Research in Transportation Business & Management 49 (2023) 100990 Available online 13 June 2023 2210-5395/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-nd/4.0/). Internalization of the ‘Safety & Quality Assessment for Sustainability’ System Motivations and performance in Spanish road transport firms Juan L. Torres-Rubira * , Ana B. Escrig-Tena , Miguel A. L´ opez-Navarro Department of Business Administration and Marketing, Universitat Jaume I, Castell´o de la Plana, Spain A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: SQAS system Motivations Internalization Sustainability performance Dangerous goods Road transport ABSTRACT The Safety & Quality Assessment for Sustainability (SQAS) system aims to measure sustainability levels – quality, safety, security and environmental requirements – of logistics providers in the distribution of European chem- icals. In the context of SQAS adoption, the purpose of this work is twofold. First, it examines how the motivations of road transport companies carrying dangerous goods to evaluate through the SQAS system condition the real (not symbolic) internalization of the system. Secondly, it analyzes how the internalization of the SQAS system impacts sustainability performance. The study analyzes a sample of 78 Spanish companies assessed according to the SQAS Transport Service module. We use structural equations models applying partial least squares to test the research hypotheses. Results suggest that customer pressure is the main motivation for a company to undergo the assessment. In addition, in line with the literature on management standards, the results show that internal motivations impact to a greater extent than external ones in the internalization of SQAS, and that greater internalization contributes to better sustainability performance. 1. Introduction The growth of international trade, ICTs and globalization have accentuated the key role of transport in economic development, while intensifying the challenges to transport sustainability (Evangelista, Colicchia, & Creazza, 2017). This study focuses on the transport sector, particularly on road transport companies carrying dangerous goods. These goods are defined and identified as dangerous by the UN, because their physical or chemical properties immediately cause harm to human life, to material goods, and/or ecosystems when they are exposed to the environment (Lieggio Junior, Granemann, de Souza, & Rocha, 2012; UNECE, 2020), and they can provoke public safety issues (Gemou & Bekiaris, 2012; Ruifang, 2010; Toumazis, Batta, & Kwon, 2013). These circumstances motivate the pursuit of excellence in the operations and management practices used by road transport companies (Zheng & Zhang, 2011), given that they have to cater to a wider range of stake- holders that are more interested in influencing their management sys- tems (Flod´en & Woxenius, 2021). The inherent danger of these goods also affects consignors’ concern to transport them safely. Such is this concern that the European chemical industry has developed a model for assessing corporate social re- sponsibility (CSR) and the sustainability of companies involved in their logistics operations. This system is known as SQAS (Safety & Quality Assessment for Sustainability) and its aim is to assess three aspects of any company that can act as a logistics provider (Dong, Qian, Li, & Fan, 2013): identify and promote the use of “good practices” in terms of quality, safety, security, environment and CSR; quantify their level of compliance to improve the levels of management in these companies, and anticipate greater regulatory requirements. The assessment pro- vides a factual report with a score, which a third party prepares from a questionnaire, and which provides useful information on the strengths and weaknesses observed during the assessment in the aspects evalu- ated: quality, safety, security and environment (CEFIC, 2018a). The fact that companies are subject to these assessments solely because of institutional pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991) may mean that this evaluation is somewhat symbolic, and no more than “CSR- washing” (Boiral, Heras-Saizarbitoria, & Testa, 2017). This perception has been noted in previous studies about specific certification schemes such as HES (Health, Safety and Environment) (Njå & Fjelltun, 2010) or SA8000 (Boiral et al., 2017). However, neither the transport of dangerous goods nor the SQAS system has been studied in the literature beyond the analysis of security systems, routing or tracking and tracing (Holeczek, 2019), despite the fact that the transport of dangerous goods entails greater environmental * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: jrubira@uji.es (J.L. Torres-Rubira), escrigt@uji.es (A.B. Escrig-Tena), mlopez@uji.es (M.A. L´ opez-Navarro). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research in Transportation Business & Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rtbm https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2023.100990 Received 10 March 2022; Received in revised form 27 March 2023; Accepted 30 May 2023