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Reports on a survey relating to the ongoing search for understanding of impediments to the more comprehensive and more rapid adoption, by Australian manufacturing industry, of modern quality management practices. Of the 338 valid responses to the survey analysed, it appears that possibly only 10 per cent or less of the companies surveyed are “true” modern quality management practitioners. When extrapolated to manufacturing industry as a whole it is likely that the proportion of companies so qualified is much less than 10 per cent. Concludes that: Australian experience supports international evidence that those companies which implement modern quality management practices, in a comprehensive manner, achieve higher financial performance; the extent to which manufacturing companies in Australia have comprehensively implemented modern quality management practices is extremely limited (an estimated 2.5 per cent of 44.300 manufacturing companies would qualify in this respect); while no major impediments to the more extensive adoption of quality management practices have been identified through this survey, there are nevertheless likely to be some important barriers to progress. These probably include: the limited perceptions Australian manufacturing companies have of the processes required to achieve world best practices: the belief that they have effective quality management practices in place; the mistaken view that accreditation under Australian Standards for Quality Systems guarantees continuous improvement.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which global reporting initiative (GRI) standards reflect the material concerns of stakeholders in developing countries, with particular reference to Latin America.

The main dataset was a sample of 120 media articles that discussed corporate conduct related to COVID-19 from both developing (Chile, Mexico and Peru) and developed (Australia, UK and the USA) countries. Concerns evident from those articles were compared and then mapped to applicable GRI standards to identify relevant disclosures and gaps. Findings were triangulated by drawing on two additional datasets: Latin American GRI-related academic literature (in Spanish) and submissions to GRI standards.

Media analysis reveals significant differences between developing and developed country concerns, as well as gaps in GRI disclosure requirements in relation to customers, labour standards and corporate interactions with non-government organisations and governments. Analysis of Latin American literature corroborates the concerns raised in media articles regarding employment. Additionally, it points out country-specific issues and calls for increased reporting of corruption. Analysis of the GRI standards development process reveals marked underrepresentation of developing countries, which may contribute to the observed deficiencies in the GRI standards.

This paper contributes to the (surprisingly rare) research concerning the quality of GRI standards and responds to calls for greater attention to developing countries in the SEA literature by showing that GRI standards may not fully meet the needs of users in the developing country context of Latin America. The paper also contributes to practice via specific recommendations for improvement to GRI standards and the standard-setting process and provides a summary of the key findings from Spanish-language Latin American literature.