Quality management, environmental management and firm performance: a review of empirical studies and issues of integration
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| The Integration of QM and EM The integration of QM and EM has become a popular topic of research and practice (Corbett and Cutler 2000; Karapetrovic 2002, 2003; Karapetrovic and Willborn 1998; Mackau 2003; Wilkinson and Dale ab, 2001, 2002; Zeng et al. 2005; Zutshi and Sohal An integrated system adds a number of benefits to those achieved with each one of the systems alone. Among these benefits, the literature highlights the following (Beckmer- hagen et al. 2003; Beechner and Koch 1997; Poksinska et al. 2003; RodrÃguez and Ricart 2000; Wilkinson and Dale a Zeng et al. 2005; Zutshi and Sohal 2005): an improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization, avoiding the duplication of effort a reduction in bureaucracy by eliminating duplication of policies, procedures and registers the alignment of goals, processes and resources a reduction in the costs of internal and external audits and the availability of joint training and improved communication between all organizational levels. With respect to integration, both the order and level have been analysed in previous studies. In the case of order, the implementation of both management systems can be carried out in three ways (Karapetrovic and Willborn 1998): establishing the QM system first and then the EM system establishing the EM system first and then the QM system or establishing the EM and QM systems simultaneously. In any of the three cases, the firm must reflect on the desirable level of integration between both management systems. This level of integration can be represented as a continuum with two ends a low integration level with two independent systems and a full integration which implies the existence of a single system. Firms are usually situated somewhere between those two points, and show various degrees of integration. It is important to note that integrating standards and integrating management systems are not the same (Karapetrovic 2003). It is probably more important and useful to focus |