COMPANY SAFETY IN THE WINE INDUSTRY OF THE REGION OF CAMPANIA: STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL ASPECTS (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
The social and economic costs of risks produced by organizations are becoming more and more evident and relevant. Enterprises are expected (and, sometimes, obliged) to become able to efficiently manage the risks they induce: industrial hazards, financial uncertainty, environmental risks, risk to safety and health in the workplace, etc. By adopting an organizational perspective, this contribution investigates the approaches to Occupational Health and Safety risks prevention that are promoted by the law (specifically, by Italian law). The goal of this paper is then to discuss the consistency of the norms with respect to the objectives of risks prevention and to understand their actual and potential impact on business practices.
Which risk approach to protect occupational health and safety? Evidence from Italian regulations
Occupational accidents are one of the greatest causes of death and injury. Each year, more than 2.3 million people die from accidents at work and approximately 317 million people are victims of non-fatal occupational diseases. The magnitude of the problem has inspired the introduction, at both international and national level, of legal rules to protect health and safety at work. This paper proposes an organisational discourse on the approach to risk prevention proposed by these norms and the methodological issues related to the development of operational guidelines. We then discuss the consistency of the approach to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risk prevention promoted by the Italian OHS regulations with respect to its objectives, i.e. to avoid the occurrence of accidents and occupational diseases.
Safety Science, 2019
In the last few years, occupational safety and health (OSH) management systems in Spain have been implemented in firms by professional technicians who are gaining importance as advisers to guarantee minimum occupational accidents and to monitor occupational safety and health. This paper analyses the current situation of this profession in Spain, in terms of (1) individual criteria, referring, among other factors, to their training, qualifications, duties, and responsibilities; (2) collective criteria, referring to the situation of their professional group (prevention services entities, employers, market); and (3) environmental criteria, referring to their external perception as individual professionals and members of a professional group and their relationships with other agents. Along with the description of the Spanish situation we analyse the results of a survey carried out on Spanish OSH professionals (FSSOSHP) in which we collected primary data for each criteria category (individual, collective, environmental) in order to suggest improvements for their professional praxis. Finally, we discuss the results of our survey and emphasize the need to make improvements in individual, collective and environmental areas for OSH professionals and OSH management systems to progress in terms of further integration and increased efficacy of OSH activities in Spanish firms.
Journal of Food Agriculture and Environment
The present paper shows the results of a survey about the implementation of the Italian legislation on safety and health at work in the agricultural sector. The survey was carried out in Central Italy with a sample consisting of 411 family farms without employees and 119 farms with employees. The sample consists of farms which were contacted by phone and accepted to be involved to the present survey. It is important to emphasize that only 530 out of about 2500 companies showed a positive attitude to fill in the questionnaire (response rate 21.2%). The business leaders were interviewed and asked a series of questions. The questionnaire was developed for the specific purpose of the research and structured in different ways depending on the type of farm management. After collecting data through the above mentioned way, they were processed, leading to the results shown in the paper. We have seen how agriculture companies show an adequate but not optimal compliance to the new Italian leg...
Relevant occupational health and safety risks in the Portuguese food processing industry
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Safety, 2019
The Agrifood Industry is the largest Portuguese Industry, constituted mainly by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is noted that more than any other type of organization SMEs have their own speci?cities that make it particularly appropriate to develop tools to facilitate communication and knowledge sharing for employers and workers. To this extent, identifying critical success factors is the key to increase SMEs productivity. Likewise, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in SMEs have their own characteristics, which dif?cult the prevention strategies implementation and aggravate the problematic of work accidents. This study analyses a ?eldwork in 60 food processing companies in Portugal, related to the dairy, meat processing, bakery and horticultural subsectors. The analysis of the results allowed to identify that, at the national and regional level, the main failures are concerned with (1) lack of risk assessments regarding occupational noise, lighting, thermal e...
Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 2015
A manager's active role is generally considered to be essential for successfully managing and improving safety. For example, managers are in the position to make safety-related decisions. To be able to make decisions, managers need to have a sufficient understanding of safety-related issues, such as the economic aspects of safety, the significance of which has recently increased. In order to support managers' safety-related responsibilities, it is important to understand their perceptions of safety. This paper discusses how corporate managers value safety and perceive the role of the economic aspects and evaluations of safety. Moreover, corporate managers' views on safety are discussed in relation to different economic situations. Twenty-three management representatives from five large-scale industrial Finnish companies were interviewed. The interviewed managers saw safety as an essential part of company operations and they mentioned many ways that business and economic factors affected safety. Nevertheless, they approached safety largely from the traditional viewpoint of the reactive measurement of accidents and costs, and as an ethical principle, instead of seeing safety as part of doing business. One can question whether safety is included sufficiently in decision-making if it is only approached as a value in itself, and whether the situation would be different if managers had more and better tools to model the economic aspects of safety. Economic evaluations could be useful, particularly in times of austerity when resources are scarce. At the same time, the benefits and limitations of the tools for modelling economic aspects of safety need to be considered.
Relation between occupational safety management and firm performance
Occupational accidents severely deteriorate human capital, and hence negatively affect the productivity and competitiveness of countries. But despite this, we still observe a scarcity of preventive practices, an unsatisfactory management commitment and an absence of safety culture among Spanish firms. The result is evident in firms' high accident rates. This situation is a consequence of the general belief among firms that investing in safety is a cost, and hence has negative repercussions for their competitiveness. The current work aims to identify good practices in safety management, and analyse the effect of these practices on a set of indicators of organisational performance. For this, we first carry out an exhaustive literature review, and then formulate a series of hypotheses. We then test the proposed model on a sample of 455 Spanish firms. Our findings show that safety management has a positive influence on safety performance, competitiveness performance, and economic-financial performance. Hence they provide evidence of the compatibility between worker protection and corporate competitiveness.
Occupational safety and health in Spain
Journal of Safety Research, 2002
Occupational Health and Safety in Spain has improved considerably over the last decade, most likely due to a new concept where an overall concept of safety culture is defined. Important changes in industrial safety, hygiene, and psychosocial factors present an optimistic panorama for the future of Spain. Despite this general improvement, according to the European Convergence Program, Spanish statistics still offer far from good safety results. In fact, according to 1997 official statistics, Spain had the highest incidence rate for nonfatal occupational accidents of all European Union (EU) countries, and occupied third place for fatal accidents. This paper summarizes the organizational structure of the Spanish National System of Health & Safety at Work, its effective health and safety laws, and statistics on the Spanish work environment obtained from III Spanish National Survey on Work Conditions (1997). The researchers hope that the findings of this work will have an impact on Spanish industry that will subsequently bring about improvements in work conditions and develop assessment and intervention models in occupational health and safety, from a theoretical position integrating environmental, human, and organizational factors.