Who should manage worker safety to reduce occupational accidents?

Abstract

Purpose: Operations management research and practice has started to embrace sustainability in all its forms, including worker safety. Worker safety is a pivotal component of social sustainability, with accidents occurring largely in a firm’s operations. Nevertheless, workplaces are still not safe. To further understand why, we explore how workplace accidents are affected by who manages occupational safety (i.e. owner/partner, managing director/site/branch manager, OHS officer or safety representative), and if this effect is dependent on the size of the establishment.

Design/methodology/approach: Stakeholder-agency theory is utilized to develop a theoretical framework on the efficacy of having different job roles manage safety in establishments of different sizes. The derived hypotheses are tested using health and safety survey data from the EU-OSHA ESENER I (2014) and ESENER II (2019) surveys.

Findings: We provide evidence that it is not beneficial to have owners manage safety in establishments. When owners manage safety in establishments, accidents increase, even when controlling for firm size. When exploring size more deeply, we find that in smaller establishments, it is more beneficial to have an employee representative manage safety, while in larger establishments, a dedicated safety officer should be in charge of managing safety. These findings are highly relevant for creating a path towards safer operations.

Originality/value: This study contributes to our understanding of socially sustainable operations by exploring a path to making workplaces safer. It advances knowledge on how to effectively enhance operational safety. This perspective contributes to the expanding worker safety literature in operations management by introducing organizational job responsibilities as a relevant level of analysis, complementing existing explorations in our domain that have primarily focused on traits of the operations. The findings not only enhance scholarly and managerial knowledge but also offer clear guidance to policymakers for creating safer workplaces.