University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 2, Essen 45141, Germany.
Hochschule Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Duisburger Str. 100, Mülheim an der Ruhr 45479, Germany.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Sep 1;635:375-389. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.347. Epub 2018 Apr 24.
Given the significance of wastewater treatment and disposal for society and the economy together with the omnipresence of standards in the sector, we studied the development and prospects of the rules governing standardization in the German municipal wastewater sector. We thereby provide a detailed description of sector-specific committee-based standardization and significantly contribute to the understanding of this complex arena. We find that the German Association for Water Wastewater and Waste (DWA) has significantly improved its rules on standardization over time by aligning them closer to the generally accepted superordinate standardization principles. However, by focusing on theoretical findings of committee decision-making and committee composition, we argue that there is still scope for improvement with respect to rule reading and rule compliance. We show that the incentives at work in standardization committees are manifold, whereas the representation of the different stakeholder groups needs' remains unbalanced. Due to vested interests and potential strategic behavior of the various agents involved in standardization rule compliance does not necessarily happen naturally. To this end, we claim that the implementation of monitoring mechanisms can be a significant contribution to the institutional design of standardization and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different schemes. Finally, we show that there is ample need for future research on the optimal design of such a scheme. Even though the analysis relates specifically to the DWA our claims apply to a wide range of standards development organizations.
鉴于废水处理和处置对社会和经济的重要性以及该领域标准的普遍存在，我们研究了德国市政废水领域规范标准化的发展和前景。我们从而详细描述了基于特定部门的委员会标准化，并为理解这一复杂领域做出了重要贡献。我们发现，德国水废水和废物协会（DWA）通过更紧密地遵循普遍接受的上级标准化原则，随着时间的推移，其标准化规则得到了显著改善。然而，通过关注委员会决策和委员会组成的理论发现，我们认为在规则解读和规则遵守方面仍有改进的空间。我们表明，标准化委员会中的激励因素是多方面的，而不同利益相关者群体的代表性仍然不平衡。由于既得利益和潜在的战略行为，参与标准化规则遵守的各个代理机构并不一定会自然而然地这样做。为此，我们主张实施监测机制可以为标准化的制度设计做出重大贡献，并简要讨论不同方案的优缺点。最后，我们表明，需要对这种方案的最佳设计进行充分的未来研究。尽管分析具体涉及 DWA，但我们的主张适用于广泛的标准制定组织。
