INFLUENCE OF QUALITY INFRASTRUCTURE ON REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Quality infrastructure is developed on state level and covers standardization, accreditation, metrology and certification. It is a "hard" part of quality infrastructure. On the regional level there are "soft" factors such as quality level in organizations, education and training level, state support and so on. The key role of quality infrastructure is to be a basis for all quality improvement actions on lower i.e. organizational levels. It is also a basis for regional development. The influence of quality infrastructure on regional development has not been investigated enough, especially in transition states. That serves as motivation to the authors trying to define an integrative model of quality infrastructure and regional development. This model is partially verified in Bosnia and Hercegovina, being an example of transition economy. A part of the research has been presented in the paper.