Dealing with SMEs as a whole in OHS issues: Warnings from empirical evidence

Not surprisingly it has been shown that there are higher accident rates and larger magnitudes in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) if compared with the case of the larger ones. Some studies suggest that SMEs have serious problems aggravated by limited access to human, economic and technological resources. Moreover, it is now acknowledged that methods developed specifically for Large Enterprises (LEs) cannot be simply transferred to smaller enterprises. Although the debate concerning essentially the size of the enterprises and their corresponding accident rates is ongoing, very little attention is paid to the difference between the Micro- (MiEs), the Small- (SEs), and the Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs). Indeed, in most of the cases, SMEs are bundled together and considered as a whole, in opposition to LEs. In some cases SEs and MEs are studied separately, but only the difference in terms of accident rates is highlighted. Instead, important information in terms of performance and organizational, cultural and economic differences between MiEs, SEs and MEs exist. Within the implementation of the E-merging project (financed by the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Occupational Accidents – INAIL), some differences have been identified on the basis of two existing data sources.     

A comparative analysis of safety management and safety performance in twelve construction projects

IntroductionSafety management in construction is complicated due to the complex “nature” of the construction industry. The aim of this research was to identify safety management factors (e.g., risk management and site management), contextual factors (e.g., organisational complexity) and combinations of such factors connected to safety performance. Method: Twelve construction projects were selected to compare their safety management and safety performance. An analytical framework was developed based on previous research, regulations, and standards where each management factor was defined. We employed qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to produce case knowledge, compare the cases, and identify connections between the factors and safety performance. The material collected and analyzed included, for example, construction planning documents, reports from OHS-inspections, safety indicators, and interviews with project leaders and OHS experts. Results and conclusions: The research showed that: (a) the average score on 12 safety management factors was higher among projects with high safety performance compared to projects with low safety performance; (b) high safety performance can be achieved with both high and low construction complexity and organizational complexity, but these factors complicate coordination of actors and operations; (c) it is possible to achieve high safety performance despite relatively poor performance on many safety management factors; (d) eight safety management factors were found to be “necessary” for high safety performance, namely roles and responsibilities, project management, OHS management and integration, safety climate, learning, site management, staff management, and operative risk management. Site management, operative risk management, and staff management were the three factors most strongly connected to safety performance. Practical implications: Construction stakeholders should understand that the ability to achieve high safety performance in construction projects is connected to key safety management factors, contextual factors, and combinations of such factors.     

基于SWOT和战略地图分析的企业OHS战略制定与描述

职业健康安全（OHS）工作是企业生产与经营管理的重要保障,OHS战略是企业运营战略的一个重要组成部分。为促进OHS战略管理,运用SWOT分析法和战略地图法制定和描述企业OHS战略。采用SWOT分析方法,从优势、劣势、机会和威胁等方面分析企业OHS工作的发展态势,实现策略定位。基于战略管理理论,结合策略分析结论,提出企业的OHS战略。为促进战略执行,采用战略地图分析方法,从财务、客户、内部业务流程、学习与成长等维度进一步描述OHS战略规划。研究结果表明,结合SWOT分析法和战略地图分析法的优点,可对企业OHS发展态势进行客观预测以利于提出合理的OHS战略目标,并可对OHS战略进行详细分解以促进战略执行。以Z公司为实例详细阐述企业OHS战略制定的流程与思路,有助于企业OHS战略实施。     

A preliminary validation of a new measure of occupational health and safety

INTRODUCTION: This article describes the validation of an instrument designed to conduct an Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) self-diagnosis using workers observations of tangible facts and actions in the workplace. The instrument puts the emphasis on observable factors that make it possible to act proactively before accidents actually occur. METHOD: Three companies were recruited from the printing sector in Québec based on their OHS performance (low, medium, and high), their interest in the project, and their availability. The master sample was composed of 269 people. Partial least squares (PLS) and vanishing tetrad analyses were used to study the behavior of the formative scales developed. RESULTS: The results indicate that partial revision of the instrument will be necessary to reach a fully satisfying level of validity. With regards to the statistical approach adopted, the use of a macro called CTA-SAS 2.0 developed by Bollen and Ting [Bollen, K.A., & Ting, K.-F. (1993). Confirmatory tetrad analysis. In P.V. Marsden (Ed.), Social methodology.Vol.23 (pp.147-176). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 23] has proven to be effective in providing a suitable statistical treatment of the latent formative variables on which our instrument's development is based. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the instrument appears to be relatively robust and appropriate to diagnose OHS leading measures. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: In the long run, this instrument will make it possible for companies to draw a more refined picture of OHS evolution, even in the absence of occupational injuries.     

Occupational health and safety in the framework of corporate social responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined as the voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns into the firm’s decision-making. The search for a good Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) environment and the promotion of a culture of risk prevention are two of the firm’s main social responsibilities, and consequently an integral part of CSR. This paper discusses how the growing interest in corporate social responsibility can contribute to improving the implementation of adequate systems of prevention. For this purpose, we study to what extent OHS issues are present in the field of CSR, and consequently determine which aspects have received the most attention, and which are less well developed; we offer some proposals as well. The methodology followed is a content analysis of the main international CSR management tools.     

Managing OHS: A route to a new negotiating order in high-performance work organizations?

Contrary to a widely held view, rather than seeing the certification of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) as a barrier to increasing employee participation, this article views new ways of structuring participation as a necessary step towards making improvements in OHS management systems. The article first considers how work organization has changed and then in a similar way traces how bargaining has shifted from being distributive to become integrative to create a fundamental change in the negotiation regime. Finally, by analyzing an OHS-certified firm in greater depth, the article shows how solutions for improvements in OHS management and notable bottom-up formulations of OHS benchmarks may help us discover how the organizational form of firms with high-performance work organization can be developed through new participatory structures.     

Small Business Owners’ Knowledge of Their Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Legislative Responsibilities

This article reports the results of a study investigating the nature and extent of small manufacturing business owners’ knowledge of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) issues. Interviews were conducted with 33 owners of small manufacturing businesses in Sydney, Australia. Results showed that whereas the majority of owners had basic awareness of the existence of OHS legislation, they were often unaware about the extent of their legal OHS responsibilities. Owners were found to have minimal OHS training and practical OHS expertise. Lack of appropriate industry specific OHS information was found to be a major factor that inhibited the owners’ ability to deal with OHS issues effectively.     

Occupational health and safety professionals and management: identity, marriage, servitude or supervision?

The role and training of occupational health and safety professionals is a continuing subject of debate in the light of recent European legislation. This paper discusses the possible roles of professionals in the context of the complexities of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) management. It presents the roles using the metaphor of parent-adult-child relationships (Harris, 1970) and discusses the ways in which different relationships can lead to different problems of functioning. It concludes with presenting the possible role of training in tackling these problems.     

A hybrid decision-making approach based on FCM and MOORA for occupational health and safety risk analysis

IntroductionWith the development of industries and increased diversity of their associated hazards, the importance of identifying these hazards and controlling the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risks has also dramatically augmented. Currently, there is a serious need for a risk management system to identify and prioritize risks with the aim of providing corrective/preventive measures to minimize the negative consequences of OHS risks. In fact, this system can help the protection of employees’ health and reduction of organizational costs. Method: The present study proposes a hybrid decision-making approach based on the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM), and Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis (MOORA) for assessing and prioritizing OHS risks. After identifying the risks and determining the values of the risk assessment criteria via the FMEA technique, the attempt is made to determine the weights of criteria based on their causal relationships through FCM and the hybrid learning algorithm. Then, the risk prioritization is carried out using the MOORA method based on the decision matrix (the output of the FMEA) and the weights of the criteria (the output of the FCM). Results: The results from the implementation of the proposed approach in a manufacturing company reveal that the score at issue can overcome some of the drawbacks of the traditional Risk Priority Number (RPN) in the conventional FMEA, including lack of assignment the different relative importance to the assessment criteria, inability to take into account other important management criteria, lack of consideration of causal relationships among criteria, and high dependence of the prioritization on the experts’ opinions, which finally provides a full and distinct risk prioritization.     

Revising HFACS for SMEs in the chemical industry: HFACS-CSMEs

Chemical accidents have occurred frequently in recent years, and most have occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs in the chemical industry face greater challenges than large enterprises with regard to accident prevention. However, SMEs have been unable to effectively learn from accidents due to the limited resources. The accident causation model is an effective tool to help the analyst learn from accidents. As a systematic accident causation model, the causes classification in the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) can match the characteristics of SMEs, but the cause of chemical accidents can be ineffectively identified by HFACS. In this study, HFACS was revised for the SMEs in the chemical industry, mainly consisting of three parts. First, based on the definition of factors in the original HFACS, the extended HFACS framework was obtained, which include 78 manifestations with the characteristics of the chemical accidents. Second, 101 accidents occurring in a SME in the chemical industry from 2012 to 2016 were analyzed though the extended HFACS framework. Finally, a new model, known as the HFACS-CSMEs, was obtained by further revising the manifestations and causes classification according to the statistical results of the accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs consists of 15 cause factors and 56 manifestations, which can effectually identify and distinguish the causes in chemical accidents. Moreover, the easy-to-understand and statistically acceptable features of HFACS-CSMEs can cater to the SMEs regarding accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs solves the problem that HFACS cannot be directly applied to chemical accidents and provides new ideas about preventing accidents in SMEs in the chemical industry.     

Managing occupational injuries records in Slovenia from 1948 to 2008

The aim of this study is to examine and compare all publicly accessible data on occupational injuries in Slovenia in the period from 1948 to 2008, obtained either from archives or websites. The data obtained from five different sources which have been formally collecting and presenting data on occupational injuries in Slovenia (Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia – LIRS, Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia – IPHRS, International Labour Organization – ILO, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia – SORS, and issues of the Journal of Occupational Safety and Fire Safety) were reviewed and managed. Since the early 1960s, there has been a significant decrease of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries in Slovenia. Problems related to gathering and interpreting data on occupational injuries are also discussed with special emphasize on diversity of models used for occupational injuries data collecting. The results of the 60-year-long retrospective study can also be of assistance for professionals involved in planning, implementing and controlling the national policy and/or regional policies on safety and health at work.     

An Exploratory Study of Meanings of Risk Control for Long Term and Acute Effect Occupational Health and Safety Risks in Small Business Construction Firms

A qualitative study of employers' and employees' meanings of occupational health and safety (OHS) risk control was conducted among a sample of small businesses engaged in the Australian construction industry. Two OHS risks relevant to the construction industry were selected for study. One risk (falls from height) represented an immediate consequence, whereas the other (occupational skin disease) represented a long-term health effect. Meanings of the sources and control for these risks were explored during in-depth interviews. Participants perceived the immediate effect, falls from height OHS risk, as being more important in their workplaces than the delayed effect, skin disease OHS risk. The risk of falls from height was perceived to be controllable but requiring a great deal of effort to prevent, whereas there was a fatalistic resignation to the risk of occupational skin disease. Meanings of risk control for both occupational skin disease and falls from height focused on individual rather than technological risk controls. Organizational barriers to the adoption of technological OHS risk controls in the construction industry were identified.     

Occupational injury risk in a blue collar, small business industry: Implications for prevention

Conflicting perceptions of risk in OHS generate barriers to occupational injury prevention. Occupational injury prevention strategies that fail to address workplace risk perceptions are likely to be ineffective. In this study, we ask whether employers' and employees' have conflicting risk perceptions that may produce barriers to injury prevention in workplaces and we explore underlying understandings of risk in OHS that produce conflicting risk judgements. A novel research methodology was utilised to compare and contrast risk judgements of employers and employees in a blue collar, small business industry. Participants were asked to rate ten OHS risks and the risk rating scores of the two groups were compared. They were also asked to explain their risk judgements and their responses were contrasted by a method of qualitative data analysis. Significant differences between the risk rating scores of employers and employees were found for four OHS risks. The focus of conflicting risk judgements was a distinction between risks with an immediate injury effect and those with a delayed disease effect. Employers tended to rate the former significantly higher than employees. Employees tended to rate the latter significantly higher than employers. Three themes emerged to explain underlying understandings of risk in OHS that produce conflicting risk judgements. Implications of these understandings for occupational injury prevention strategies in an Australian blue collar, small business industry are explored and a new approach is proposed.     

Predicting the performance of cost-effective rollover protective structure designs

Agricultural tractor overturns kill more than 100 workers each year in the United States. Rollover protective structures (ROPS) can prevent most of these deaths but can be expensive in retrofit applications. Cost-effective ROPS (CROPS) have been designed and built at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health but performance must be evaluated. This study: (1) evaluated CROPS performance, (2) developed a simulation model for probabilistic CROPS evaluation, and (3) evaluated exemplar prototype CROPS performance via simulation of testing requirements. The CROPS prototype evaluated in this study was a Ford-3000 CROPS prototype design. Simulations based on ROPS performance standard SAE J2194 (Society of Automotive Engineers) identified scenarios where the Ford-3000 CROPS might fail. No failure scenarios were identified during simulation of ROPS performance testing to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) test procedures and performance requirements. Despite passing experimental SAE J2194 testing, computer simulations found scenarios where the Ford-3000 CROPS prototype design might fail. Re-design of the Ford-3000 concept is necessary before field implementation.     

Worker influence on voluntary OHS management systems – A review of its ends and means

Voluntary management systems (MS) might improve occupational health and safety (OHS). MSs, as with any OHS management, requires worker influence (and management commitment) to reduce risks at work. Influence through union backed safety representatives (or similar) achieves the best OHS results. However, a MS guarantees neither effective OHS management nor strong worker influence. Systematic violations of legal requirements have repeatedly caused accidents at workplaces with certified MSs. Why employers introduce MS’s can affect their implementation and outcomes. Internal objectives, of productivity and/or work-related health, require upstream prevention and a genuine influence by workers and their safety representatives. However, managers with external objectives for a MS, such as brand images or low reported accident figures, may pursue such objectives through downstream control of safe behaviour – sometimes suppressing accident reporting – and with little attention to more serious long-term diseases. Worker consultation may then be a limited means of enhancing safety, or to one-way communication on safety rules. Such consultation may even be used for union busting. Many trade unions welcome MSs as possible improvement instruments, but they are also wary of what MSs employers are actually trying to implement. Unions try to support their safety representatives’ influence in a MS by enhancing their rights and their competences. If the motives for MSs are mainly external and the opportunities for influence too limited, it may be better for unions not to cooperate with management in a MS that may lead more to manipulation than to safe and sound work.     

Possibilistic regression analysis of influential factors for occupational health and safety management systems

The code of occupational health and safety (OHS) is an influential regulation to improve the on-the-job safety of employees. A number of factors influence the planning and implementation of OHS management systems (OHSMS). The evaluation of OHSMS practice is the most important component when forming a health and safety environmental policy for employees. The objective of this research is to develop an intelligent data analysis (IDA) in which possibilistic regression being endowed with a convex hull approach is used to support the analysis of essential factors that influence OHSMS. Given such subjective terms, the obtained samples can be conveniently regarded as fuzzy input/output data represented by membership functions. The study offers this vehicle of intelligent data analysis as an alternative to evaluate the influential factors in a successful implementation of OHS policies and in this way decrease an overall computational effort. The obtained results show that several related OHSMS influential factors need to be carefully considered to facilitate a successful implementation of the OHSMS procedure.     

Safety I–II,resilience and antifragility engineering: a debate explained through an accident occurring on a mobile elevating work platform

Occupational health and safety (OHS) represents an important field of exploration for the research community: in spite of the growth of technological innovations, the increasing complexity of systems involves critical issues in terms of degradation of the safety levels. In such a situation, new safety management approaches are now mandatory in order to face the safety implications of the current technological evolutions. Along these lines, performing risk-based analysis alone seems not to be enough anymore. The evaluation of robustness, antifragility and resilience of a socio-technical system is now indispensable in order to face unforeseen events. This article will briefly introduce the topics of Safety I and Safety II, resilience engineering and antifragility engineering, explaining correlations, overlapping aspects and synergies. Secondly, the article will discuss the applications of those paradigms to a real accident, highlighting how they can challenge, stimulate and inspire research for improving OHS conditions.     

Perceived intra-organizational mobility: Reliable versus exceptional performance as means to getting ahead

‘Work hard and get ahead’ is a fundamental tenet of modern organizations, but employees have different interpretations of what it means to ‘work hard’ and perceive that there are multiple channels to ‘get ahead’. The current research explores employees' perceptions of the factors affecting their intra-organizational upward mobility. Results using a survey instrument in a large American medical college show that employees can distinguish among intra-organizational mobility channels based on reliable role performance, on exceptional role performance, and on non-performance factors such as personal characteristics (e.g. race and gender), or luck and favoritism. Perceptions of mobility channels are related to such organizationally relevant outcomes as employee satisfaction and turnover intentions. Occupational sub-groups, however, perceive different structures for upward mobility.     

Accident prevention in SME using ORM

The occupational risk model (ORM) developed by the Dutch workgroup occupational risk model WORM has been transferred to a Danish context, with the aim of creating a more simple system, particularly for SMEs. The ORM identifies the activities in a person’s daily work that contribute most to the person’s risk and also identifies which conditions need to be changed in order to reduce that risk. Our investigation seeks to determine whether we can use the ORM method to collect information about risks in SMEs and, if so, whether we can present this information in a way that allows SMEs to use it constructively. Finally, we seek to evaluate the impact of this method on occupational safety in SMEs, as the project also focuses on management factors that can motivate the SMEs to heighten their risk-awareness and expand their own initiatives. The present paper describes the methodological approaches applied and some of the preliminary findings obtained during field observations.     

职业健康与安全风险认知研究进展及分析

为了解和掌握国内外职业健康与安全（OHS）风险认知的研究进展，检索截至2017年12月31日美国工程索引（EI）、Web of Science数据库、中国知网、万方数据资源系统、维普中文科技期刊全文数据库收录的职业健康与安全风险认知研究论文。研究结果表明:国外OHS风险认知研究较成熟，相关研究成果涉及各行各业；我国OHS风险认知研究起步较晚、成果较少，仅涉及建筑、采矿、化工等行业领域。进一步对956篇文献开展深入分析，总结OHS风险认知的测量、OHS风险认知的影响因素、OHS风险认知的影响结果、OHS风险认知的差异4个主题研究进展。在分析结果基础上，结合行业实际情况，对今后OHS风险认知发展提出4点建议，并进一步讨论OHS风险认知研究的未来发展方向。