Quality promises. Do companies follow a standard code of conducts model? The case of Spas

The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways of developing and fulfilling of quality promises as well as to explore whether these actions are formally constituted. Two European countries were chosen for the research in order to compare organizations from countries with different experiences with the implementation of quality management systems. Spain is an old EU country where QMS systems are widely implemented. According to the ISO survey Spain is on the 4th place in Europe in a number of organizations with ISO 9001 certificates. Poland is one of the countries with the average number of registered QMS, ranking 11 place in Europe with ISO 9001 certificates. For this purpose there has been researched seven case studies of spa organizations within the leisure industry from Poland and Spain (three and four respectively). The case studies illustrate the organizations’ approach to manage quality promises. The case study method has been chosen due the specificity of the analyzed subject and the way of the business they run. The results show that all seven organizations have some mechanisms implemented to handle quality promises. The results also suggest that quality promises are widely used by organizations, but formalization of the promises through their recording in leaflets, on website or in other documents that are available for customers is not as common. Also, the analysis indicated that fulfillment of guiding principles from ISO 10001 are on a medium level and there are possibilities to improve them.

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