Can integration difficulties affectinnovation and satisfaction?

Alexandra SimonDepartment of Business Administration,

Management and Product Development, University of Girona, Girona, Spain

Luc Honore Petnji YayaFaculty of Economics, International University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

Stanislav KarapetrovicDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta,

Edmonton, Canada, and

Marti CasadesusDepartment of Business Administration,

Management and Product Development, University of Girona, Girona, Spain

Abstract

Purpose – The difficulties in the integration of management systems (MSs) and their relationshipwith innovation and customer satisfaction are explored by proposing a model that links these threeconcepts together. Integration, innovation and customer satisfaction are relevant issues for thecompetitiveness of companies, especially for the ones that have implemented several MS standards.The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach – Data for the study derives from a survey carried out in76 Spanish organizations registered to at least both ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 standards forquality MSs and environmental MSs, respectively. An exploratory factor analysis and structuralequation modeling (SEM) are utilized to assess and confirm the proposed scales validity and therelationships of the conceptual model.

Findings – Based on the empirical study, the second-order SEM shows that the difficulties ofintegration are directly and negatively related to both of MS documentation and procedures. This levelis also directly related to the innovation and satisfaction. Nevertheless, no relationships were foundbetween the difficulties of integration and the integration level of MS human resources. Moreover, nodirect relationships were found between the difficulties of integration and both the constructs ofinnovation and satisfaction. Also, the results showed the integration level of MS procedures was notrelated to the construct of innovation.

Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to relate integration difficulties with innovationand customer satisfaction, with a conclusion that an organization should give more importance to thedifficulties of integrated MSs that have been uncovered to have a relationship with innovation andcustomer satisfaction.

Keywords Innovation, ISO 14001, Customer satisfaction, ISO 9001,Integration of management systems standards, Management systems standards

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionInnovation and customer satisfaction have become strategic drivers in seizingnew opportunities and enhancing firms’ productivity and performance(Hurmelinna-Laukkanen et al., 2008; Nemati et al., 2010). In this regard, the focus on

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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Received 27 March 2013Revised 3 June 2013

7 August 2013Accepted 18 August 2013

Industrial Management & DataSystems

Vol. 114 No. 2, 2014pp. 183-202

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0263-5577

DOI 10.1108/IMDS-03-2013-0148

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customers encourages companied to find new customer preferences and thus promotestheir innovation because firms have to introduce new products in the markets to meetcustomer demands (Juran, 1988; Prajogo and Sohal, 2001; Dinh et al., 2006).

To do so, many companies are relying on the implementation of management systems(MSs), which can be certified against the corresponding management system standards(MSSs), such as ISO 9001 (2008) or ISO 14001 (2004) (Beckmerhagen et al., 2003; Zeng et al.,2007). These two standards are the most implemented MSSs worldwide (Heras et al., 2011;ISO, 2012) and constitute common management practices that firms use to satisfycustomers and to enhance their innovativeness (Simon and Petnji Yaya, 2012). However,when implementing MSs together, some difficulties may arise that hinder the potentialbenefits that their integration into an integrated management system (IMS) may have forinnovation and customer satisfaction (Simon and Petnji Yaya, 2012).

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship among the MS integrationdifficulties, the integration level of several IMS elements (e.g. human resources andprocedures), and customer satisfaction and innovation. Such a relationship isresearched in order to yield insights into the attributes of IMSs that organizationsshould develop to achieve the goal of customer satisfaction and organizationinnovation and hence increase organizational performance. To do this, we first reviewthe literature on IMSs and their related difficulties, as well as innovation and customersatisfaction. Subsequently, we propose and test nine hypotheses related to theconstructs reviewed in the literature. Then, we present the methodology in which weuse a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to test the hypotheses and the mainresults derived from them. Finally, in the conclusions section, the contribution of thestudy regarding how the difficulties of IMS researched here relate to innovation andcustomer satisfaction and some future research lines are outlined.

2. Literature review2.1 Difficulties related to the integration of MSsIn recent years, many companies have implemented more than one MSS (ISO, 2012)and thus have the possibility to manage them jointly to create an IMS (Douglas andGlen, 2000; Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Zeng et al., 2007; Casadesus et al., 2009a, b). An IMScan be defined as:

[. . .] set of interconnected processes that share a pool of human, information, material,infrastructure, and financial resources in order to achieve a composite of goals related to thesatisfaction of a variety of stakeholders (Karapetrovic and Willborn, 1998).

Despite the numerous benefits cited in the literature about IMSs (Douglas and Glen,2000; Renzi and Cappelli, 2000; Casadesus and Karapetrovic, 2005; Zutshi and Sohal,2005; Zeng et al., 2007; Salomone, 2008; Asif et al., 2009, 2010), the integration process isnot always easy and organizations have to deal with some challenges (Karapetrovicand Willborn, 1998; Douglas and Glen, 2000; Matias and Coelho, 2002; Karapetrovic,2003; Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Karapetrovic et al., 2006; Zeng et al., 2007; Salomone,2008; Asif et al., 2009; Lopez-Fresno, 2010; Simon et al., 2011, 2012; Bernardo et al.,2012). Some of the most cited difficulties by these authors include:

. lack of human resources, individual concerns of the people involved, lack ofmotivation (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Zeng et al., 2007; Asif et al., 2009; Simon et al.,2012);

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. lack of government support (Bernardo et al., 2012; Simon et al., 2012);

. departmentalization of functions (Karapetrovic and Willborn, 1998);

. lack of resources (Asif et al., 2009);

. too much paperwork (Karapetrovic et al., 2006; Zeng et al., 2007; Simon et al.,2011, 2012);

. too many procedures (Simon et al., 2011, 2012);

. difficulties of managing and auditing more than one system (Bernardo et al.,2012; Simon et al., 2011, 2012);

. costs and time (Bernardo et al., 2012; Simon et al., 2012);

. misunderstanding of what integration means (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005;Karapetrovic et al., 2006; Zeng et al., 2007; Asif et al., 2009);

. lack of strategy, model and methodology (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Asif et al., 2009);

. lack of relevant top management management commitment (Simon et al., 2012);

. lack of adequate organizational culture (Zeng et al., 2007);

. lack of communication (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Zeng et al., 2007; Simon et al., 2012);

. differences in the scope of the systems being integrated (Salomone, 2008); and

. continuous change of regulations and guidelines (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005;Zeng et al., 2007).

The elements that constitute an IMS (i.e. objectives, processes and resources) have beenidentified by several authors (Zutshi and Sohal, 2005; Karapetrovic et al., 2006;Zeng et al., 2007; Asif et al., 2010; Leopoulos et al., 2010; Lopez-Fresno, 2010; Tarı andMolina-Azorın, 2010).

Next, we review the difficulties found in the literature regarding each of these IMSelements.

Lopez-Fresno (2010) suggests that organizations should have clear objectives andplans as this is vital to avoid lack of coordination and bureaucracy. Additionally,regarding the documentation resources and in order to avoid the failure of the IMS,Lopez-Fresno (2010) recommends that organizations should keep as littledocumentation as possible by reducing the number of manuals and procedures. Inaddition, the documentation should be easy to update (Lopez-Fresno, 2010). Similarly,Zeng et al. (2007) consider that too much paperwork is an important barrier for an IMS.

Moreover, Leopoulos et al. (2010) emphasizes the importance of aligning processesand merging procedures and documents. Companies should also aim at reducing theduplication of processes and procedures and time spent in the review of documentationprocedures was also acknowledged by Zutshi and Sohal (2005) as an important issuewhen managing an IMS.

Finally, to avoid the barriers brought by the human resources to the IMS, managersshould consider quality and environmental issues jointly in order to achieve theirmission and vision (Tarı and Molina-Azorın, 2010). They should develop quality andsustainable values and implement them jointly through their actions and behaviour(Tarı and Molina-Azorın, 2010). Moreover, to successfully manage the human resourcesin an IMS, managers should have the same duties for different functions and combine themanual, procedures and documentation of the different systems (Asif et al., 2010).

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In this context, our hypotheses related to the IMS elements are:

H1. The difficulties of managing an IMS directly and negatively affect theintegration level of the MS documentation.

H2. The difficulties of managing an IMS directly and negatively affect theintegration level of the MS procedures.

H3. The difficulties of managing an IMS directly and negatively affect theintegration level of the MS human resources.

2.2 Integration of MSs and innovationThe relationship between MS certification and innovation has been widely studied.In the existing literature on MSSs, there are some studies that confirm the innovationbenefits from certification, especially related to innovation and improvement (Withersand Ebrahimpour, 2000; Prajogo and Sohal, 2003; Casadesus and Karapetrovic, 2005),while other studies do not support this relationship (Terziovski et al., 1997; Lima et al.,2000). On the other hand, complying to MSSs is found to be associated with internalorganizational and process innovations, such as a reduction of “non-conformities andwaste”, “process efficiency”, “product conformity” and “reliability” (Curkovic andPagell, 1999; Terlaak and King, 2006) and customer satisfaction awareness (Withersand Ebrahimpour, 2000; Delmas, 2001, 2002).

In fact, there are several studies that propose that the adoption of MSSs such asISO 9001 and 14001 is positively linked to innovation and can be used to supportstrategically the management of innovation (Naveh and Marcus, 2005; Llach et al.,2011; Nishitani et al., 2012).

Specifically, QM practices, such as the application of ISO 9001, can “become aspringboard for rethinking the way a company does business and a point of departurefor additional innovation” (Naveh and Marcus, 2005). Moreover, they can be useful increating the organizational conditions in which innovations can be developed;supervising and initiating innovation processes; producing innovation content; andimplementing innovations in the primary processes of the organization (Bossink, 2002).

For their part, environmental management practices like the use of ISO 14001 havepositive effects on the business’ innovative capability ( Junquera et al., 2012).Furthermore, these standards aim at managing environmental impacts and, in doing so,they have a good effect on the generation of “environmentally-friendly” innovations(Llach et al., 2011).

Therefore, the use of QMS and EMS has been said to bring more innovation tocompanies (Terlaak and King, 2006). Moreover, the diffusion of quality andenvironmental MSSs and the similarities in terms of purposes and implementationfactors justify the importance of evaluating QMSs and EMSs together (Tarı andMolina-Azorın, 2010). These authors suggest that managing a QMS together with anEMS can have an impact on organizational performance, namely on productdevelopment and improvement (innovation). In the same direction, Pellicer et al. (2008),state that the ISO 9000 and 14000 standards series can serve as a basis for continuousinnovation. However, papers on the relationship between IMS and innovation arescarce, with perhaps only two studies, one theoretical (Bernardo et al., 2012) and oneempirical (Simon and Petnji Yaya, 2012), that considered these relationships.

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Bernardo et al. (2012) state that it is reasonable to expect that the relationshipbetween IMSs and innovation will be positive because integration leads to innovationand innovation leads to integration, while Simon and Petnji Yaya (2012) found that thebenefits of IMSs had a positive effect on organizational and marketing innovation.

Therefore, it is logical to believe that companies that have achieved a highintegration level of their quality and environmental MSs will make an appropriate andconsiderable effort in their innovation practices. Therefore, the second set ofhypotheses focuses on the relationships of IMS documentation, procedures and humanresources with innovation:

H5. The integration level of the MS documentation directly and positively affectsinnovation.

H7. The integration level of the MS procedures directly and positively affectsinnovation.

H9. The integration level of the MS human resources directly and positivelyaffects innovation.

2.3 IMS and customer satisfactionThe profit resulting from the inclusion of customer interactions in the functioning ofthe organization is essential to ensure its viability, so an improvement in customersatisfaction is crucial for competitiveness (Migueis et al., 2013). The literature linkingIMS and CS is scarce. However, some authors (Tarı and Molina-Azorın, 2010; Simonand Petnji Yaya, 2012) state that the joint introduction of quality and environmentalMSs helps to create an environment and culture that supports innovation, but it alsoimproves customer satisfaction, which is one of the core components of MSSs.

In fact, one of the main objectives of ISO 9001 is providing consistency in productsas well as meeting customer requirements and improving their satisfaction(Poksinska et al., 2003) and authors such as Yee et al. (2013) demonstrate that theintroduction of quality standards has a positive impact on customer satisfaction.Moreover, Laroche et al. (2001) found that customers have a preference for companiesthat offer environmentally sustainable products (Laroche et al., 2001) and that theimplementation of ISO 14000 has positive influence on customer satisfaction(Poksinska et al., 2003).

In the same vein, Tarı and Molina-Azorın (2010) examine the literature on QM andEM and reveal that one of the principal implementation factors for QMSs and EMSs iscustomer orientation and satisfaction. These authors find that QMSs and EMSspositively affect customer satisfaction, which may have a positive impact on sales,customer relationships and company image.

Regarding the integrated use of quality and environmental MSs, one of the benefitsmost mentioned in the literature of having an IMS is the improvement of customersatisfaction (Asif et al., 2010; Griffith and Bhutto, 2008; Zutshi and Sohal, 2005;Labodova, 2004; Zeng et al., 2007; Lopez-Fresno, 2010). IMSs bring improved deliveryof products and services to the customer, enhanced confidence of customers as well aspositive corporate image (Tarı and Molina-Azorın, 2010).

Therefore, the last three hypotheses relate to IMS elements and customersatisfaction:

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H4. The integration level of the MS documentation directly and positively affectscustomer satisfaction.

H6. The integration level of the MS procedures directly and positively affectscustomer satisfaction.

H8. The integration level of the MS human resources directly and positivelyaffects customer satisfaction.

On the basis of the above discussions, a model identifying the key constructs includedin this research is proposed (Figure 1). The model presents innovation and customersatisfaction as a consequence of the direct relationships with the integration of MSdocumentation, procedures and human resources, as well as an indirect relationshipwith the difficulties of integration.

3. Methodology3.1 Questionnaire and measures usedTo test the above hypotheses, a structured questionnaire was organized topically andthe constructs were measured as follows. The constructs of “difficulties of integration”and “documentation” were evaluated using items from the conceptual and empiricalresearch of Karapetrovic et al. (2006) and Karapetrovic and Casadesus (2009). Theconstruct of “procedures” was based on Juran (1986) trilogy that summarizes the threemain management functions as quality planning, quality control and qualityimprovement. The construct “human resources” was assessed based on three itemsdrawn from Karapetrovic et al. (2006) and Bernardo et al. (2009).

According to OECD (2005), innovation is multifaceted and one key element ofinnovation is organization because it is essentially a process for the gathering,management and use of information, and for the implementation of decisions based onsuch information. Moreover, they also argued that innovative success depends heavilyin the degree to which marketing is integrated with the technical aspects of theinnovation process. Besides, OECD (2005) argued that innovation has beenimplemented if it has been introduced on the market “product innovation” or used

Figure 1.Conceptual model

Difficulties ofIntegration

Procedures

HumanResoures

Innovation

Satisfaction

Integration Difficulties

H1

H4

H5 H6

H8

H7

H9

H2

H3

Integration level

Documentation

Outputs: Innovation and satisfaction

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within a production process “process innovation”). Therefore, the construct of“innovation” was measured with items from the Oslo manual (OECD, 2005), whichinclude four types of innovation in organizations, namely “Product”, “Process”,“Organization” and “Marketing innovation”. The innovation scales were empiricallyvalidated by Simon and Petnji Yaya (2012). Lastly, the construct of “satisfaction” wasborrowed from the European Consumer Satisfaction Index (ECSI Technical Committee,1998) and was assessed using a five-item scale to measure the organizations’perception on the level of customer satisfaction. A pilot test of the questionnaire wasconducted in one company.

All items of “difficulties of integration” and “innovation” were measured onfive-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 – “not at all important” to 5 – “veryimportant” and 1 – “not integrated” to 5 – “fully integrated” for the items to assess“documentation” and “procedures”. On the other hand, the items to measure “humanresources” ranged from 1 – “different people” to 5 – “the same people” and finally the itemsmeasuring “satisfaction” ranged from 1 – “is much worse” to 5 – “is much improved”.

3.2 Sampling and data collectionThis study is a follow-up to the research that was previously conducted byKarapetrovic et al. (2006), Karapetrovic and Casadesus (2009) and Simon andPetnji Yaya (2012). Thus, this study adopted a purposive sampling method to survey176 Spanish companies with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates to investigate thedirect/indirect effects of the difficulties of integration of MSs on the integration MSdocumentation and procedures as well as on customer satisfaction and innovation. Thestudy adopted a mail survey, with a questionnaire sent to 176 Catalan firms that hadparticipated in the earlier investigation. Previous results of the analysis of this samplecan be found in Simon and Petnji Yaya (2012), who investigate by means of SEM thedirect impact of the integration benefits on innovation and customer satisfaction. Theresults of that previous study showed that the integration benefits were directly andpositively related to both customer satisfaction and innovation. The survey of wasaddressed to the manager in charge of the QMS and/or EMS in the organization. Thedata collection was done between February and June 2010. After a data screening forincomplete and invalid questionnaire, 76 usable responses were retained (Simon andPetnji Yaya, 2012). This figure represented a 43 percent response rate and a 93 percentreliability, with a 95 percent confidence.

4. Data analysis and results4.1 Assessment of the measuresExploratory factory analysis (EFA) was independently conducted on the items of eachscale of the difficulties of integration, documentation, procedures and innovation usingnormalized Varimax as the rotation method (Hair et al., 1998). The Kaiser criterion ofeigenvalues greater than 1 was used to determine the initial number of factors to retainunder each scale (Hair et al., 1998). After discarding items that loaded poorly or equally inmore than two factors, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measures were 0.71 for thedifficulties of integration, 0.68 for the documentation, 0.77 for the procedures and 0.81 forthe innovation, while the corresponding Bartlett’s sphericity tests were 247.44 (df ¼ 28);169.06 (df ¼ 15); 631.41(df ¼ 55) and 309.05 (df ¼ 28), respectively. All the KMOmeasures were significant at p , 0.000. Moreover, all factors loadings for the items

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retained were higher than 0.5. According to the loadings of the manifest variables ontheir respective factors, the scales to measure the difficulties of integration werecomposed of three dimensions, namely “external difficulties”, “internal difficulties” and“auditor difficulties”. The scales to evaluate documentation were composed of twodimensions: “top management” and “medium and low management”. On the other hand,the scales to evaluate procedures consisted of two dimensions: “quality planning” and“quality control and improvement”, whereas innovation was made up of threedimensions: “process”, “organization” and “marketing”. Each dimension of thedifficulties of integration and documentation was logically given a name that makes agood representation of all the items under the dimension. In contrast, the dimensionsapplied to evaluate procedures and innovations were kept under their original names.

4.2 Reliability and validity of the proposed scalesWe evaluated the psychometric properties of the items through a comprehensiveconfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using partial least squares (PLS). All items wereassessed in the same model and were constrained to load on their respective factors.The results of the loadings of CFA are presented in Table I, along with somedescriptive diagnostic statistics, such as t-values, standard deviations (SD), Cronbach’sa and average variances extracted (AVE).

Thereafter, we assessed the reliability of the individual items. As displayed inTable I, the loadings of items on their respective constructs showed a high degree ofindividual-item reliability, since all items have loadings greater than 0.5 in theirrespective constructs (Sanzo et al., 2003). Subsequently, we computed the internalconsistency of each scale dimension considering two indicators (the composedreliability Cronbach’s a and the AVE). The overall results, presented in Tables I and II,showed that all the scales possessed a high internal consistency and reliability, giventhat each individual Cronbach’s a coefficient was greater than the minimum acceptedthreshold of 0.7 (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994) and the AVE value was greater thanthe cut-off value of 0.5 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).

Moreover, the validity of the individual items on their corresponding factors wasconfirmed by load values greater than 0.7 (Carmines and Zeller, 1979) and by the factorloadings of the confirmatory model that were all found to be statistically significant( p , 0.001). In addition, each individual item’s coefficient was more than double thevalue of its standard error, indicating that the items represent their underlyingconstruct. Altogether, this provides evidence of a high degree of convergent validity.

Additionally, discriminant validity, which authenticates that each factor representsa separate dimension, was tested following Fornell and Larcker (1981) criteria. Thistest investigated, through linear correlations or standardized covariance, whetherinter-factor correlations are less than the square root of the AVE. The results presentedin Table III confirmed the discriminant validity, since the square root of the AVE(highlighted in italic) of each of the scales was greater than the correlations betweeneach construct and all other latent variables (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).

4.3 Conceptual model hypotheses testingDue to the small sample size (n ¼ 76) of this study, it was decided that the proposedstructural model path representing relationships between different constructs beestimated by means of PLS with the PLS version 2.0 software package, since the PLS does

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Factors Loadings t-valuea SDb

Difficulties of integrationExternal difficulties (a ¼ 0.83, AVE ¼ 0.66)c

Dif5 0.83 34.18 0.02Dif9 0.82 24.70 0.03Dif13 0.81 38.27 0.02Dif15 0.79 18.52 0.04Internal difficulties (a ¼ 0.76, AVE ¼ 0.65)Dif6 0.84 27.76 0.02Dif12 0.75 13.68 0.05Dif14 0.83 26.25 0.03Auditor difficulties (a ¼ 1.00, AVE ¼ 1.00)Dif7 1.00 – –

DocumentationTop management (a ¼ 0.77, AVE ¼ 0.69)Doc1 0.79 16.07 0.05Doc2 0.91 50.04 0.02Doc3 0.78 16.80 0.05Medium and low level management (a ¼ 0.83, AVE ¼ 0.75)Doc4 0.87 41.58 0.02Doc5 0.91 73.43 0.01Doc6 0.81 22.64 0.04

ProceduresQuality planning (a ¼ 0.80, AVE ¼ 0.60)P1 0.75 17.74 0.04P6 0.82 16.34 0.05P7 0.76 21.44 0.04P8 0.77 15.72 0.05Quality control and improvement (a ¼ 0.95, AVE ¼ 0.76)P2 0.86 30.26 0.03P3 0.85 16.99 0.05P5 0.86 23.23 0.04P9 0.87 47.70 0.02P10 0.90 34.69 0.03P11 0.88 22.02 0.04P12 0.89 32.52 0.03

InnovationProcess (a ¼ 0.68, AVE ¼ 0.76)I2 0.86 35.55 0.02I3 0.88 38.87 0.02Organization (a ¼ 0.75, AVE ¼ 080)I5 0.87 44.68 0.02I6 0.91 53.39 0.02Marketing (a ¼ 0.91, AVE ¼ 0.79)I8 0.91 80.89 0.01I9 0.85 38.00 0.02I10 0.92 79.76 0.01I11 0.87 57.94 0.02Human resources (a ¼ 0.87, AVE ¼ 0.88)Act1 0.95 104.81 0.01Act2 0.93 57.81 0.02

(continued )

Table I.CFA results of the factors

loadings

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not assume a predetermined distribution of the variables and it is designed to ensureoptimal prediction accuracy (Fornell and Cha, 1994). In addition, it has special capabilitiesthat make it more appropriate than other techniques when analyzing small sample sizesand it was shown to be very robust against multicollinearity (Cassel et al., 2000).

To assess the path modeling, we first treated each individual scale construct in themodel as a second-order latent construct with the purpose of getting the global pictureof the model. The overall results showed the indices of variance for endogenousvariables explained by the paths were more than 0.015 (Table IV).

The model goodness-of-fit index (0.21) was assessed based on Tenenhaus et al.(2004) theory by assessing the explained variances for the latent dependent variablesand their commonalities, which are shown in Table III. Drawing on these outputs, itcan be assumed that the proposed model exhibited a good fit to the data, and thehypothesized relationships were tested.

The significance of the paths of the inner model was calculated by usingbootstrapping based on 2,000 re-samples to determine that the parameter estimateswere stable and statistically significant. Table IV and Figure 2 summarize the resultsof the hypothesis testing. As predicted, difficulties of integration negatively anddirectly affect both the integration level of MS documentation (H1) and the integrationlevel of MS procedures (H2), with external difficulties as the strongest predictor,followed by internal difficulties. However, auditor difficulties had no effects at all oneither documentation or procedures. Moreover, the results showed that documentationand human resources were positively related to satisfaction (H4,H8) and documentationwas also positively related to innovation (H5). In contrast, the integration level of MShuman resources was negatively related to satisfaction (H9). In addition, the integrationlevel of MS procedures was only negatively related to satisfaction (H6), but the resultsshowed there was no direct relationship with innovation (H7). The results showed the

Factors Loadings t-valuea SDb

Satisfaction (a ¼ 0.79, AVE ¼ 0.50)Sat1 0.61 2.77 0.22Sat2 0.69 3.74 0.18Sat3 0.70 5.26 0.13Sat4 0.69 4.63 0.15Sat5 0.83 5.55 0.15

Notes: aAll t-value are significant at: p , 0.000; bSD ¼ standard deviation; ca ¼ Cronbach’s aand AVE – average variance extractedTable I.

AVE Composite reliability R 2 Cronbach’s a Communality Redundancy

Difficulty 0.42 0.85 0.79 0.42Documentation 0.52 0.87 0.04 0.82 0.52 0.02Human resources 0.88 0.94 0.01 0.87 0.88 0.01Innovation 0.51 0.89 0.13 0.86 0.51 0.02Procedures 0.59 0.94 0.10 0.93 0.59 0.05Satisfaction 0.49 0.82 0.08 0.79 0.49 0.00

Table II.Output of the secondorder constructsstructural equation modelfitness

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integration level of MS difficulties of integration was not related to the integration levelMS human resources (H3). Similarly, a detailed analysis surprisingly showed none of thedimensions of the integration level MS procedures (quality planning, quality control andimprovement dimensions) were related to innovation.

We also assessed the direct effects of the difficulties of integration on bothsatisfaction and innovation. The results showed there was no direct relationship( p $ 0.05). Hence, difficulties of integration were only indirectly related to bothsatisfaction and innovation through integration documentation and procedures.

5. ConclusionThe economy globalization and the recent financial crisis have led organizations to newchallenges (Leopoulos et al., 2010). Customers are becoming more demanding and expectmore in terms of new products, quality and price (Stark, 2000; Simon and Petnji Yaya,2012). To adapt to this rapid shift of customers and the global competition demands(e.g. costs, performance, and service), organizations must enhance their innovation tointroduce new quality products and services in the market ( Juran, 1988), that areenvironmentally friendly (Casadesus and Karapetrovic, 2005; Zeng et al., 2007).

Hypothesis Path coefficient SEa t-value p-value Conclusion

H1 Difficulties ! documentation 20.18 0.04 4.30 0.00 Accepted * * *

H2 Difficulties ! procedures 20.29 0.04 7.78 0.00 Accepted * * *

H3 Difficulties ! human resources 20.08 0.04 1.84 0.06 RejectedH4 Documentation ! satisfaction 0.37 0.06 5.88 0.00 Accepted * * *

H5 Documentation ! innovation 0.26 0.06 4.06 0.00 Accepted * * *

H6 Procedures ! satisfaction 20.30 0.08 3.80 0.00 Accepted * * *

H7 Procedures ! innovation 20.07 0.08 0.85 0.39 RejectedH8 Human resources ! satisfaction 0.13 0.04 5.64 0.00 Accepted * * *

H9 Human resources ! innovation 20.25 0.05 2.76 0.00 Accepted * * *

Notes: Significant at two-tailed: *p-value , 0.05; * *p-value ,0.01 and * * *p-value , 0.001;astandard error

Table IV.Second order structuralequation model (SEM)hypotheses results

Figure 2.Overall results

Difficulties ofIntegration

Documentation

H1

H4

H5 H6

H8

H7

H9

H2

H3

Satisfaction

Innovation

Supported

Not Supported

Procedures

HumanResoures

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In this respect, many companies are relying on the implementation of MSSs, such asISO 9001 for QM or ISO 14001 for EM, since they are seen as a tool that helps companiesto survive and be successful (Zeng et al., 2007). According to Douglas and Glen (2000)and Karapetrovic and Willborn (2001), firms with at least two standardized MSs havethe option to integrate them into a unique and jointly managed system. Such a practicemay be sources of difficulties that may undermine the potential benefits of individualMSSs on innovation and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the objectives of this studywere two fold. The first objective was to assess the possible key dimensions to measurethe difficulties of integration, IMS documentation, IMS procedures and innovation. Weused exploratory factor analysis and CFA to confirm whether the scales have a factorstructure that depicts the theoretical dimensionality of their setting.

The psychometric assessment results of the scales properties confirmed threedimensions to assess the difficulties of integration and two dimensions to assess IMSdocumentation. Moreover, our analyses show that the three dimensions of Juran (1986)trilogy and the four types of organizations’ innovation proposed by OECD (2005) did fitthis study data set fairly well. However, the two dimensions of quality control andquality improvement were narrowed into a single dimension named “quality controland improvement” and the dimension of product innovation was discarded because ofpoor loadings.

The second objective was to propose a framework aiming to analyze factors thatmay influence organization innovation and customer satisfaction. The overall resultsshow all the hypotheses were supported except two. Specifically, H3, which predictedthat difficulties of integration were directly and negatively related to human resourcesand H7, which predicted a direct and positive relation between the integration level ofMS procedures and innovation, were not supported. The results show that difficultiesof integration were directly and negatively related to documentation and procedures,which in turn were strong predictors of organization innovation and customersatisfaction. These findings are consistent with Lopez-Fresno (2010) who argued“tangible and intangible benefits” of IMS can only be achieved if organizations keepless and easy to update documentation by reducing the manuals and procedures.Moreover, these findings support Leopoulos et al. (2010), who argued “that theimportance of combining processes and documents must be done with respect to eachone of the four enterprise modelling views, namely function, information, resource andorganisation/decision view”.

Furthermore, no direct relationship was found between the difficulties of integrationand human resources. An in-depth analysis of the non-relationship between thedifficulties of integration and human resources (H3) showed that the dimension ofexternal difficulties had no effects on human resources. One of the simplest reasons isthat external difficulties have to do with external parties (e.g. standardization bodies,registrars, and consultants), rather than with people in the organization and they areobviously beyond the organization’s control. This was in accordance with Zeng et al.(2007) who also found that the major problems to operate multiple parallel MS include:“it causes complexity of internal management, it lowers management efficiency, it incurscultural incompatibility, it causes employee hostility, and increases management costs”.

However, the integration of human resources appeared to be a strong predictor oforganization innovation and customer satisfaction. These results were in agreementwith Laroche et al. (2001), Poksinska et al. (2003) and Llach et al. (2011) who also found

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a positive relationship between human resources, customer satisfaction andinnovation. In addition, these findings agreed with Bernardo et al. (2012), who statedthat it is reasonable to expect that the relationship between IMS and innovation will bepositive because integration leads to innovation and innovation leads to integration.Furthermore, the direct and positive relationship linking documentation and humanresources to satisfaction and innovation was supported by Tarı and Molina-Azorın(2010), Simon and Petnji Yaya (2012) and Bernardo et al. (2012) studies who also foundthat IMSs had a positive effect on organizational and marketing innovation as well assatisfaction and organization performance. Finally, no direct relationship effects werefound between procedures and organization innovation.

Overall, the results of this study show that the difficulties of IMS have an impact oncustomer satisfaction and innovation, indicating that an organization should give moreimportance to IMSs, not only for their intrinsic value, but also for their capacity toimprove organization innovation and customer satisfaction. In particular, the IMSshould be appropriate for the culture and structure of the organization (Wilkinson andDale, 1999; Asif et al., 2010; Lopez-Fresno, 2010), be inserted into the company’sstrategy (Bernardo et al., 2009; Leopoulos et al., 2010) and align itself with otherfunctions outside of the IMS (Lopez-Fresno, 2010; Oliveira, 2013). This can be achievedby enhancing the management and involvement of employees (Simon et al., 2012),which should be easier to be accomplished for a single integrated system than for twoor more systems (like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001) that are separately managed (Tarı andMolina-Azorın, 2010).

In practice, the integration of MSs in an organization should generate positiveconsequences related to the activities of business, for instance in the supply chain orcustomer satisfaction (Simon and Petnji Yaya, 2012). Regarding the supply chain, anIMS can improve the generation of internal and external flow of material andinformation in companies (Oliveira, 2013). Integration issues should be considered inthe process of selection, evaluation and classification of suppliers (Oliveira, 2013)because it is desirable that the suppliers share a concern for quality, environment, andoccupational health and safety (Leopoulos et al., 2010). Regarding customers, it isimportant to identify their needs corresponding to the areas covered in the IMS, such asthe quality and the environment, to meet them (Tarı and Molina-Azorın, 2010; Simonand Petnji Yaya, 2012).

Implications for managers and practitioners include the recommendation that firmsare aware of the integration difficulties as they seem to have an impact on innovationand CS. Managing these difficulties can make organizations more efficient andcompetitive. Another implication is that, the more known the difficulties and theirimpact on the integration process are, the easier to address they will be, making theintegration easier and allowing organizations to achieve fully IMSs, which may have apositive impact on their innovative capabilities as well as on the satisfaction of theircustomers.

The main limitations of this study were the small sample size and carrying out theinvestigation in a single country, Spain. Therefore, it would be interesting to carry outa cross-country comparison with a wider sample on the topics of integration,innovation and CS, as well as to study whether and how adding MSs increases thecomplexity of managing an IMS.

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Appendix

Difficulties of integration (adapted fromKarapetrovic et al. (2006) andKarapetrovic and Casadesus (2009))Dif1 Lack of integration guidelines (books, articles, documents, . . .)Dif2 Lack of government supportDif3 Lack of human resourcesDif4 Differences in models for implemented standards (PDCA, process

management, . . .)Dif5 Differences in the elements of the standards (internal audit, external

communication, policy, . . .)Dif6 Lack of department collaborationDif7 Lack of specialized auditorsDif8 Lack of technological support (integration to ERP, . . .)Dif9 Lack of specialized consultantsDif10 Not efficient implementation of the first systemDif11 Excessive time to conduct the integrationDif12 Lack of employees motivationDif13 Differences in the scope of standardsDif14 Lack of internal organizational cultureDif15 Lack of certifying organizations supportDocumentation (adapted from Karapetrovic et al. (2006) and Karapetrovic and Casadesus (2009))Doc1 Company policyDoc2 Company objectivesDoc3 ManualDoc4 Work proceduresDoc5 Work instructionsDoc6 RecordsProcedures (adapted from Juran (1986) trilogy)P1 PlanningP2 Internal auditsP3 Management reviewP4 Control of non conformitiesP5 Preventive and corrective actionP6 Product realizationP7 Resource managementP8 Determination of system requirementsP9 System improvementP10 Document controlP11 Record controlP12 Internal communicationInnovation (adapted from the Oslo Manual: OECD (2005))I1 New or significantly improved goodsI2 New or significantly improved methods of manufacturingI3 New or significantly improved logisticsI4 New or significantly improved supporting activities for your processesI5 New business practices for organizing proceduresI6 New methods of organizing human resourcesI7 New methods of organizing external relationsI8 Significant changes to the aesthetic design or packagingI9 New media or techniques for product promotionI10 New methods for product placement or sales channelsI11 New methods of pricing

(continued )Table AI.

List of items used

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Corresponding authorAlexandra Simon can be contacted at: u1051932@campus.udg.edu

Human resources (adapted from Karapetrovic et al. (2006) and Bernardo et al. (2009))Act1 MS managerAct2 MS representativeAct3 InspectorsSatisfaction (adapted from the European Consumer Satisfaction Index: ECSI Technical Committee(1998))Sat1 Product qualitySat2 Customer service qualitySat3 Perceived valueSat4 Firm imageSat5 Customer complaints handlingTable AI.

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