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Corporate responsibility is the next step in quality management
Corporate responsibility is still a somewhat poorly understood concept, especially in smaller companies. The aim of Ville Pesola's thesis was to develop an understanding of the links between quality management and corporate responsibility. The research suggests that a management system that meets the requirements of ISO 9001 promotes CSR. Corporate responsibility can be seen as the next step in the evolution of quality management.
Ville Pesola, a Master of Business Administration graduate from the Master of Business Administration programme in Responsible Business, became interested in the links between corporate responsibility and quality management and decided to explore the topic further. For the Pro thesis, he approached SK Protect Oy, a Finnish company specialising in safety, quality and management.
The survey provides a deeper understanding of the current state of corporate governance
Pesola examined the topic through the literature on quality management, corporate responsibility and the links between the topics. The qualitative research material consisted of a review of the management system of an ISO 9001 certified company and related individual and group interviews. The study was designed to gain a better understanding of the current state of corporate governance and a more precise idea of what should be completed from a corporate responsibility perspective.
A governance system that promotes accountability
According to the study, a management system that complies with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 promotes corporate responsibility, especially through activities related to the structure of operations, processes and a culture of continuous improvement. "By defining processes and continuous improvement, risks of unethical operations can be managed and prevented, as ethical standards have been defined for operations, the processes and those responsible for them have been described and operations are also critically monitored," Pesola says. However, quality management or an ISO 9001 certified management system alone does not guarantee the full implementation of responsible behaviour. "The perspective on the impact of the company and stakeholder interaction is narrower than in CSR practices," he continues.
Leveraging the links between quality management and corporate responsibility for leadership development
Quality management can help in blurring the ambiguity and strategic integration of CSR. Especially for smaller organisations, CSR appears to be a "bogeyman" whose benefits are difficult to perceive and which is challenging to integrate strategically into the company's activities. CSR can provide the tools for pursuing the kind of quality proposed in the recent literature on quality management. The literature on CSR provides comprehensive tools for considering economic, social and environmental impacts from different perspectives. According to Pesola, a management system can make CSR more concrete, since quality management and CSR involve similar structures and practices: - Quality management can help organisations to promote a range of responsible practices. I encourage smaller companies in particular to start by building a quality management system that provides the backbone for responsible behaviour. For those organisations already using quality management, I would advise them to look at their own activities through the lens of CSR, which helps to highlight good practices and also shows where there is room for improvement in terms of sustainability.
Published on
Doing the right things right - the links between corporate responsibility and quality management: the case of SK Protect Oy. SK Protect. Faculty of Management and Economics, University of Tampere, 2021, to be published in autumn 2021.