Managing safety in small and medium enterprises

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis paper presents a conceptual model for increasing acceptable working environments for SMEs. It also acts as an editorial for the special issue of Safety Science on 'Managing safety in small and medium enterprises (SMEs)'. It describes how seven of the ten papers in the special issue originate from an international conference in 2013 on Understanding Small Enterprises. It includes a commentary on the papers in the special issue as well as directing the reader to all of the current state-of-the-science sources known to the authors. The paper provides a background to previous research on safety in SMEs, showing how most current policy and legislation on occupational health and safety (OSH) and the work environment is based on large enterprises and that there is a relative paucity of research on OSH in SMEs. In a summary of current knowledge, it is argued that modern OHS legislation and interventions to help improve work environments need to increasingly take account of the specific characteristics of SMEs. The conceptual model for increasing acceptable working environments for SMEs takes its onset in a legislative standard that is built into intervention programmes and includes three instrument pillars: inspection to enhance compliance, recognition of the standard by the stakeholders in the industry sector and dissemination of information to small enterprises.

Development of a Preliminary Model for Evaluating Occupational Health and Safety Risk Management Maturity in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

“…Prevention by design Not specified [83][84][85] Commitment of management Not specified [24,59,79] Worker commitment and participation -Percent response to questionnaires [24,59,78,86] OHS-related behaviour -Number of observations of unsafe or deviant actions [78,87] Compliance with OHS guidelines or regulations -Number of penalties for non-compliance [8,23,40,54,88] OHS inspection -Number of inspections carried out [25,40,79,86] Equipment and preventive maintenance Not specified [25,79] Work setting and situations potentially at risk Not specified [7,8,20,24,79] Evaluation of proactive indicators Not specified [74,79,86] Technology -Degree of integration of technology into the processes [33,89] Budget -The amount allotted to OHS [33,40,59] Workload -Evaluation of workload [90] …”

Safety Management Practices and Safety Compliance: A Model for SMEs in Malaysia

“…It is generally understood that SMEs tend to have a number of constraints, such as resources. Hence, their so-called safety system or practices are likely to be informal and unstructured (Champoux & Brun, 2003;Legg et al, 2015). It is against this backdrop that the role of safety management practices in promoting safety compliance behavior should be understood.…”

“…However, studies that have considered the effect of the practices on safety compliance behavior tended to be conducted in large organizations which are likely to have a formal and structured OSH system. Because SMEs have many resource limitations, they are less likely to devote their resources toward implementing such as system (Champoux & Brun, 2003;Legg, Olsen, Laird, & Hasle, 2015). But, it does not mean that SMEs do not have a system of OSH at all; at best, their system may be informal and unstructured (Legg et al, 2015).…”

“…Because SMEs have many resource limitations, they are less likely to devote their resources toward implementing such as system (Champoux & Brun, 2003;Legg, Olsen, Laird, & Hasle, 2015). But, it does not mean that SMEs do not have a system of OSH at all; at best, their system may be informal and unstructured (Legg et al, 2015). Thus, it is intriguing to examine the degree of safety practices they have and whether these practices are able to encourage safety compliance of the employees.…”

“…It has been argued that SME employers prefer to dedicate their resources to other things that have more productive value (Legg et al, 2015). In the context of SMEs, while sending employees to formal safety programs or carrying out internal and structured safety programs may not be the most feasible option given the resource constraints, informal and less structured training can be implemented on a daily basis.…”