ASQ Influential Voices - July

July post “The Intersection of Quality and Social Responsibility”

Paul Borawski, ASQ CEO

A company that has child work but has very good quality products, is a company with quality? In my opinion, and I think for all the readers, no. Thus, nowadays we cannot only control the quality of our products but also we should be concerned about the environmental impacts, the social responsibility principles, the safety of our workers, among others. Only in that situation we can state that our company is a company with Quality, in a global perspective of the concept!

In a research project that I have been involved in Portugal related to social responsibility issues, we have found evidence that according to a large number of Portuguese managers that belong to organizations with a certified management system, stakeholders’ satisfaction is significantly higher when a social responsibility programme is present, as suggested by Freeman’s stakeholder theory.

It is important that our companies become more concern about all these issues and not only be focused in the quality of their products, in order to satisfy all the stakeholders involved in the business.

References

Fonseca, L., Ramos, A., Rosa, A., Braga, A.C., Sampaio, P., “Impact of social responsibility programs in stakeholder satisfaction: an empirical study of Portuguese managers perceptions”, Journal of US-China Public Administration, Vol.9, Nº5, pp. 596-590, 2012.