Design of an Indicator for Health and Safety Governance

Serie Documentos de Trabajo, No. 399

46 Pages Posted: 10 Oct 2009

See all articles by Enrique Yacuzzi

Enrique Yacuzzi

University of CEMA

Roberto F. Minguillón

Ing. Roberto F. Minguillón y Asociados

Date Written: July 1, 2009

Abstract

Occupational Health and Safety Governance (OHSG) is a branch of Corporate Governance by which the board directs and controls labor risks created by their own enterprise. The OHSG concept is relatively new; unlike Occupational Health and Safety Management, which is mostly related to the work of managerial ranks, OHSG deals with principles, the interests of stakeholders, and the work of directors. The paper defines the new concept, OHSG, develops an original health and safety indicator, and presents possible applications for it; as far as we are aware of, the indicator is the first proactive tool in existence to measure OHS governance. Our work is part of an ongoing research project aimed at improving health and safety standards in industry.

The indicator takes into account - in its structure - the evaluation style of National Quality Awards, as a pattern to measure, by assigning points, a great number of variables. OHS Governance variables included in the indicator are grouped into areas, themes, dimensions and elements, in order to make them operative and measurable. Measurement is performed by means of a questionnaire, reproduced as an appendix. Maximum scores for each question are assigned following multiple attribute decision theory. The article concludes with reflections on the measurement problem in the social sciences and final thoughts on the characteristics of the proposed indicator.

Keywords: Corporate governance, health and safety governance, measurement, measurement of health and safety, health and safety governance indicator

JEL Classification: G30, G39, L20, M11, M12, M14

Suggested Citation

Yacuzzi, Enrique and Minguillón, Roberto F., Design of an Indicator for Health and Safety Governance (July 1, 2009). Serie Documentos de Trabajo, No. 399, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1485676 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1485676

Enrique Yacuzzi (Contact Author)

University of CEMA ( email )

1054 Buenos Aires
Argentina

Roberto F. Minguillón

Ing. Roberto F. Minguillón y Asociados ( email )

Argentina

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