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ISO 9001 can offer users substantial management benefits. For developing country firms, this standard could offer both important management improvements and serve as a quality signal to foreign suppliers and potential buyers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of ISO 9001 on food manufacturing firms in Guyana.

A multiple case study approach, using interviews with multiple managers, was used to assess the impacts of ISO 9001 in six registered and non-registered firms.

ISO 9001 offers supply chain management benefits. Non-registered firms reported using the standard to formalize their monitoring procedures and improve planning, sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery efficiency. Registration helped firms formalize their quality management systems; it provided guidance on improving their customer/supplier relationships, and offered tools to monitor internal processes. Registered and non-registered firms reported increased customer satisfaction, market share and inventory turnover, and reduced lead times, rework, waste, and customer complaints.

The number of cases examined in this study is limited. Interview data are based on managers’ perceived experiences; it was not possible to verify this information independently.

The paper examines management benefits of adopting an international quality management standard in developing country agrifood firms.

The purpose of this research is to explore the views of individuals responsible for quality assurance in Hong Kong (HK) food and beverage companies with regards to their acceptance or rejection of the ISO 9000 quality management system or HACCP food safety system standards, along with the reasoning underlying such views. Thirty Hong Kong food or beverage manufacturing companies were approached and in‐depth interviews in the form of surveys were conducted with 11 companies. Participating companies included companies that had implemented both the ISO 9000 and HACCP standards, companies that had implemented only ISO 9000 or HACCP, and a company that had implemented neither. Half of the companies that participated in this study were large companies with 500 or more employees. The use of ISO 9000 was reported to improve the maturity of other quality systems. The use of HACCP was reported to improve the maturity of other food safety systems. While more companies used HACCP than the ISO 9000 standard to comply with customers’ requirements, the difficulties in the training of staff and added costs for documentation/data storage were reported as common to both standards.

This study explored the experiences of quality professionals with the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system in the food industry in Canada. Similarities and differences between HACCP and ISO 9000 quality management systems were also highlighted. In this study, qualitative research was undertaken with selected medium to large‐sized food manufacturing companies. In‐depth telephone interviews were performed with quality professionals to allow the researcher the opportunity to elicit expertise and experience that are unique to the respondent. While the study was designed to be exploratory in nature and to form the basis for future research, several themes were identified. First, all companies used HACCP in conjunction with other internal programs such as product testing and supplier qualification to ensure product quality. Second, all companies perceived internal auditing as a way to ensure the quality programs. Finally, companies that had implemented both HACCP and ISO 9000 mentioned two main obstacles, i.e. resistance to change and fear of documentation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new measure for organization health. It is proposed that the Donohue tripartite paradigm model can be used to pierce the veneer of the satisficing account to identify the moral appraisal stakeholders have made of corporate strategies based on external (i.e. economic, etc.) standards.

A cognitive mapping process through narratives is used to operationalize a tripartite paradigm framework to measure human capital. An existential‐phenomenological approach is adopted to ensure the figural integrity of data.

This paper can be viewed as the prototypical development phase for a methodology to support future real‐time ethical inquiry concerning social responsibility within the corporate world.

The tripartite paradigm model expressed by Donohue was intended for “real‐time” application. This study, however, proposed a retrospective analysis of stakeholder decision‐making within a firm as a means of unearthing any deficiencies that might block the operationalization of Donohue's generalist theory.

This appraisal can identify the conflict of conscience that characterizes a stakeholder's “lived‐worlds” based on their participation and exposure to company decision making. This diagnostic tool can assist stakeholders in identifying evidence of decline early enough in the history of an organization for proactive remedial action to be taken.

It is the hope of this study that the proposed cognitive mapping process can derive a measure of organizational health through an existential‐phenomenological approach to ensure the integrity of the data. Ultimately, the aim is that this will be a tool that can explore the phenomenon of misrepresentation and its effect on social cooperation within a market culture.

The purpose of this study is to determine the criteria used by members of the textile and apparel chain to select overseas vendors. Of specific interest is the value (if any) of ISO 9000 registration, i.e. whether Canadian apparel buyers are influenced by such registration, and whether there are determinants of how buyers respond to registration when selecting vendors.

A list of 16 criteria used by textile and apparel buyers to select overseas vendors was generated based on the literature, in‐depth interviews, and content analysis of a major industry publication. The criteria were tested for importance by use of a survey of representatives of the textile‐apparel supply chain in Canada.

Criteria relating to a vendor's flexibility and responsiveness were most important. Registration to a quality program such as ISO 9000 was not considered important nor did it seem to give an overseas vendor a business advantage over its domestic non‐registered counterpart. Two factors, category of apparel firm and the firm's use of quality programs, were potential determinants of favorable responses to registration.

This study furthers the understanding of importer behavior and overseas vendor selection criteria as well as the importance of ISO 9000 registration to buyers in the soft goods industries.

The purpose of this study is to explore the broad issues related to business excellence and the application of such programs.

In brief, this study investigated the use of business excellence programs including the use of the ISO 9000:2000 series of standards, by Canadian organizations. The results of a national survey on the use of business excellence programs are reported.

The use of business excellence programs by Canadian organizations appears to be related to the size and location of the organization. Organization size and location also appear to be related to the sequence in which businesses choose to implement various components of business excellence as well as the difficulty they experience with that implementation. There may be differences in the use of business excellence programs between organizations within different industry sectors, and those with different organizational structures. Finally, the use of business excellence programs was found not to affect organizations' self‐reported level of excellence.

The results of this study have implications for government policy makers who seek to better support businesses, quality program administrators, and business practitioners.

The objective of this study was to explore the use of auditing as a tool for continual improvement in the meat industry of Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Participants in the study represented the supply chain and included federal slaughterhouses, federal processors of ready‐to‐eat meat products, government agencies involved in auditing and inspection, and the retail sector involved in the auditing of meat facilities. Using in‐depth interviews, the extent of auditing and its implementation on the continual improvement process were explored. Auditing activities were conducted as required for government recognition, retailer approval, and the facility's maintenance of its Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) programme. Correction of deviations identified during audits led to continual improvement activities. However, only two of the participants described secondary quality management schemes that linked auditing with continual improvement.

ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 were created as a “consistent pair” of standards so that businesses that wanted to exceed the requirements of 9001 could use the principles of 9004 to move towards business excellence. In this paper, opinions from Canadian quality standardization experts were used to explore the needs of business against what is offered by ISO 9004 and to assist in the comparison of ISO 9004 with common business excellence models. The ISO 9004 (2000) document was perceived as needed, and as holding great potential. Suggestions for realizing that potential ranged from the inclusion of more guidance on specific business processes (for example complaints handling) to the incorporation of material that links ISO 9004 with industry‐specific standards, awards and/or general business programs. With modification, the document was seen as being able to make a valuable contribution to an organization's business excellence strategy. Without some form of recognition and/or award as offered by other business excellence models, however, the amount of usage ISO 9004 will receive is questionable.

Little attention has been paid to how quality management systems (QMSs) are optimized by supportive employee behavior. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of the literature on the inclusion of human factors in the ISO 9000 family of standards, identify deficiencies in the standard's current treatment of these issues, and offer recommendations on how human resources (HRs) can be better integrated into these business management standards.

This concept paper presents a survey of both academic and practitioner literature on the topic of HR and its treatment in quality standards. The focus is restricted to consideration of human factors that are specifically identified in the ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9004:2009 standards.

ISO 9001 and 9004 include some HR topics, but their treatment is insufficient to meet the demands of today's business environment. The recent addition to the ISO 9000 family, ISO 10018 – Quality Management – Guidelines on People Involvement and Competence (ISO, 2012b) will help to address the deficiency if adopted by the marketplace. To improve the usefulness of ISO 9000 standards, the breadth of human factors should be enhanced both extensively to include components of workplace culture and work design and intensively to require more rigorous treatment of the HR considerations already included in the standards.

There is a need for more comprehensive consideration of human contributions to quality if organizations are to optimize the value they receive from their HR and their investment on the ISO 9001 QMS.

The limited references linking HR and the ISO 9000 series of standards have focussed upon how human factors contribute (or not) to the successful use of the ISO 9000 standards. In contrast, this paper offers a comprehensive and integrative examination of how the ISO 9000 QMS standards could more comprehensively and effectively incorporate HR into a firm's practices.