Abstract
Due to the significant change in business organizations, scholarly interest has diverted from studying the determinants of financial performance to understanding the environmental activities, sustainability practices, and health and safety management practices. Despite the extensive literature, it is yet to understand either internal or external factors that improve health and safety management practices in SMEs. This research examines the influence of the internal factors—intellectual capital, information technology capabilities (ITC), and entrepreneurial orientation, and the external capabilities—government financial support, institutional pressure, and managerial networking on six health and safety management practices: management commitment, staff training, worker involvement, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies. We researched 410 Pakistani SMEs from the food business industry. The results indicate that intellectual capital significantly improves management commitment, safety communication and feedback, and safety rules and produces; ITC significantly improves management commitment and safety communication and feedback; and entrepreneurial orientation significantly facilitates safety training and worker involvement only. In the external capabilities, government financial support has a significant influence on management commitment, worker involvement, safety rules and policies, and safety promotion policies. Institutional pressure has a significant influence on management commitment, safety training, safety communication, and feedback and safety promotion policies. Managerial networking significantly influences safety training, worker involvement, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies of SMEs. Focusing only on the food industry is the major limitation of this research, this study recommends SMEs to give sufficient attention to their internal and external factors to enhance health and safety management practices. Further implications are discussed.
Highlights
Unlike traditional tactics, business organizations are become environmentally-oriented to support the community, protect the environment, and improve public health, etc
The reason for choosing the food industry is that health and safety management practices play a significant role in certain industry because it has a significant influence on community health [14]
The results show that all the internal and external resources were significantly related to the health and safety management practices
Summary
Business organizations are become environmentally-oriented to support the community, protect the environment, and improve public health, etc. The role of the internal capabilities such as intellectual capital, information technology capabilities (ITC), and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), as well as the external capabilities such as government financial support, institutional pressure, and managerial networking in health and safety management practices (management commitment, staff training, worker involvement, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies) in SMEs of the food industry. This study tests the relationship between the internal factors, such as intellectual capital, ITC, and entrepreneurial orientation, as well as the external capabilities, such as government financial support, institutional pressure, and managerial networking and health and safety management practices (management commitment, staff training, worker involvement, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies). This may be the first study to unleash the significance of ITC in health and safety management practices, in the small food industry, as previous studies have had mixed results and have given minor attention to ITC in the small food industry
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