Social Values and Sustainability: A Survey on Drivers, Barriers and Benefits of SA8000 Certification in Italian Firms

Roberto Merli, Michele Preziosi and Ilaria Massa
Additional contact information
Roberto Merli: Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Via Silvio D'Amico, 77, 00145 Rome, Italy
Michele Preziosi: Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Via Silvio D'Amico, 77, 00145 Rome, Italy
Ilaria Massa: Management Department, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Companies are increasingly required to deal with sustainability issues through the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. Among the different CSR aspects, workers securities fulfill a necessary issue. SA8000 is an internationally accepted tool that aims to guarantee decent workplace across all industrial sectors. Italian companies represent more than 30% of certified organizations on a global level. Company size is a key factor in the definition of managerial strategies. A survey that involved more than 600 SA8000 certified companies has been conducted. Company dimension has been used as a parameter to interpret survey results. The aspects analyzed mainly consisted of drivers, barriers and benefits in SA8000 certification pathway. The study showed a high level of homogeneity among firms. According to SA8000 requirements, one of the main issues is the implementation of control and awareness mechanisms addressed to suppliers. Survey results highlight that all respondents recognize the importance of suppliers’ involvement, considered as one of the most difficult phases in implementing certification. However, there were no significant differences among Micro, Small, Medium and Large companies.

Keywords: SA8000; Corporate Social Responsibility; CSR; Survey; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/4/4120/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/4/4120/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:4:p:4120-4130:d:47872

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().