Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of ISO26000 towards reporting on corporate social responsibility and the drive to go beyond for values based governance thinking. The objective of this paper is to examine whether the process of organizational change in implementing the environmental and quality standards can act as a driving force for sustainable development (SD) and value creation and role of ISO26000 as “facilitator” for reporting it. Understanding how social responsibility as a business practice is institutionalized in organizations and the continuous improvement thinking of quality improvements  is deemed essential in securing sustainable service business in which social and environmental perspectives and governance issues are embedded.

Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts a qualitative research approach, using multiple case studies to undertake an analysis of the role of ISO26000 and the drive to go beyond for sustainable service business in different contexts of globally integrated retail business, manufacturing organization and public transit service. Three case studies, one each of global retail business (IKEA), manufacturing organization (Löfbergs) and regional public transit (SL/Nobina), are selected.

Findings – The paper demonstrates that “Beyond ISO26000”, as driving force for CSR and Quality Management towards co-creating value, contributes to securing sustainable service business embedded on social and environmental perspectives and governance issues. It has been shown this based on “why and how” - by understanding how “facilitating and unpredictability” are shaping business models to secure sustainable service business. The study has also shown “shared responsibility” is essential for understanding that environment quality standards and reporting CSR are not merely systems of command and control, but are essential for resource integration to secure sustainable service business development.

Research limitations/implications – The study provides useful insights into the need to go beyond successful adoption of ISO26000 as an active tool for SD and value creation. Future research in this area should focus on generalizing the present findings to securing sustainable service business embedded on social and environmental perspectives and governance issues in other empirical settings and conceptualization.

Originality/value – The paper makes an original contribution to the on-going discussions on quality and environment management standards and service research. In service research, the main theoretical challenges of understanding and integrating value co-creation and sustainable development as a transformative service research thinking.

Keyword(s): ISO26000; corporate social responsibility; environmental and quality standards; facilitating; and shared responsibility

Article Type: research paper