized work opened on their official websites are still not very detailed and comprehensive, which mainly manifested in the lack of soundness of the operation mechanism of the standardized management of social organizations, the simplified standard-setting procedure and poor operability of standards, and incomplete organizations of standardization and working mechanisms, etc [8] [9] .

Standardization organization structures is concentrated
From the perspective of these 10 social organizations, there is a standardization administration department within each social organization, although the name of these departments may be different, which may be standardization committee/standardization work committee/standardization management committee/technical standards department, etc. However, under these departments, there is no special branch according to specific work. In fact, standardization work involves procedures, intellectual property rights, appeal, etc. Each needs a different background of knowledge and expertise. All the work is concentrated at one department, which will lead to chaos and unprofessional work [10] . On the one hand, the untransparent of the Standardization organization structure is due to the lack of working principles and methods of standardization by social organizations which leads to an imperfect structure of their standardization organizations [11] .

The management level of standardization is low
In these 10 social groups, there is a standardization management department within each social organization. However, these departments are not professional in the management of standardization work, which is reflected in the fact that the main responsibility of these departments is to approval the proposal and review of the standard items. It is obvious that the working mechanism of these departments is too simple [12] . The low management level of standardization management organizations indicates that the level of social organizations standardization in China is low and the management ability is not high.

The standard development procedure is relatively simple
In term of the standard development procedure documents of these 10 social organizations it is obvious that the procedures are relatively simple, most of which are principled provisions on the development process and lack of practical details requirements. Most of the requirements that should be met when the standard is promoted from low-level stage to high-level stage are voting requirement, lack of requirements on technology and maturity, insufficient clarity on the membership, etc.

The standard development procedure is lack of innovation
According to the standard development procedures of these 10 social organizations, they basically follow the process of project proposal, drafting, common comment, technical review, approval, publication and review. These procedures are similar to those of a formal standards development organization. Actually social organization standards are often oriented to the rapid change of market demands and innovation that social organizations in some innovative could try to set up more flexible procedure of standard development.

Conclusion
Standardization organization structure and standard development procedure are important mechanisms to carry out standardization work. From the domestic and foreign cases, there is no two social organizations with the same standardization organizations structure and standard development procedure. However, the principles of openness, transparency and fairness should be met no matter how the standardization organizations structure and standard development procedure are set. Due to its long development history, there are several social organizations with international influence abroad. Those foreign social organizations work in different ways to meet their different development requirements.
Throughout China, due to the short development course most social organizations are lack of standardization work experience. The standardization organization structure is concentrated and low management level. The standard development procedure is relatively simple and the procedure pattern is single and lacks the innovation.