This new study may interest people – it explored the role of ‘safety culture’ (SC) on European firm injury and financial performance.
They used ESG data from 829 European public firms.
Their conceptualisation of SC was via the sum of 6 dichotomous variables – policy employee health and safety, policy supply chain health and safety, employees health and safety, health and safety training, supply chain health and safety training, the presence of ISO SMSs.
No doubt many people will challenge the concept of SC in this study (or SC in general), the role of policies, and the trustability of injury performance [** I have my own concerns, but, whatever].
Nevertheless, they found:
· Companies with policies around the above “positively influence safety performance, which in turn has a positive impact on financial performance”
· The findings “confirms that safety culture improves safety performance since it significantly reduces the number of accidents at work”
· “ We demonstrate that the development of a positive safety culture based on policies that improve the safety and health of workers in the firm and within the supply chain, that promotes training among its employees, including managers, or that is based on the implementation of OHS management systems all benefit the safety performance of an organisation”
· Also, “This research provides evidence that both safety culture and safety performance, as measured by total injury rate, are positive predictors of a company’s financial performance. If labour accidents are reduced, the company’s profitability improves”
· “Safety culture cannot be dissociated from the general organisational culture of the company and the latter can only be conceived as a dynamic concept that is generated through the interactions between the different members of the organisation …The overall organisational culture of companies plays an important role in building resilient organisations”
Ref: Bautista-Bernal, I., Quintana-García, C., & Marchante-Lara, M. (2024). Safety culture, safety performance and financial performance. A longitudinal study. Safety science, 172, 106409.
Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106409
My site with more reviews: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com
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