Corporate Safety Research Articles

95/06160 Socioeconomic development and electricity consumption. A cross-country analysis using the random coefficient method

The prevention of work-related injury and illness is of crucial importance to employees, industry and society as a whole. Corporate safety culture is now generally accepted as having a strong influence over workplace accidents and injuries. After implementation of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in the organization, there have been an improvement in term of safety in the workplace. However, there are still some cases of accident being reported even after the organizations’ management provided training, introducing stricter rules and regulation regarding safety, and provides proper equipment to employee. Hence, the study is carried out in order to examine the effect of employees’ attitude and subjective norm toward safety culture behaviour in organization. The study was conducted in manufacturing service industry in Malaysia, and data collection was done at Flextronics Penang Sdn Bhd, a company in the northern part of Malaysia. Data were collected through 196 survey questionnaires distributed to operators (90 respondents), technician (52 respondents) and engineer (27 respondents) in Flextronics Penang Sdn Bhd. The results showed that safety culture behaviour is significantly influenced by employee's attitude and subjective norm. Based on the findings, several recommendations are being put forward in order to improve the safety culture behaviour among employees in the organization. For future research in the same area, it is being recommended to include management commitment, leadership, safety education, and training under scrutiny in order to understand its relationship with safety culture behaviour among employees.

Corporate environmental excellence and stewardship: Five critical tasks of top management

AbstractOne of the most important challenges facing business is shaping the role of senior management in corporate environmental performance. In some leading companies, the CEO or chairman takes the initiative to carefully define his or her role because of a strong personal commitment, a keen grasp of the business incentives, in response to past problems, or because of a combination of these. In other companies, even where corporate policies genuinely support and promote corporate environmental, health, and safety programs, there may still be inaction or reluctance on the part of top management to participate or get involved. This management posture may work for a few more years, but no longer than that—and could quickly become a major detriment to any company's ongoing market success or viability.This article will focus on a strategy for getting top management involved in your company's programs and, where they are already involved, for sharing some insights we have gained from our work with a number of companies where top management has taken a strong role in environmental issues and has established precedence for what can work well.

Corporate performance standards at Kodak

AbstractCreating an effective and consistent corporate health, safety, and environment program for a decentralized, international company poses unique challenges. This article describes how, with global company input, Kodak has established a set of twenty‐eight corporate HSE performance standards. Worldwide facility compliance with these standards is monitored through Kodak's Corporate HSE Assessment Program and through the Corporate Self‐Appraisal Program.

HEALTH AND SAFETY'S STEWARDSHIP OF KEY BUSINESS VALUES: EMPLOYEES, PUBLIC TRUST, AND RESPONSIBILITY TO SHAREHOLDERS

This paper reviews how one company has been able to develop and implement a highly effective job safety and health system and to sustain it at a high level of performance. This process begins with a simple but clear corporate safety and health policy statement: "Procter & Gamble insists on safe operation." It is driven by three critical values, namely: 1) its employees, 2) its public trust, and 3) its profits. The impact of workers' compensation costs on company profits is examined, along with the enormous savings in these costs that have been achieved by the company's commitment to total quality. This is followed by brief descriptions of the company's "Total Incident Rate" and it's "Key Elements" systems, and the relationships between them. The paper concludes with a description of the company's model for enabling all employees to make recommendations for continuous improvement of health and safety systems throughout all of the company's operations.

The Corporate Construction of Occupational Health and Safety: A Labour Process Analysis

A theoretical framework for understanding corporate programs in health and safety is developed and applied within a specific case study of a mining company. The analysis shows that corporate efforts to transform the labour process play a critical role in the development of health and safety as a major corporate interest. Emphasis is placed on linking changes in occupational risk assessment and control to a number of competing production, cost, and labour control problems largely created within the context of the company's efforts to transform the labour process and labour relations. The specific character of these problems and the contradictory demands which they place on management are understood as shaping the different organizational, political, and ideological aspects of the corporate health and safety program.

CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER REVIEWED

This paper analyses the criminal law concept of corporate manslaughter in the regulation of the corporate safety culture of the workplace. The undeveloped and controversial nature of corporate man‐slaughter is set in the context of factors which determine regulatory action (and sometimes inaction). These include the role of the police, the Health and Safety Executive and the coroner. Active and proactive regulatory reform (legislative, judicial and procedural) is considered.

Performance Management and Occupational Safety

Instructional techniques used by the author to teach a performance management (PM) approach to occupational safety are reviewed. Post-workshop safety programs were implemented at several plants without consultation from a PM specialist; however, the PM strategies were not evaluated systematically unless they targeted vehicle saftey belt use. Thus, a Case is made from starting with a safety belt program, not only because such programs can reduce the most significant cause of lost work time (ie.e., the vehicle crash), but also because the behavior change success of a corporate safety belt program can be readily assessed by company personnel and therefore reinforce the PM approach to occupational safety.

Dealing with the process safety “management gap”

AbstractThe Process Industry has Corporate Safety Policies, codes of practice, skilled engineers and safety specialists and powerful techniques for Hazard Identification, Assessment and Control. Despite the above and a strong commitment to safety, accidents still occur. Many accidents appear to be due to “gaps” in the management systems rather than to failures of professional skills or to a lack of commitment. This paper will review the many stages in designing, constructing and operating a facility between the initial appraisal of a potential project and the final taking out of service of a facility. The “primary” and “secondary” safety checks will be described. The paper will give examples of gaps in management systems which have led to problems. Finally the paper will suggest ways in which these gaps can be minimized.

Kerr-McGee and the NRC: From Indian country to silkwood to Gore

By focusing upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's appraisal of the Kerr-McGee Corporation's safety record in the Four Corners area and at two facilities in Oklahoma, this article examines the political economy of nuclear regulation in American society. Particular attention is given to the agency's response to intervenor groups which protested various operations at Kerr-McGee facility in Gore, Oklahoma, both prior to and following the accidental rupture of a cylinder containing uranium hexafluoride. Despite a consistent record of violations and nuclear mishaps by Kerr-McGee, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission permitted the company to essentially monitor its own activities. Rather than protecting workers and the public from the hazards of the nuclear industry, state regulation attempts to legitimize and defuse public opposition to its endeavors.

The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder In New York City, 1763-1834

Road to Mobocracy is the first major study of public disorder in New York City from the Revolutionary period through the Jacksonian era. During that time, the mob lost its traditional, institutional role as corporate safety valve and social corrective, tolerated by public officials. It became autonomous, a violent menace to individual and public good expressing the discordant urges and fears of a pluralistic society. Indeed, it tested the premises of democratic government.Paul Gilje relates the practices of New York mobs to their American and European roots and uses both historical and anthropological methods to show how those mobs adapted to local conditions. He questions many of the traditional assumptions about the nature of the mob and scrutinizes explanations of its transformation: among them, the loss of a single-interest society, industrialization and changes in the workforce, increased immigration, and the rise of sub-classes in American society. Gilje's findings can be extended to other cities.The lucid narrative incorporates meticulous and exhaustive archival research that unearths hundreds of New York City disturbances -- about the Revolution, bawdy-houses, theaters, dogs and hogs, politics, elections, ethnic conflict, labor actions, religion. Illustrations recreate the turbulent atmosphere of the city; maps, graphs, and tables define the spacial and statistical dimensions of its ferment. The book is a major contribution to our understanding of social change in the early Republic as well as to the history of early New York, urban studies, and rioting.

Accident prevention through personnel selection

This article describes how thePersonnel Selection Inventory-Form 3S (PSI-3S) can be used to supplement more traditional corporate safety programs. Validation research shows that the PSI-3S subscales, especially the safety subscale, consistently predict a wide variety of accident-related criteria. Two time-series studies are presented that document the impact of the PSI-3S on the reduction of worker accidents, paid insurance losses, and lost work days. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Corporate fire safety

Corporate fire safety

Toxicology in business decision making

More than ever before, toxicology and its sister health sciences and technologies are needed as members of the business team to ensure sound business decision making for both new and existing businesses. Yet the marriage of toxicology and business is an uneasy one since toxicology is both the bringer of bad news and a major resource for the solution of problems. Both business and toxicology have much to learn about each other to make the marriage work and to make full use of toxicology's scientific advice in reaching sound decisions on the safe production, distribution, and handling of a company's products. Toxicology also has a central and difficult role in helping business navigate the turbulent waters of regulation or of potential or actual litigation. From his own experience in organizing a corporate health, safety, and environmental department, the author describes the concepts that must be understood and the marshaling of resources needed to ensure that toxicology can play its full role in business decision making.

Safety Programs in Large Construction Firms

The safety programs of forty-nine of the largest construction companies in the United States were studied, showing which safety practices are most prevalent in large construction companies. Results revealed that although the safety programs tend to be fairly consistent, some companies are more formalized. These more formal programs were associated with better safety performances. Particularly safe records were evidenced in those firms that: (1) Provided a formal orientation for new workers; (2) had field safety personnel that were hired by the corporate safety director; and (3) placed the field safety director in charge of training other safety personnel.

Lymphocytotoxins in rheumatoid arthritis: prevalence, lymphocyte specificity, and HLA-DR antigens.

37% (57/155) of sera from patients with rheumatoid arthritis contain cold-reacting lymphocytotoxic antibodies. Lymphocytotoxins were predominantly of the weakly reactive type and were more likely to be present in patients who were HLA-DR4 positive. By contrast, patients who were HLA-DR3 positive were more likely to have strongly reactive lymphocytotoxins. The lymphocyte subclass reactivity of the lymphocytotoxins was: 67% versus B lymphocytes, 27% against both T and B cells, and 7% for T cells.

Measuring corporate social performance: The problem of values

Debates over the social performance of corporations have carried with them implicit evaluations of that performance. The apparent subjectivity and bias of these informal evaluations has led to the development of more formalized corporate social performance assessment methodologies — social audits. In this paper it is argued that these social audits are also influenced by subjectivity and bias considerations; and thru the case study of a social audit of a corporate safety program, the underlying value issues at the core of these influences are explored. The value implications of the various social audit methodologies in use are discussed; and several value sensitive stages/elements of social audit research and evaluation research in general are identified. Recommendations set forth for minimizing the negative consequences of value-influenced evaluations are a value-explicit evaluation approach, greater standardization of evaluation procedures, a dialectic evaluation approach, and better informed evaluation consumers.

Errata

The name of the author of Laser Laboratory Precautions, printed in the April 1966 Journal, was omitted. Our apologies to Dr. John H. MacFarlane, Corporate Safety Director, Raytheon Company.