Success factors for OSH implementation. Opening the black box of OSH realisation

Abstract

Economic, technological and demographic developments like globalization, digitalization and aging of European population impact on organizations, work processes and work organization. They influence OSH implementation and performance in almost every organization, large, medium, small or self-employed. Creating and ensuring good OSH has become much more complex within these new contexts than before. Whether OSH implementation will be successful depends on mechanisms, the characteristics of organizations and their context. Successes with technical prevention are no guarantee for successes in dealing with psychosocial risks. A variety of OSH strategies is needed and has to consider key organizational characteristics like prevention culture. This discussion paper concisely summarizes and combines the results of five studies, three national (Sweden, Denmark, Germany) and two European studies that were presented and discussed in a workshop about prevention cultures and OSH interventions which was organized by the authors during the ninth Working on Safety conference in Prague (2017). OSH implementation and performance has to match the current developments in micro firms as well as in bigger companies. Besides important elements of successful strategies for OSH implementation, limitations and remaining challenges for research, policy and practice will be pointed out.

Keywords:

• OSH strategies
• prevention culture
• context-mechanism interactions
• SME and micro enterprises
• self-employed

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (F 2342).