Iñaki Heras-Saizarbitoria

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at University of the Basque Country

Management system standards, also called meta‐standards, have been adopted by an increasing number of organizations across the world. Although these management system standards are based on the same type of management principles and institutional arrangements, the literature remains scattered, with diverse studies focused on specific standards and...

The Mondragon Cooperative Experience has been one of the worker-owned alternative organizations that has received the most attention in the academic world. Despite its economic success, this experience has also been wrought with its own share of tensions and internal paradoxes. Surprisingly, the perspective of worker–member–owners in the analysis o...

This article analyzes the influence of the sources of motivation that lead companies to adopt Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) on the outcomes of those systems. A set of hypotheses derived from an extensive review of the literature is analyzed using cluster analysis ― in order to identify groups of companies ― as well as correlation and regr...

This article presents an analysis of the opinions of assurance providers regarding the quality and the limitations of sustainability reports and their recommendations to improve them using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as a framework. The qualitative content analysis of 301 assurance statements for sustainability reports from mining and ene...

Over 1.5 million ISO 9001 certificates are in effect worldwide, 30 years after this quality management standard was launched. As the factory of the world, China is by far the leading country for ISO 9001, in terms of both absolute and relative numbers and growth. Nevertheless, practitioners have cast doubts on the reliability of adopting ISO third-...

With the expressed aim of reducing uncertainty and lack of precision about the Circular Economy paradigm, several standards are being proposed by standard-setting bodies. The world’s most prominent body — the International Organization for Standardization — is developing the ISO 59000 family of standards to establish a common language and conceptua...

Abstract With the expressed aim of reducing uncertainty and lack of precision about the Circular Economy paradigm, several standards are being proposed by standard-setting bodies. The world’s most prominent body — the International Organization for Standardization — is developing the ISO 59000 family of standards to establish a common language and...

Circular economy (CE) has attracted both media and academic interest. However, there is a lack of empirical work that clarifies the specific activities involved in CE at the firm level. To fill this gap, this article offers an analysis of how firms disclose information about their activities associated with CE, based on an extensive worldwide datas...

In the last two decades there has been a growing contribution to environmental and social accounting from the Spanish and Latin American academic community, both in Spanish and in English - the dominant language in the production and dissemination of this type of specialised academic knowledge. In this extensive academic production, the one related...

This study aims to analyze the role of cross‐cultural differences between Indigenous communities and extractive organizations with regard to the sustainability measures these organizations employ. Although Indigenous communities are important stakeholders, especially in remote areas where extractive organizations are mainly located, these organizat...

This article analyzes the organizational engagement with the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), an initiative for corporate social responsibility also referred to as the 2030 Agenda. Engagement with the SDGs by organizations all around the world, whatever their sector and size, has attracted a lot of media interest and heightened...

This article analyzes the role of quality management in the internalization of environmental practices. A qualitative study based on interviews with 35 practitioners was conducted in three African countries (Cameroon, Senegal, and Ivory Coast). The results highlight the contrasting roles played by the main reference model for quality management—Int...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the practices, challenges and ethical issues underlying the fabric and dissemination of corporate sustainability ratings. Design/methodology/approach Based on 36 semi-structured interviews with sustainability rating practitioners, the study shows the trade-offs, ethical judgments and customizable asp...

The capability to manage the supply chain is a key issue in general management as well as green management. The topic has been widely discussed in the literature, however only few studies focused on how this capability could influence the effectiveness of certified Environmental Management Systems. To bridge this gap, we administered a survey with...

In the recent decades, forest certification based on third-party external audits has gained momentum. This type of certification has been developed as a monitoring tool aimed at improving governance in corporate environmental management and differentiating products in the increasing environmentally sensitive markets. Although the scholarly literatu...

This paper investigates the role of power distance and orality in the internalization of ISO 14001 in Africa. The data was collected from 35 semi-structured interviews with a set of relevant stakeholders: managers, employees, environmental coordinators/directors, consultants, and auditors in Cameroon, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. The results point to...

Résumé Les auteurs analysent la genèse de la norme ISO 45001 sur la sécurité et la santé au travail, une initiative de régulation transnationale privée. Ils décrivent les controverses qui ont surgi à cette occasion, en se fondant sur des entretiens avec des personnes associées à l'élaboration, l'approbation et la diffusion initiale du texte, ainsi...

Eco-efficiency is considered as a relevant practice for corporate sustainability as this concept addresses both environmental and economic issues. Similarly, eco-efficient indicators are seen as useful instrument for corporate environmental management. The literature has studied the use of eco-efficient indicators by companies from different sector...

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the extent to which health and safety action controls, results controls and informal controls affect the integration of health and safety issues into management actions, which in turn leads to improve health and safety performance. It also investigates the extent to which those health and safety control mechanisms...

This article analyzes the contribution of certifiable environmental management standards—such as ISO 14001 and the Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)—to corporate environmental performance. Based on a content analysis of 414 third‐party‐verified environmental statements from EMAS‐registered Spanish organizations, which included information for...

Resumen Este artículo analiza la génesis de la norma ISO 45001 sobre seguridad y salud en el trabajo, una nueva iniciativa de regulación privada transnacional. Resume los resultados de un trabajo de campo basado en entrevistas con actores involucrados en el diseño, aprobación y difusión inicial de la norma y de un análisis cualitativo de documentac...

This article analyzes the genesis of the ISO 45001 standard for Occupational Health and Safety, a new initiative of transnational private regulation. Based on interviews with stakeholders involved in its design, approval, and initial dissemination, together with a qualitative content analysis of the internal documentation of the committee responsib...

The article analyses governance difficulties at Fagor Electrodomésticos, for decades the world’s largest industrial cooperative, and sheds light on how the cooperative model and governance might have contributed to the firm’s bankruptcy. The case study examines how the cooperative model influenced the speed and quality of decision making. The roles...

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), also referred to as ride-sharing or app-based on-demand ride services, have gained momentum. The phenomenon has created debate in the media and faced heated reactions from the traditional taxi sector. Yet surprisingly, the phenomenon is still under-researched in the specialized scholarly literature on transp...

This article analyses the added value of IATF 16949 – a standard for quality management in the automotive sector – with respect to ISO 9001, the most popular standard for quality management worldwide. An exploratory qualitative study was carried out based on a multiple case study. Eight companies operating at different levels of the Spanish automot...

Voluntary certifiable environmental management standards such as ISO 14001 and EMAS have been extensively adopted and disseminated worldwide, but the rigorous assessment of the real effectiveness of these tools is challenging. There is a need for more research focused on the concrete operational implications for certified organizations. The analysi...

It should be noted that the relationship between economics and the environment has never previously featured as one of mankind’s primary or principal concerns. It presently does. The recent worldwide student mobilization for climate action, the Climate Change Congress in Paris (December 2015) or the dieselgate related to the scandals involving comp...

The adoption of voluntary environmental certifications such as ISO 14001 and Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) has gained momentum in the last two decades. The scholarly literature has analyzed in depth the performance implications of the adoption of these certificates. Yet the findings are scattered and inconclusive. This article aims to shed...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the professionalism and professionalization of sustainability assurance providers based on the experiences and perceptions of auditors involved in this activity. Design/methodology/approach The empirical study was based on 38 semi-directed interviews conducted with assurance providers from accounting...

The objective of this paper is to investigate how indigenous peoples’ involvement can improve the environmental management practices of organizations in the natural resource extraction sector. Based on a qualitative study and semi-structured interviews with 33 respondents, this study sheds more light on the environmental involvement of a particular...

The objective of this paper is to investigate, through a qualitative study based on 38 semi-structured interviews with agents who provide assurance of sustainability reports, how they perceive and manage ethical issues underlying the verification of sustainability reports. Most of the ethical issues observed involve four interconnected aspects: the...

City rankings, benchmarking and indexes are a global phenomenon as public and private institutions across the world foster city performance measures. These tools are allegedly useful to guide and evaluate policies implemented by local authorities in diverse fields, but are especially prominent in the field of sustainability. Nevertheless, there is...

Sustainability reporting has become a common practice and is generally considered to be positive. Yet, a growing body of scholarly literature has criticized the transparency and usefulness of this practice. The main objective of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the reliability of assurance statements for sustainability reports and th...

This article analyzes how organizations communicate their voluntary environmental management certification. Previous research suggests that firms use certification to signal and to create a better public image as one of their main objectives in adopting environmental management standards. How organizations communicate their certification to their s...

This article aims to analyze the adoption of FSC Chain of Custody certification scheme in connection with the adoption of the main general meta-standards (e.g.ISO certifiable standards), in a challenging context such as that faced by Romanian forestry companies. Using a questionnaire-based survey covering a large number of recently certified firms,...

The objective of this paper is to explore the initiatives for community engagement with indigenous people implemented by extractive organizations and their possible alignment with the integrative framework of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. A qualitative study based on 33 semi-directed interviews with practitioners and experts in manag...

The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee owne...

This paper presents an empirical examination of the role of employee involvement in the internalization of corporate biodiversity management. A qualitative study in natural resource companies was conducted, based on semi‐directive interviews with managers, consultants, and experts in this area. The findings show that employee involvement is essenti...

Integration of the management of energy and environmental systems was suggested by the scholarly literature in the early phase of dissemination of ISO 14001, as a potential way to improve the environmental performance of companies. Nevertheless, there has been little empirical work reported in the literature that explores this proposition in depth,...

This article presents a conceptual and empirical review of the literature related to the link between the different perspectives, models, and tools associated with Quality Management and Environmental Management. Several academic works identified in the literature that aimed to establish conceptual similarities between QM and EM are reviewed and di...

Introduction: The implications of OHSAS 18001 for substantive Occupational Health and Safety outcomes such, as a reduction in work accidents, have been under-researched in the scholarly literature. The impact of this standard on other aspects of performance, such as profitability and productivity, has attracted more attention. Method: This artic...

The objective of this article is to analyse the relationship between the internalisation of ISO 9000 standards and two measures of employee-level outcomes: Job Satisfaction (JS) and Affective Commitment (AC). The relationship has been analysed from the perspective of shop-floor employees, a perspective that have been under-researched in the scholar...

Community opposition is one of the key obstacles to the expansion of wind turbine developments. The scholarly literature has focused on public opinion on wind farms (WFs) and the level of community acceptance. The efforts of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), to gain community acceptance has been under-researched. To fill this gap, the presen...

Cooperative organizations that aim to foster the production and the consumption of renewable energy are flourishing all over the world. Nevertheless, the scholarly research about these organizations that promote renewable energy has been scattered and limited, especially in the case of countries that do not have a tradition of disseminating green e...

Spain exemplifies the development of renewable energy in general and photovoltaic solar energy in particular, influenced to a major extent by public regulation. Without suitable caution regarding the approaching world crisis, the regulatory framework gave rise to the fact that Spain would rank second worldwide in 2008 in terms of installed photovol...

The objective of this paper is to analyze the meaning, manifestations and practical implications of connectedness to nature in natural resources companies. This research is motivated by the lack of scholarly works aimed to analyze the organizational applications of the connectedness to nature concept. A qualitative and exploratory study based on se...

This study analyzes ‘hard’ (i.e. formal structures) and ‘soft’ (i.e. values) determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, such as the effectiveness of management systems for CSR and the role of managers' organizational citizenship behaviours. Based on a sample of 130 Italian organizations that adopted management systems accord...

In Spain recent changes in regulations concerning the renewal of residential buildings have marked a turning point in the way in which the renewal work on condominium housing is approached. However, the financial crisis of 2008 has depleted public administration coffers and family pockets alike, giving rise to a set of problem related to housing re...

In the past decade a stream of studies has analyzed the determinants of eco‐innovation. Four main clusters of drivers have been identified in the literature: “technology push,” “market pull,” “regulatory push‐pull,” and “firm specific factors.” Nevertheless, the empirical quantitative and comparative analysis of those clusters is rare, scattered an...

The process involved in the design, acceptance and launching of the ISO 45001 standard is turning out to be long and tortuous. It has been confirmed that, like its predecessors in the environmental (ISO 14001) and corporate social responsibility (ISO 26000) spheres of activity, this may prove to be conflictive as it deals with substantive social as...

This introductory chapter contains a general overview and a descriptive analysis of the dissemination of the two main global management system standards or metastandards—the ISO 14001 and the ISO 9001—on an international level. The first two global certifiable management system standards are presented, together with a descriptive analysis of the gl...

ISO/TS 16949 was launched in 1999 by the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) with the aim of harmonizing the diverse assessment and certification systems worldwide in the supply chain for the automotive sector. ISO/TS 16949 aimed to eliminate the need of the automotive suppliers for multiple sectoral certifications such as QS9000, VDA6 and E...

Several CSR certifiable meta-standards have been launched in recent decades but one of the most popular and widespread has been the SA8000 standard, as the ISO 26000 launched by ISO is not suitable for certification purposes (Hahn in Bus Strategy Environ 22:442–455, 2013). Indeed, in the scholarly literature, SA8000 has been considered to be one of...

This book is a comprehensive reference on ISO management system standards and their implementation. The impacts that ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 have had on business performance are analyzed in depth, and up-to-date perspectives are offered on the integration of these and other management standards (e.g. SA8000, ISO/TS 16949). Detailed information is pr...

This article analyzes the motivations, internalization challenges and outcomes of implementing certifiable standards for corporate biodiversity management. For this purpose, a qualitative study based on interviews with 39 environmental managers, auditors, consultants and other experts in the field was conducted. The findings show that the adoption...

Purpose This paper aims to identify the main dimensions that determine the ability of cities to compete as locations for business and hubs for investment which can help policymakers to manage and prioritize urban development strategies. Design/methodology/approach A composite indicator is proposed as a weighted aggregate of sub-indicators for th...

Corporate operations can have significant impacts on biodiversity. Nevertheless, the literature has overlooked the analysis of the organizational practices underlying corporate commitment to biodiversity. The objective of this article is to contribute to this under-researched issue by shedding light on the best practices of biodiversity conservatio...

Biodiversity conservation is increasingly integrated into the environmental management practices of organizations. Nevertheless, the literature has overlooked the analysis of the general motivations for and the organizational implications underlying corporate commitment to biodiversity. In order to fulfil this gap, the objective of this article is...

The generation and dissemination process of standards for corporate self-regulation had been a successful phenomenon in the last three decades. It’s a very complex phenomenon fostered by the pressure to adopt global supply chains and in the context of the inability on the part of governments to pursue public regulation in certain areas of activity...

The objective of this paper is to analyze the adoption and outcomes of the ISO 14001 standard through a systematic review of the main studies on this issue published in peer reviewed journals between 1996 and 2015. The 94 papers analyzed make it possible to paint a comprehensive picture of the effectiveness of ISO 14001 in environmental management...

The increasing pressures to conserve biodiversity ― particularly for industries based on the exploitation of natural resources ― have reinforced the need to implement specific measures in this area. Corporate commitment to preserving biodiversity is increasingly scrutinized by stakeholders and now represents an important aspect of business ethics....

¿Cuál es el propósito final de la investigación en dirección y gestión de empresas? ¿Tiene dicha investigación una base racional y rigurosa? ¿Es una investigación de calidad, relevante y arraigada en la realidad de los fenómenos observados? Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar estas y otras cuestiones interdependientes sobre la investigación...

This article analyzes the extent to which stakeholder pressure contributes to the CSR-washing phenomena and its impact on the organizational outcomes. To that end, this work analyzes the relationships involved using primary data obtained from a survey of 130 Italian organizations that have implemented the SA8000 international CSR standard. The arti...

The aim of this work is to analyse the process involving adoption of a corporate social responsibility initiative—the United Nations Global Compact—in a Spanish financial institution. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for such purpose with managers, workers and customers from this organisation. From the analysis carried out, it can be ascer...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to operationalize the concepts of total quality management (TQM) and market orientation (MO) and to analyze the relationship between them in a major economic sector of activity, namely, the social services sector. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes the aforementioned relationships by means of a quan...

An increasing number of organizations across the world have adopted Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) based on certifiable standards, notably the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and the ISO 14001 standards. Although the specialized literature has studied the motivations, obstacles and benefits of the adoption of these standard...

A trend toward conventional managerialism has been identified in cooperative organizations, and it has been suggested that this is a symptom of the phenomenon of degeneration in cooperatives. Although managerial discourse is at the heart of the dominant managerialism, not much attention has been given to this trend. To fill this gap in the literatu...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of the ISO 9001 Standard on organizational performance from a holistic theoretical perspective, using a mixed-method analysis. More specifically, the qualitative study considers the impact of the adoption of ISO 9001 on the general performance of certified companies. The quantitative study an...

The certification of Environmental Management Systems based on international meta-standards such as ISO 14001 and the Eco Management and Audit Scheme has become one of the most common environmental practices. Nevertheless, the financial and economic difficulties faced by many organizations raise the issue of certification renewal and may have an im...

Management system standards (MSSs), also called metastandards, are voluntary codes, guidelines, or processes used by organizations to formalize, systematize, and legitimize a very diverse set of managerial activities or tasks. MSSs have been adopted by an increasing number of organizations across the world, but this trend started within the quality...

The adoption of international standards for Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) has grown significantly over the last years. Following this successful path some other management standards which deal with environmental and energy management issues have been launched as well. This is the case of ISO 50001, a certifiable international standard to...

This article aims to analyze comparatively the economic efficiency of the investments to improve energy management that are carried out in industrial companies. To this end the case of the organizations that have adopted a ISO 50001 based Energy Management System is analyzed. In order to carry out the research a field work based on hybrid methodo...

The adoption of Environmental Management Systems standards such as ISO 14001 and EMAS has gained substantial momentum in the last decade. Nevertheless, the heterogeneous dissemination of these standards across various geographic areas and sectors of activities raises questions about their raison d’être and underlying motivations. Although the main...

Aligning global governance to the challenges of sustainability is one of the most urgent environmental issues to be addressed. This book is a timely and up-to-date compilation of the main pieces of the global environmental governance puzzle. The book is comprised of 101 entries, each defining a central concept in global environmental governance, pr...

In recent years, the implementation of quality management systems based on ISO 9001 has clearly gone beyond the traditional industrial and service subsectors. It has started to have a growing influence on some peripheral subsectors to the standard home market, such as those of health and social services. In this article, the influence of the main g...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of the motivation to adopt International Standards Organization (ISO) 9001 on both the internalization of the standard, namely the active day-to-day use of its main underlying practices, and the benefits obtained from its adoption. Similarly, the influence of the internalization on the...

Since 1987, ISO has created and published various management systems that can be adopted in a company. Known as meta-standards (Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2013), they are in many respects different from the technical standards or regulations, which provide the requirements that certain products or processes have to meet. To name a few of the m...

This article analyzes the dissemination of ISO 9001, the main global management standards, within Africa. The work refers to the diffusion of ISO 9001 standard in terms of its certification intensity. In this article, the dissemination of ISO 9001 in Africa has been analysed. The findings reveal that the diffusion of the standard in this continent...

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el proceso de adopción de una iniciativa de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (RSC), el Pacto Mundial de Naciones Unidas –UNGC-, en una entidad financiera española. Para tal fin se realizaron entrevistas semi-estructuradas con directivos, trabajadores y clientes de la entidad. Del análisis realizado se con...

Este artículo analiza la adopción del estándar de calidad ISO 9001 en el ámbito de los servicios residenciales para personas mayores, y examina también cuáles han sido las causas y consecuencias del abandono de la certificación de dicho estándar en aquellas organizaciones del sector que habían optado por él. Para tal fin, se recogen las principales...

This contribution resumes a work in progress aimed at analyzing the value of ISO 9001 as a third-party certificate for the global supply chain management. The work summarizes a case-study carried out in a Spanish manufacturing company operating in China, based on both in-depth interviews of managers, as well as on direct observation. From the preli...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the internalization of quality management (QM) on the basis of quality certifiable standards – also referred to as meta-standards – in service organizations. More specifically, the paper analyzes the case of the internalization of a quality standard in the Spanish hotel industry. Design/methodology...

Social acceptance, along with technical, economic and legal aspects, is a prerequisite for the successful adoption of renewable energies. Research into the social acceptance of the underlying implementation of different renewable energy technologies, such as grid connected photovoltaic solar, biomass and wind power plants, is increasingly gaining i...

Social acceptance, along with technical, economic and legal aspects, is a prerequisite for the successful adoption of renewable energies. Research into the social acceptance of the underlying implementation of different renewable energy technologies, such as grid connected photovoltaic solar, biomass and wind power plants, is increasingly gaining i...

Ekonomi eta enpresa-jardueran ekimen ugari izan dira azken hamar-kadetan ingurumenaren kudeaketari buruz. Kontzeptu horrekin izendatu nahi izan dira mota askotako ingurumen-jarduketak, esaterako, ekoizpen-prozesuen kontrola eta kudeaketa hobetzea, edota Ingurumena Kudeatzeko Sistema (IKS aurrerantzean) izenekoak ezartzea. IKSak ingurumenaren kudeak...

This article analyzes the adoption of ISO 9000 practices in manufacturing organizations from the perspective of the shop‐floor workers. For that purpose, extensive exploratory fieldwork based on both in‐depth interviews of employees, as well as on participant observation, was carried out in four Basque manufacturing organizations that have adopted...

This article analyzes the dissemination of the main global management standards, the ISO 9000, within the transition economies of the European Union (EU). In the article, the specific case of the Baltic States is analyzed in depth. The work refers to the diffusion of the ISO 9000 standard in the Baltic States in terms of its certification intensity...

The aim of this short contribution is to analyze the process of dissemination of the Total Quality Management paradigm. For that purpose, the􀀃evolution of the citation of some of the most prominent models, techniques and tools associated to the Total Quality Management paradigm in both the academic journals and in the general internet community is...

This study analyses the effects of audit fees and the clients' financial power on the independence of ISO 14001 auditors on the basis of a qualitative analysis of interviews with 36 professionals involved in the certification process. The results of the study demonstrate that most respondents support the legitimacy of the current remuneration syste...

e successful adoption of technologies is a complex social process. In other words, the design and implementation of technology is pa!erned not only by a range of ‘technical’, ‘organisational’ and ‘economic’ factors, but also by a range of ‘social’, ‘political’ and ‘cultural’ ones (Williams and Edge, 1996). Indeed, although it may very o"en be overl...

The objective of this paper is to explore the reasons underlying the frequent decoupling between the rhetoric and practice of ISO 9000, an internationally disseminated standard in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that entails formalization. For that purpose, extensive fieldwork based on 65 in-depth interviews of general managers, middle managers...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the similarities and differences between the benefits derived from implementing the ISO 9001 and the ISO 14001 standards. Methodology/Approach: The paper reviews the literature using an electronic search in the Science Direct, ABI/Inform, Emerald databases to identify papers focusing on the adoptio...

This article analyses the extent to which the ISO 14001 certification audit can be considered as an independent and rigorous process ensuring organizational conformance with the standard and improved environmental performance. Although the ISO 14001 certification process and external recognition are based on external audits, the rigor, focus and re...