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In today’s global markets, issues related to environmental sustainability, ethics, working environment conditions and safety, stakeholders’ relations and the protection of workers’ rights have greater importance on business performances. For this reason, the aim of this research is to analyze the concept of corporate social responsibility, investigating the perception of Italian companies about Social Accountability 8000, a voluntary International Standard used as a tool to certify companies’ commitment on social aspects. The survey began September 15, 2016 and answers were accepted until November 15, 2016. Two hundred twenty-one Italian SA8000 certified companies participated to the survey reaching a response rate of 20.4%. Using a questionnaire submitted to certified companies, the main reasons which have driven companies to certification have been investigated, highlighting that the motivations which drive companies to be certified are both of an internal and external type: an improved image is the first, followed by the willingness to have a better working environment. Among the experienced benefits resulted from the study there are ‘reduction of labor conflicts’ and ‘achievement of a competitive advantage over competitors’, while limitations seem to be scarcely perceived and are defined especially by the lack of staff and management training. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP EnvironmentArtigo que refere a norma SA 8000 como uma ferramenta estratégica para o desenvolvimento sustentad

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The aim of this study is to evaluate companies’ perception of the latest version (2015) of ISO 9001 in terms of motivations that pushed companies to the implementation of a Quality Management System.</p><p><strong>Methodology:</strong> The research was conducted through a questionnaire proposed to 3,975 ISO 9001 certified companies, making a simple random sampling among the 150,143 Italian companies certified in 2018. Among the companies contacted, 493 participated in the survey and gave shape to the reference sample.</p><p><strong>Findings:</strong> The results of the study show that the “culture of quality” is rooted in Italy and mainly in the North, which represents the most economically advanced area. With regard to the evolution of the standard from ISO 9001:2008 to 2015, companies seem to have perceived the main changes introduced with the latest revision, that helps to easily adopt its principles in companies.</p><p><strong>Research Limitation:</strong> The main limitation of the study lies in the fact that the focus of the research was based on Italian companies. It would be important for future research to consider also other European countries, and make a comparison between them, in order to consider if companies of different markets have different motivations for implementing the standard and perceive different benefits and barriers to its implementation.</p><strong>Value of paper:</strong> Few researches have focused on the latest version of the ISO 9001 standard; therefore this study gives a broad vision of how companies that have had to deal with the new standard consider it in relation to the previous version, highlighting the main strengths and weaknesses.

The Environmental Management System (EMS) became a critical success factor in order to compete on the market. The aim of this study is to investigate how companies that have implemented an EMS based on the ISO 14001:2015 certification have perceived the changes due to the revision of the standard. The research was conducted through the administration of a questionnaire to 1,508 Italian ISO 14001 certified companies. Two hundred and eighty-four companies constituting the sample of our study. As main benefits achieved by surveyed companies we highlight, risk prevention, better management of environmental activities, and creation of new targets for reducing energy and waste. As main barriers to ISO 14001 implementation we highlight, increased bureaucracy, increased complexity of environmental procedures and difficulty in increasing employee environmental awareness. The main contribution of this research is given by the analysis on how companies have dealt with the changes required by the new version of the standard.