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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of quality management on the development of organisational exploration.

Partial Least Square was used on a sample of 350 companies within the Spanish organic agro-food industry.

The study results provide empirical evidence of the positive and significant impact that quality management has on the development of organisational exploration.

Causal relationships cannot be applied to this study due to cross-sectional data being used rather than longitudinal data.

Quality management must be considered by managers an essential tool to the development of organisational exploration. As a systematic approach, that moves towards to the development of policies, attitudes and behaviours which foster and boots the development of organisational exploration.

Quality management is a widely used management approach, which organisations use to improve the quality of their products, services and their overall performance. Organisational exploration is seen as a fundamental tool to ensure sustainability, profitability and the future survival of organisations; however, there is disagreement throughout previous research. Some authors point out the importance of quality management in developing activities that promote organisational exploration, whereas other authors see quality management as an inhibitor. Given the great controversy in previous research, our study clarifies the role of quality management in the development of organisational exploration.

The prison population is seldom studied and often overlooked in many countries despite their vulnerability to long-term illness. This study aims to explore the factors associated with the non-treatment for long-term illnesses among incarcerated individuals.

This study is a cross-sectional analysis. The authors conducted a secondary data analysis using information collected in the Peruvian census of incarcerated individuals. The study population consisted of incarcerated individuals diagnosed with a long-term illness. To evaluate the factors associated with non-treatment, the authors used a Poisson regression model.

The authors included 12,512 incarcerated individuals (age: 40.9 ± 13.1 years), and 39% of them did not receive treatment for their long-term illness. The authors observed that non-treatment was statistically associated with gender, age, having children, use of the Spanish language, sexual identity, judicial situation, penitentiary location, discrimination inside the penitentiary and health insurance before incarceration. However, only having children (prevalence ratio [PR]: 1.11, confidence interval [CI]95% 1.03–1.19), using the Spanish language (PR: 1.15, CI95%: 1.01–1.31), being in a penitentiary not in Lima (PR: 1.11, CI95%: 1.06–1.17) and perceiving discrimination inside the penitentiary (PR: 1.12, CI95% 1.06–1.18) increased the prevalence of non-treatment.

Identifying the factors associated with non-treatment will allow us to implement measures for prioritizing groups and developing strategies for the evaluation, close follow-up of their health and management of comorbidities.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on the performance of Portuguese companies. The sample includes the companies listed on Euronext Lisbon, with economic, financial and specific information – the specific being environmental information and quality information – for the period between 2015 and 2019, which corresponds to the post-Troika period when some economic growth started to be witnessed. The specific information of each area is translated into the environmental certification by the ISO 14001 standard, the quality certification by the ISO 9001 standard, and sustainability reports.

To achieve this aim, four variables were used as a measure of the companies' performance, Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE); Tobin's Q and EBITDA Margin. With this data, different panel models were tested to validate if ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications impact Portuguese listed companies performance. Specifically, the authors have used the Generalized Method of Moments, GMM-System, an estimation method proposed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998).

The results show that, in general, the environment and quality variables fail to explain the dependent variables, that is, ISO certifications do not provide positive or negative variations in the performance of companies, suggesting that they are not yet as much for civil society, as well as for current or potential shareholders. When used as an independent variable, certification according to the ISO 14001 or 9001 standards, negative and significant oscillations were verified in the dependent variable, MgEBITDA, suggesting that only for managers this variable is determinant, but with a negative impact, given the high costs, it entails without pressure from other stakeholders.

This study is the first to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on Portuguese companies' performance. This empirical study aims to show all investors, managers, regulators and civil society itself the long path that still needs to be taken toward sustainability.