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.

A graduate of the Master’s Program in Responsible Business, earning a Master of Science in Business Administration Ville Pesola He became interested in the connections between corporate responsibility and quality management and decided to explore the topic further. SK Protect Oy, a Finnish company specializing in safety, quality, and management, partnered with him on his master’s thesis.

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.

According to the study, a management system that complies with the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 standard promotes corporate responsibility, particularly through measures related to the structure of operations, processes, and a culture of continuous improvement. “By defining processes and pursuing continuous improvement, it is possible to manage and prevent the risks of unethical conduct, since ethical standards have been established for operations, the processes and the parties responsible for them have been described, and operations are also critically monitored,” Pesola explains. However, quality management or an ISO 9001-certified management system alone does not guarantee the comprehensive implementation of responsible business practices. “The perspective on examining a company’s impacts and stakeholder interactions is narrower than in corporate responsibility practices,” he continues.

Quality management can help dispel the ambiguity surrounding corporate social responsibility and facilitate its strategic integration. Corporate social responsibility seems to appear, especially to smaller organizations, as a “bogeyman” whose benefits are difficult to grasp and which is challenging to integrate strategically into a company’s operations. Corporate social responsibility can provide tools for pursuing the kind of quality proposed in recent literature on quality management. The literature on corporate social responsibility offers comprehensive tools for considering economic, social, and environmental impacts from various perspectives. According to Pesola, a management system can give concrete form to the concept of corporate responsibility as a whole, since quality management and corporate responsibility share similar structures and operating methods. – Through quality management, organizations can promote many responsible practices. I especially encourage smaller companies to start by building a high-quality management system that serves as the backbone for responsible operations. For organizations already using quality management, I would advise them to examine their own operations through the lens of corporate responsibility, as this helps highlight good practices and also reveals areas for improvement regarding sustainability.

Doing the Right Things Right—The Links Between Corporate Responsibility and Quality Management: The Case of SK Protect Oy. Master’s thesis. Faculty of Management and Economics, University of Tampere, 2021. To be published in the fall of 2021.

Miia Laakso, Business Director SK Protect Oy +358 40 0602 363 protect Ville Pesola, HSEQ Coordinator SK Protect Oy +358 44 491 4684 protect