Integration of Individualized Management Systems (MSs) as an Aggregating Factor of Sustainable Value for Organizations: An Overview Through a Review of the Literature

Nowadays, there exist various standards for individual management systems (MSs), at least, one for each stakeholder. New ones will be published. An integrated management system (IMS) aims to integrate some or all components of the business into one coherent and efficient MS. Maximizing integration is more and more a strategic priority in that it constitutes an opportunity to eliminate and/or reduce potential factors of destruction of value for the organizations and also to be more competitive and consequently promote its sustainable success. A preliminary investigation was conducted on a Portuguese industrial company which, over the years, has been adopting gradually, in whole or in part, individualized management system standards (MSSs). A research, through a questionnaire, was performed with the objective to develop, in a real business environment, an adequate and efficient IMS-QES (quality, environment, and safety) model and to potentiate for the future a generic IMS model to integrate other MSSs. The strategy and research methods have taken into consideration the case study. It was obtained a set of relevant conclusions resulting from the statistical analyses of the responses to the survey. Globally, the investigation results, by themselves, justified and prioritized the conception of a model of development of the IMS-QES and consequent definition and validation of a structure of an IMS-QES model, to be implemented at the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) where the investigation was conducted.