Governing Health and Safety in the Electronics Industry in Malaysia

Abstract

This chapter shows that the regulation of occupational safety and health conditions in the electronics industry constituted a policy area of limited statehood in Malaysia. Government officials lacked capacity and expertise to implement and enforce the national legislation on occupational safety and health, OSHA, on large and small electronics firms. The chapter then considered the lack of and presence of different forms of functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy accompanied by various ‘new’ modes of governance. The functional equivalent inter-firm governance relationships and the use of international standards had a positive impact on occupational health and safety conditions among first tier suppliers. For second tier suppliers, the incentive to implement standards was through market access standards, namely, the EU RoHS.