Using the past to map out the future of occupational health and safety research: where do we go from here?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to take stock of the extant research on occupational health and safety (OHS) with the aim of identifying gaps and mapping out a future research agenda for human resource management (HRM) scholars. A comprehensive review of OHS research from 1956 to 2019 was first conducted. A total of 564 articles from 17 leading journals were then identified and categorized into five distinct, yet inter-related, themes: (1) antecedents and work-related factors influencing OHS; (2) industrial policy and regulations surrounding OHS; (3) OHS management practices; (4) approaches to, and models of, managing OHS and (5) outcomes of OHS management. The review also discusses OHS research methodologies and design foci. Overall, we found that OHS research is poorly integrated into the field of HRM, and we identify a plethora of opportunities for HR researchers to add value to this field of research. A future agenda is formulated, encompassing new OHS theory-building, novel directions for empirical research, and innovations in research design and methodology.

Keywords:

• HR practices
• literature review
• occupational health and safety
• workplace safety

Introduction

Research in occupational health and safety (OHS) has grown significantly over the last several decades. As a complex and cross-disciplinary field of research, policy and practice, OHS interacts with a broad spectrum of stakeholders and concerns (Zohar, 2010; Beus, Mccord, & Zohar, 2016). It goes beyond the traditional emphasis on physical harm and now increasingly embraces emotional and psychological health as well as the implications of safety for individual productivity and firm performance. OHS research spans a number of fields, from epidemiology, industrial hygiene, toxicology, occupational medicine and ergonomics, to general management, organization studies and human resource management and employment relations (HRM&ER), with the latter field serving as the focus on this paper. Curiously, within organizations, OHS is one of the core responsibilities of the HR function—as evidenced by the fact that many textbooks in our field include a chapter on health and safety, but whether OHS receives the same core attention in HRM research is an open question, and one that we attempt to answer through a comprehensive literature review.

To this end, our study starts with a broad bibliographic review of all Social Science Citation Indexed journals using visualization of similarities (VOS), a novel analytic technique that graphically depicts similarities across large swathes of text. The search is then narrowed to 17 leading HRM and OHS journals, as defined by the Web of Science (WoS). Within that context, we focus especially on insights from HRM for OHS research and examine the physical, physiological and psychosocial conditions underlying the management of human resources at both a macro- and micro-level (Beus, Dhanani, & Mccord, 2015; Zanko & Dawson, 2012). Although there are several meta-analyses in the OHS literature, for example, on the relationship between personality and workplace safety (Beus et al., 2015), between organizational behaviors and health and safety outcomes (Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011), and between safety climate and injuries (Beus, Payne, Bergman, & Arthur, 2010), a comprehensive review of the OHS literature from a purely HRM&ER perspective is needed. According to Boyd (2001, p. 439), ‘[g]iven that health and safety is a key area covered by HRM, it is surprising that it receives minimal coverage (or none at all) in key HRM texts and journals’. From this point of view, it is important to take stock of what we know with the aim of developing a future research agenda in this area, hence the present study.

This research is important inasmuch as work-related injuries and illness (physiological, physical and psychosocial) incur massive costs to the economy, including direct costs associated with medical treatment, lost working time, rehabilitation and worker’s compensation payments, as well as indirect costs such as replacement costs and the deleterious effects on co-workers and their families. According to estimates presented by Takala et al. (2014, p. 326), ‘…globally there are 2.3 million deaths annually for reasons attributed to work. The biggest component is linked to work-related diseases, 2.0 million, and 0.3 million linked to occupational injuries’. The economic costs related to work-related injuries and illness vary between 1.8% and 6.0% of Gross Domestic Product in the US, European countries and China, with an overall average of 4% of GDP (Takala et al., 2014; Chen & Chan, 2010) in the rest of the world. Although a significant improvement of occupational safety management has been evident in the U. S., there were still approximately 2.8 million non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers (a rate of 2.8 cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers) in the U.S. in 2017 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). In contrast, the benefits of managing OHS in the workplace are widely recognized to include increased productivity, performance, and lower rates of absenteeism and voluntary employee turnover (Beus et al., 2015; Cheng, Ryan, & Kelly, 2012; Falkenberg, 1987; Fernández-Muñiz, Montes-Peón, & Vázquez-Ordás, 2009).

Mapping the field

What is the current state of knowledge of OHS research in the field of HRM, and how can this growing body of research be fruitfully extended? Our review seeks to answer this question by consolidating the extant literatures on OHS and identifying the specific areas that deserve further attention by HR scholars. We employed three methodological approaches to ‘map’ the relevant knowledge about this topic. They include (i) a preliminary large-scale bibliographic analysis of social science research, (ii) a more focused content analysis of 17 target journals relevant to the wider field of HRM and (iii) a supplementary review of OHS research contained in books. Each method is now described in turn.

Bibliographic analysis

The bibliographic analysis consisted of five steps.

Step 1: Pilot Search. A pilot literature review was initially conducted to assess the feasibility of a larger-scale undertaking. We focused on the top six business and management journals over a ten-year timeframe (from 2009 to 2019, including ‘Online First’ articles), namely Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Management, Organization Science and Journal of Applied Psychology. Within these strict parameters, only four OHS papers were identified: one in Academy of Management Journal and three in Journal of Applied Psychology (Beus et al., 2010, Beus et al., 2015; Nahrgang et al., 2011; Zhang, Waldman, Han, & Li, 2015). This dearth of OHS research in the top business and management journals foreshadowed a similar scarcity specific to the field of HRM.

Step 2: Keyword Development. Keywords were defined, focusing on safety-related terms frequently used in OHS training and academic research (Zanko & Dawson, 2012): occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health (OH) and occupational/workplace safety (OS/WS). The inclusion and exclusion criteria used to determine the eligibility of studies were based on (1) the population of interest, including workplaces and data sources located anywhere in the world, but excluding studies using subjects that were not workplace-focused, e.g. behavioral laboratory experiment; and (2) the nature of the articles, such that the focus had to be on OHS for the workplace or workforce; thus, studies on topics such as patient safety in hospitals were excluded.

Step 3: Visualize Similarities in the Social Sciences. Based on the defined keywords, 5,599 journal articles, from 1956 (the first year of the WoS) to 2019, were first identified across the social sciences via the SSCI. We then employed VOS, an innovative text mining technique (van Eck, Waltman, Dekker, & van den Berg, 2010), to analyze the 5,599 articles and create a visual map of topics and relationships between topics. VOS-generated scientific maps ‘have the capability to zoom out further [than meta-analyses] and empirically capture the relationships between multiple topic areas’ (Lee, Felps, & Baruch, 2014, p. 340). Through extracting the key terms and phrases, VOS calculates the relationships between terms and phrases and then captures the occurrence of related terms.

The results of this preliminary mapping analysis of 5,599 journal articles are reported in Figure 1. We identified three clusters of OHS research across the social sciences. The largest cluster (red, N = 478 terms/keywords), the outcomes of OHS management, includes research on external/internal intervention, effectiveness and evaluation, and OHS performance. The second largest cluster (green, N = 272 terms/keywords), labeled the processes of OHS management, covers research on the practices, policies and regulations, and methods used to conduct OHS research. The third cluster (blue, N = 193 terms/keywords), labeled the antecedents of OHS management, incorporates research on the various determinants of OHS at work.

Figure 1. The Cluster Map of All Social Science Discipline Journals. Note: the antecedents of OHS management = Blue; the process = Green; the outcomes = Red.

Step 4: Visualize Similarities in Business and Management Research. Whereas Step 3 examined OHS across all of the social sciences, this step focused on business and management research (as defined by the WoS) more specifically. By restricting the VOS analysis to business and management journals, we identified 200 journal articles. VOS was again employed to map the major research themes. The results, reported in Figure 2, indicate that the themes drawn from the field of management and business are very similar to those extracted from all disciplines within the social sciences: (a) antecedents of OHS management (red, N = 100 terms/keywords; note: the figure of ‘100’ does not refer to the total number of articles; hereafter) (b) processes of OHS management (blue, N = 32 terms/keywords); and (c) outcomes of OHS management (green, N = 61 terms/keywords). In other words, a processual theme was emerging at this stage.

Figure 2. The Cluster Map of Management and Business Journals. Note: the antecedents of OHS management = Red; the process = Blue; the outcomes = Green.

Step 5: Visualize Similarities in the 17 Target Journals. To situate OHS in the context of extant HRM&ER research, we identified 17 target journals, 14 of which were chosen because they are ranked either 4 or 3 in the Chartered ABS list (2018) of HR/ER journals. Another three journals in safety science and occupational psychology (SS&OP)—(1) Safety Science, (2) Accident Analysis and Prevention and (3) Journal of Occupational Health Psychology¹—were added to the HR/ER journals in order to provide a comparative benchmark. Within these 17 targeted journals, 564 articles were identified using the defined keywords and search criteria used in the previous steps (see the supplemental online Appendix I for the full list of studies). As shown in Table 1, these 564 studies, published from 1956 to 2019, show that OHS research is much more likely to be published in the SS&OP journals than in the HRM&ER journals, pointing to a significant dearth in the broad area of human resources and industrial relations. We also conducted another VOS analysis, reported in Figure 3, revealing five clusters of OHS research across these 17 journals: antecedents of OHS management (green, N = 56 terms/keywords), outcomes of OHS (red, N = 73 terms/keywords), industrial policy and regulations around OHS (N = 45 terms/keywords), practices related to OHS (N = 29 terms/keywords) and methods and models of managing OHS (N = 32 terms/keywords).

Figure 3. The Cluster Map of Targeted Seventeen Journals. Note: the antecedents of OHS management = Green; the process (industrial policy and OHS regulations) = Blue; the process (OHS practices) = Purple; the process (OHS methods/models) = yellow; the outcomes = Red.

Table 1. Seventeen academic journals: total articles published and OHS articles.

Journals	Established year	Total number of articles published^a,d	Number of OHS articles^b	%^c
Safety Science^1	1976	3,191	418	13.10
Accident Analysis and Prevention^1	1969	5,634	59	1.05
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology^1	1996	544	44	8.09
Human Resource Management^2	1961	1,140	1	0.09
Human Resource Management Journal^2	1990	295	2	0.68
International Journal of Human Resource Management^2	1990	2,279	6	0.26
Human Resource Management Review^2	1991	413	0	0.00
British Journal of Industrial Relations^3	1963	1,236	4	0.32
Industrial and Labor Relations Review^3	1947	316	3	0.95
Industrial Relations: a journal of economy and society^3	1961	1,493	5	0.33
Industrial Relations Journal^3	1970	118	2	1.69
Work, Employment and Society^3	1987	1,059	7	0.66
European Journal of Industrial Relations^3	1995	440	2	0.45
Industrial Law Journal^3	1972	91	1	1.10
Work and Occupations^3	1974	643	1	0.16
New Technology, Work and Employment^3	1986	370	0	0.00
Economic and Industrial Democracy^3	1980	918	9	0.98
Total		20,180	564	2.79%

Notes: ^aNumber of published articles.

^bNumber of articles relevant to OHS (included in the study).

^cOHS relevant articles as a percentage of total articles published in the journal; 1: SS&OP; 2: HRM; and 3: ER.

^dWeb of Science starts collecting SSCI journals from 1956, thus, the time horizon of journal searching above is between 1956 and 2019, hereafter.

A further content analysis to solidify research theme development

The five categories identified in the Step 5 by VOS were then subjected to a rigorous content analysis to validate the clusters. To ensure a robust analysis, we adopted Krippendorff’s (2013) content analysis methodology. Guided by this framework and the aforementioned bibliographic literature review, we solidified 532 out of 564 articles in the 17 target journals into the five emergent research themes. The remaining 32 articles were re-classified along the lines of research design and methodological discussions about OHS. The OHS literature was therefore clustered, after extensive discussion within the research team, into five main themes depicted in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Organizing Framework Derived from Content Analysis of the Literature.

A supplementary review of research books

As a further robustness check (of sorts), we also undertook a supplementary review of research books and book chapters to see if the same five themes emerged. We manually searched books and book chapters using the library search engine at [university redacted to protect anonymity in peer review]. Using the same keywords as above, the search engine generated 2,172 books and 3,159 book chapters that contain any combination of those words. We further refined the search by focusing on research books and book chapters with a specific focus on OHS, and discovered 133 books and 54 book chapters ranging from 1977 to 2018. With respect to scholarly rigor and to be consistent with the bibliographic search method detailed above, we further evaluated the number of citations within each book/chapter. We focused on high impact research, defined as books and chapters with 100+ citations, using Callaway’s (2016) criteria. A total of 34 books/chapters were identified and added to our analysis, of which the top 20 high impact research books and book chapters are listed in the online document Appendix II. Overall, we discovered that the key topics of these research books and book chapters fit unexceptionally within the five research themes generated first by the bibliographic searches and then solidified by the content analysis.

Analysis of categories and themes in OHS research

Consistent with Werner’s (2002, pp. 280, 281) review, this study did not adopt a formal content coding method, opting instead for emergent codes; hence, the theme categories should be treated as ‘an organizing tool rather than a definitive classification of the body of research’. Table 2 shows the number of articles in each of the identified themes and sub-themes, and some specific examples of each sub-theme of the studies. Of the five themes, factors influencing OHS had generated the most articles. We therefore begin with this theme.

Table 2. Themes and Sub-Themes Identified in OHS Articles.

Theme	Sub-Theme	Number of Studies^a	Examples of Research Focus	References^b
1. Influential factors for OHS (208 articles)	External environment factors	22	Socio-economic inequalities on counties’ occupational injuries, Central China National culture on employees’ safety-related perceptions and behavior, Australia The role of intermediaries in delivering an OHS programme, New Zealand A review of safety regulation Monday work injury claims, U.S. National culture on construction safety behaviors, Pakistan The impact of globalization, Finland Investigations from arbitration and labor relations boards, Canada Incentives in Swedish work environment regulation, Sweden Economic development, China European social dialogue, European countries The long hours culture and work-life balance, UK	Butler et al. (2014) Hämäläinen (2009) Harcourt and Harcourt (2000) Chatzitheochari and Arber (2009)
	Individual factors	33	Age and work-related health, U.K. Safety voice and occupational safety, Canada A review of men, masculinity and OHS When workers know they have safety representatives, Spain Administrational supervision of OSH inspectors, Finland Gender and maternity considerations and techniques, Spain Worker’s age, Spain Risk perceptions, France Psychological empowerment and organizational identification, US Safety behavior, UK	Davies et al. (2016) Tucker and Turner (2015) Stergiou-Kita et al. (2015) Ford and Tetrick (2011) McDermott and Munir (2012)
	Occupational factors	34	Work-related stress risk factors, Italy Job conditions and health/well-being, UK Job demands, job resources and safety outcomes, China Education, experience, psychological features, self-esteem, perceived stress, management attitudes, etc., Hong Kong Job autonomy, communication quality & organizational commitment to safety, UK The workplace experience, job types, UK Occupational emotional labor requirements, US Working conditions, Italia Job content, employees’ burnout and job performance, Portugal	Choudhry and Fang (2008) Parker et al. (2001)
	Team and supervisor factors	16	Leadership empowerment behaviour on safety officer and safety teamwork, Malaysia Leader behavioral integrity and occupational safety, U.S. Co-worker/ supervisor support for safety, Portugal Group level trust & group level safety climate, Israel Safety leadership, UK	Halbesleben et al. (2013) O’Dea and Flin (2001)
	Industrial relations related factors	19	Chemicals regulation, Sweden Wages and/or compensation benefits, Canada and US Union roles, US Union-appointed safety representatives, Norway Trade Union in SMEs, Denmark	Thomason and Pozzebon (2002) Ben-Ner and Park (2003) Boal (2009) Hovden et al. (2008) Holten and Crouch (2014)
	Organizational factors	8	Company size, safety culture, and measures of financial performance, Sweden Safety environment, U.S. Middle managers’ role in safeguarding OHS, UK Firm size, Denmark Safety climate, Taiwan Organizational culture, Finland Organizational transformations, Canada Organizational work practices and ICT adoption, France The ‘flexible’ workplace practices and OHS, US High involvement work system practices, Netherlands	Nordlöf et al. (2017) McGonagle et al. (2014) Sørensen et al. (2007) Lu and Yang (2011) Öz et al. (2010) Brenner et al. (2004) Oppenauer and Van De Voorde (2018)
2. Industrial Policy and Regulations around OHS (73 articles)	Stakeholder views of OHS	14	Women’s occupational health and safety management, Spain OHS in CSR reports, Finland Contractors’ and inspectors’ perceptions of the department of labour OHS inspectorate, South Africa Management perspectives of the state of workplace OHS practices, Kenya Worker perspectives on the skills, knowledge and behaviors, Australia	Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al. (2017) Mbakaya et al. (1999)
	The industry impact	43	Solid waste management facilities, Greece Health care workers, U.S. OHS management in municipal waste companies, Italy A review of models relevant to road safety Economic worry and the presence of safety hazards on farms, Canada Safety on Newfoundland’s fishing wharves, Canada The ‘cold’ industrial relations climate and OHS management, Australia Injury types and causes in fisheries, Egypt OHS management in the clerical work, UK Supply chain pressure and OHS in food processing industry, UK	Kramer and Son (2016) Hughes et al. (2015) Gunningham (2008) Poplin et al. (2008) Zytoon (2012) Lloyd and James (2008)
	National boundary conditions	16	Managing preventive OHS activities during crisis, Denmark OHS management in municipal waste companies, Italy A welfare state regime perspective, Taiwan Occupational accidents between 1992 and 2001, Portugal Distribution of OHS risks among immigrants and non-immigrants, Canada	Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach (2018) Smith and Mustard (2010)
3. OHS Practices (93 articles)	Proactive practices	80	A knowledge transfer and exchange intervention project, Canada Health and Safety Practitioners, Ireland and UK Safe design thinking among engineering students, UK Road safety interventions, Spain The usage of mandated health and safety committees, US ‘One hour for safety management’ training program, Finland Health investment practices, UK Standardization, Norway Employee participation in supply chain OHS initiative, UK Management-union voice in OHS management, UK Training in Occupational Safety Programme (OSP), Portugal	Kramer et al. (2017) Well (1999) Häkkinen (1995) Antonsen, Skarholt, and Ringstad (2012)
	Reactive practices	13	Independent audit of the internal responsibility system, Canada Internal audits of psychosocial risks at workplaces, Denmark Investigation reports on occupational accidents, Spain After-action reviews, US Systematic accident cost analysis project, Denmark Safety analysis in design, Sweden	Allen et al. (2010) Harms-Ringdahl (1987)
4. Methods and models of managing OHS (101 articles)	Methods and approaches of OHS analysis	46	A review of occupational health (OH) and OH psychology A review of measurement theory and practice in OHS A review of theoretical approaches of men and masculinity and high-risk work Leading indicators of OHS, Australia Leading and lagging indicators of OHS, Australia A review of knowledge management systems and e-learning for improved OHS Accident analysis method: combining task analysis and FTA, Bulgaria The application of CART method in risk analysis, Italy Development of a risk analysis method, Norway Examine the impact of current work and employment practices, UK Assess and facilitate warehouse safety, Netherlands	Sauter and Hurrell (2017) Tetrick (2017) Stergiou-Kita et al. (2017) Floyde et al. (2013) Doytchev and Szwillus (2009) Kjellén (1995) Robinson and Smallman (2006)
	New OHS management proposals and testing	55	A new approximation for risk assessment A national standard for psychosocial safety climate, Australia Methodology for the Implementation and Monitoring of Occupational Safety, Italy A new severity scoring system, U.S. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and a 0–1 knapsack model Proposal and implementation of an OHS management system, Brazil A new model of conflict management to HSE management, Mexico Proposal and test of a catastrophe theory model of the accident process, US Proposal of an OHS management system that mixes legislation and social partnering, Demark Propose an OHS performance evaluation tool for SMEs, Canada An approach to predict safety outcome, New Zealand	Bailey et al. (2015) Bas (2014) Obadia et al. (2007) Butler and Teagarden (1993) Guastello (1989) Sørensen et al. (2009) Tremblay and Badri (2018) Ghodrati et al. (2018)
5. Outcomes of OHS (57 articles)	External Intervention Effectiveness Evaluation	21	The OSHA steel erection standard, U.S. Mandatory OSHA 10 h training, U.S. Enforcement legislation, Finland OHS management systems and OHSAS 18001, China Legislation effectiveness on home based telework, Canada Regulation of systematic OHS-work, Norway The effectiveness of integrated management systems, Demark The result in a new legislation on workplace assessment, Demark The impacts of OHS committees, US The influence of the abolition of the default retirement age, UK The adoption of sun safety programs, Canada	Choe et al. (2016) Saksvik et al. (2003) and Lund (2004) Jensen (2002) Eaton and Nocerino (2000)
	Internal Intervention Effectiveness Evaluation	21	Strategies for improving safety, Chile Performance Assessment of Health Safety and Environment Management System, Iran Benefits associated with health and safety management systems certification, Portugal A behavior-based method for improving safety performance, Australia The effectiveness of safety management systems, Italy REACH OUT training program, US Shareholder reactions to the announcements of OSHA penalties Internal control, Malaysia The influence of safety cost on safety performance, Iran Leadership intervention, UK The effectiveness of OHS trainings, Turkey Active and passive OHS training, Canada	Alarcón et al. (2016) Hopkins (2006) Jensen, Monica, and Vignali (2009) Wells et al. (1997) Davidson et al. (1994)
	OHS performance	15	OHS vulnerability affecting workplace injury, Canada OHS and prior injury and illness rates, US The implementation of voluntary Five-Star OHS management system and the incidence of fatal and permanently disabling injury, South African Individual earning losses, US Firm performance, Spain Project performance, Hong Kong	Autenrieth et al. (2016) Woock (2009) Fernández-Muñiz et al. (2009) Cheng et al. (2012)

Note: ^aNumber of articles in total = 532. ^breferences are listed in a sequence of example articles dot-pointed; we supplement with the full reference list in the supplemental online Appendix I. ^cWeb of Science starts collecting SSCI journals from 1956, thus, the time span of journal searching above is between 1956 and 2019.

Theme one: antecedents of OHS

This is the most highly researched theme (208 out of 532 articles). Studies examining the predictors of OHS (e.g. safety attitudes and safety behaviors) can be divided into two groups: macro-level factors and micro-level factors, as shown in Table 2. Only 22 articles focused on macro-level factors, such as national culture, globalization, economic development and government interventions. In contrast, 186 articles focus on micro-level factors, such as the impact of individuals, teams, and supervisors and organizational and occupational factors. Individual factors mainly include demographic characteristics, risk perceptions and safety attitudes (Davies, Jones, & Lloyd-Williams, 2016; Ford & Tetrick, 2011; McDermott & Munir, 2012; Tucker & Turner, 2015). Another employee level factor is related to occupational feature, which refers to (perceived) characteristics of the job itself, including concerns centered around job strain, job insecurity, job demands, job control and working conditions (e.g., Parker, Axtell, & Turner, 2001; Choudhry & Fang, 2008). Industrial relation factors that significantly predict OHS included compensation, safety representatives, union density, industrial relations climate and labor intensification (Boal, 2009; Hovden, Lie, Karlsen, & Alteren, 2008; Thomason & Pozzebon, 2002).

Much of this literature (82 articles of 208) focused on safety culture/climate in organizations as a key antecedent of safety outcomes. Other organization level factors that predict OHS include firm size, organizational culture, technological factors and corporate social responsibility (McGonagle, Walsh, Kath, & Morrow, 2014; Nordlöf et al., 2017; Sørensen, Hasle, & Bach, 2007). Hopkins (2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012), a leading thinker on workplace safety, through narrative analyses of the 1996 Gretley Mine disaster in Australia, the BP Texas City Refinery Disaster in 2008, and the Gulf of Mexico Blowout in 2010, points out that OHS problems are also caused by organizational failures, including communication problems, lack of attention to major hazards, superficial auditing, and a failure to learn from previous experience. Barling and Frone (2003) edited book comprises 14 review articles based on quantitative cross-sectional designs which analyzed influential factors determining workplace safety and accidental injuries, such as poor worker–employer collaboration, lack of safety management systems, poor safety culture, deficient knowledge and training, and a lack of incentive-based compensation systems.

Two approaches to workplace health and safety management are prominent in this research theme: the behavior-based and the culture/climate-based safety approaches. The former identifies critical safety behaviors and emphasizes how individual and group behaviors affect workplace injury rates (Ford & Tetrick, 2008). According to this approach, behavior management techniques such as incentives, rewards, feedback, goal-setting, coaching and training should be applied in an OHS context with the objective of influencing and changing future behaviors (Clissold, Buttigieg, & De Cieri, 2012; Krause, Seymour, & Sloat, 1999; Nahrgang et al., 2011).

The culture/climate-based approach emphasizes the importance of the organizational environment and employees’ psychological response, including how safety culture/climate influence safety outcomes, safety program effectiveness and safety performance (DeJoy, 2005). Since Zohar’s (1980) landmark study, which introduced the concept of ‘safety climate’, this research theme has proved the most attractive. Safety climate describes employees’ collective perceptions of safety policies, procedures, and practices and kinds of behaviors that get rewarded and supported in organizations or workgroups (Zohar & Luria, 2005). Much effort has been expended on researching safety culture/climate because it is a robust leading indicator of OHS outcomes across industries and countries (Williamson, Feyer, Cairns, & Biancotti, 1997; Smith, Huang, Ho, & Chen, 2006; Zohar, 2010). However, it is worth noting many studies used an individual’s perceived organizational safety climate (individual level) without acknowledging ‘individual perception’ to represent the concept of organizational safety (e.g. Probst & Estrada, 2010; Smith et al., 2006).

Theme two: industrial policy and regulations around OHS

The second research theme to emerge is related to studies of the contextual features of OHS. The notion of context as a ‘sensitizing device’ is related to the potential situational and temporal boundary conditions of an observation (Bamberger, 2008, p. 840). Laporte (2011, pp. 60, 61) extolled the need for contextual studies that embrace ‘embedded observation’. In total, 71 articles from the 17 target journals were categorized into three sub-themes: stakeholder views of OHS; the industry impact; and national boundary conditions.

Several studies are related to stakeholders’ views of OHS, although the emphasis is primarily on shareholders. For example, Mbakaya, Onyoyo, Lwaki, and Omondi (1999) discussed how the views of shareholders influence OHS management practices. de Celis, de Bobadilla-Guemez, Alonso-Almeida, and Velasco-Balmaseda (2017) took gender into account, reviewing the existing research on the women’s OHS management and further proposing an approach for managing it. While there are relatively few studies focused on the stakeholders’ views, they are important as they reflect the long-standing consensus of the importance of multiple stakeholders in OHS (ILO/WHO, 1950; de Celis et al., 2017). However, most of these studies are scattered and lack a comprehensive framework. For example, from the stakeholder perspective, most studies of women’s OHS have exclusively concentrated on industries and sectors where women predominate (e.g. nursing), and on psychosocial stressors (de Celis et al., 2017), but neglected the impacts of gender and sex-specific factors on OHS management more broadly.

It is also observed that both the industrial context and national boundary conditions are important for contextualizing OHS research. For instance, some scholars (Kramer & Son, 2016; Poplin et al., 2008; Zytoon, 2012) were interested in investigating accident types and causes in featured industries, such as health care and mining, while others tended to explore OHS within national boundary conditions, such as distributions of OHS risks between immigrants and non-immigrants in countries with favorable migration policies (Smith & Mustard, 2010; Sønderstrup-Andersen & Bach, 2018). The regulatory and legislative aspects of OHS were also salient in the content analysis.

Theme three: OHS practices

Research following this theme investigates practices complying with OHS standards, which can be further grouped as pro-active and reactive practices. Pro-active practices include safety training, risk assessment, flexible work practices and specific safety programs. Among them, safety training is the most frequently studied, with consistent reports that it is effective in the reduction of accidents and promoting safe behaviors (Kramer et al., 2017). Some studies have discussed specific types of training programs that aim to reduce occupational injuries and improve OHS (Häkkinen, 1995; Wendelen, 1996). Others examined the use of one or more of the following: utilization of mandated OHS committees, outsourcing of OHS services, the election of safety representatives, management audits, registration of safety inspectors and safety culture promotion (Hopkins, 2005; Well, 1999; Wendelen, 1996).

Reactive practices explore how post-accident analysis helps to draw implications about occupational accident risk reduction. The practices analyzed and discussed include safety analysis in-design, after-action reviews; systematic accident cost analysis; and utilization of evidence-based approaches (Allen, Baran, & Scott, 2010; Arntz-Gray, 2016; Harms-Ringdahl, 1987). As indicated in Table 2, however, this body of knowledge has developed unevenly, as only 13 out of 93 articles (about 14%) focused on reactive, rather than pro-active, practices. This finding is notable in that it has been argued that reactive and pro-active practices are equally important to OHS (Kjellén, 2012).

Theme four: methods and models of managing OHS

This research theme includes methods of, and approaches to, OHS management and safety model development, testing and implementation. Among these 101 articles, two sub-themes emerged, namely methods/approaches of OHS analysis, and new OHS management model proposals and testing. In regards to the first sub-theme, much of this research focuses on risk analysis and methods of identifying safety vulnerabilities and risks (Doytchev & Szwillus, 2009; Kjellén, 1995; Sauter & Hurrell, 2017; Tetrick, 2017). Under the second sub-theme, a number of OHS management models deal with: safety motivation and performance; conflict management; accident prevention with an emphasis on human, structural and cultural factors; unsafe work behavior; a multi-level safety climate framework; a self-regulatory model of a safety management system and safety culture; linking subjective risk perceptions to employees’ turnover intentions and willingness to participate in OHS programs; a reciprocal model of safety culture; and designing and evaluating OHS interventions (Bailey, Dollard, & Richards, 2015; Butler & Teagarden, 1993; Kokangül, Polat, & Dağsuyu, 2017; Obadia, Vidal, & e Melo, 2007).

Although the corpus of research on methods and models of OHS management is fruitful, certain limitations remain unresolved, including (1) the generalizability of these studies is limited, as the proposed tools of OHS management are designed and tested only in specific contexts (Tremblay & Badri, 2018); further adjustments are thus required to make these tools effective across a range of sectors; (2) most existing methods and models exclusively focus on safe work behaviors while ignoring other aspects such as environmental risks and organizational specifications (Ghodrati, Yiu, Wilkinson, & Shahbazpour, 2018) and (3) many of these models and methods adopt self-reporting in data collection, which is obviously subject to personal biases -and common method variance (e.g., Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003).

Theme five: outcomes of OHS management

The fifth theme to emerge from the review pertains to the evaluation of OHS effectiveness of managerial interventions, and the link between OHS and performance. Three sub-themes emerged, namely external intervention effectiveness evaluation, internal intervention effectiveness evaluation and performance evaluation. 21 articles assessed the effectiveness of policy interventions. Studies of safety regulations and the effectiveness of OHS regulatory agencies claim that regulations reduce occupational injury rates (Choe, Yun, & Leite, 2016; Morgan, 1983; Yassin & Martonik, 2004).

Another 21 articles focus on the effectiveness of managerial interventions and examine workplace level initiatives such as OHS programs and activities (e.g. safety training), safety investigations and management systems. For example, based on analysis of 10 case study organizations from the chemical and construction sectors in Britain, Walters and Nichols (2007) pointed out that worker representation is positively associated with OHS outcomes. They further analyzed how the European model of worker representation in OHS has changed in the light of economic, political and legal pressures (Walters & Nichols, 2007, 2009).

Compared to internal/external intervention effectiveness research, there are relatively fewer studies on OHS performance outcomes in the 17 target journals. Findings pertaining to both organization level outcomes (e.g. workplace attendance and firm performance) and individual level outcomes (e.g. individual earnings losses and workers’ job risks) were reported (Autenrieth et al., 2016; Cheng et al., 2012; Fernández-Muñiz et al., 2009; Woock, 2009). Here, as with the research theme of OHS reactive practices, there is much room for improvement in future research. This could include topics such as: outcomes of OHS management at a team level; employee psychological outcomes (e.g. stress and job burnout); the impact of OHS management outcomes on family and society; and, crucially, the role of HRM in shaping positive OHS outcomes (cf. Oppenauer & Van De Voorde, 2018; Wood & de Menezes, 2011).

Gaps and a future agenda for hrm researchers

The first half of this paper has sought to organize and summarize thousands of peer reviewed articles, books and book chapters on OHS across first the social sciences and then business and management and specific HRM/ER, and health and safety journals. This endeavor, in and of itself, is a notable achievement given the scope of the review, but it is not enough. The second half of this paper asks the more crucial question: how integrated and aligned is this model (Figure 4) into the wider HRM literature? In other words, we still have yet to illustrate why this comprehensive review of OHS matters to HRM scholars. To be sure, significant progress that has been made in the field of OHS during the past few decades, but, as we will demonstrate, HRM researchers can claim very little credit for these advances. In what follows, we highlight the poverty of OHS research within the wider field of HRM.

Where do we go from here? Lacunae and directions for future research

Research Gap 1: Is OHS ‘Missing in Action’ in HRM? Our review of the OHS literature across the 17 target journals reveals that the predominant sources of published research on OHS are highly skewed towards the two specialist safety science journals, namely, Safety Science and Accident Analysis and Prevention, which together account for 357 out of 564 selected articles (68.39% of the total publications in the review). It is worth noting that the primary publishing aims of these two journals are, respectively, ‘the science or technology of human safety’ and ‘transportation safety science’, neither of which is squarely in the domain of management. The Journal of Occupational Health Psychology is concerned with psychological factors in all aspects of OHS, but, again, managing OHS is not the journal’s main focus. The 14 HRM&ER journals contribute a minority of the total articles on occupational health.

Comparing safety science and safety psychology research, Zanko and Dawson (2012, p. 13) concluded, perhaps with some degree of prescience, that ‘OHS management has been ‘missing in action’ in leading HRM and management academic journals’ and call on management scholars to ‘take up the challenge of researching OHS in developing approaches that are better able to explain OHS in organizations and their changing business environments’. The HRM-centric literature review provided in the present study, covering six decades of research across 17 leading journals, rejects the ‘missing in action’ claim as hyperbole, but provides some support to the argument that this is a relatively neglected area of research. Consider the fact that only 207 HRM articles among 20,180 articles are OHS related, accounting for a meagre 1.03%. The review also illustrates that less than 0.40% of the total OHS articles (43 among 10,811 articles in total) were published in the top 14 HRM&ER journals. Thus, OHS receives scant attention in the wider field. This finding is curious in light of the fact that, in practice, the HR function, at times in consultation with unions, is ultimately responsible for ensuring OHS of the workforce (Boyd, 2003; Johnstone, Quinlan, & Walters, 2005; Nichols, Walters, & Tasiran, 2007).

To address this research gap, we encourage more HRM&ER researchers to make up this deficit by investigating OHS from the unique point of view of human resources. It is likely that this critique applies not only to the field of HRM, but to other managerial disciplines as well. We therefore encourage researchers from our sister disciplines (e.g. strategic management, operations and logistics, organizational behavior) to carry out similar reviews to ours. Perhaps a key question every management-related discipline should ask itself is: ‘why is there so little interest in OHS management?’. From a human rights perspective, individual health and well-being are of paramount importance (Toebes, 2001).

Research Gap 2: Poor Coverage of OHS in Developing Countries Presents an Opportunity for International HRM Researchers. Among all of the studies that focus on specific countries (407 out of 564 articles; see also countries specified against each representative study in Table 2), research on OHS was, perhaps unsurprisingly, heavily concentrated in developed countries (355 articles), with relatively few studies (only 52 articles, or about 9% of the total) conducted in developing countries or investigating multinational corporations (MNCs) headquartered in developing countries (see Figure 5). Most studies were based in Europe and North America, with the US having the greatest number (96), followed by Australia (47). There are also several books we reviewed on OHS that examined the difficulties in implementing OHS management in various countries, for example, Frick, Jensen, Quinlan, and Wilthagen (2000) and Nichols and Walters (2013). But most of the observed countries in the books are developed countries. Research in developing countries lags behind the theoretical and empirical research in developed countries. For instance, Zhu, Fan, Fu, and Clissold (2010) suggested that the study of OHS in China is at an early stage in that it focuses, in the main, on technical aspects of engineering systems and processes. This contrasts with the greater emphasis on the impact of the attitudinal, organizational, cultural and social dimensions of OHS in research conducted in developed countries across diverse industries.

Figure 5. Countries Coverage in OHS Research. Note: ‘Others’ refers to research contexts either with multple countries or being ambigours when describing countries.

To address this research gap, we suggest that International HRM researchers should develop tools for evaluating the effectiveness of OHS management systems or particular interventions cross-nationally, and especially in developing countries. Although it is widely recognized that contextual differences can affect OHS policies and practices (see Theme 2 above), future research in IHRM can add value by exploring and explaining the nature of the boundaries between OHS management systems and approaches to environmental control, employee health at work and product quality assurance across the developing world. Economic growth in developing countries is accompanied by high costs in terms of workplace morbidity and mortality (Lin, Tang, Miao, Wang, & Wang, 2008). The occupational injury rates of some countries in Asia and the Middle East are four times higher than developed countries and the safety situation in some major industries in developing countries (e.g. the Chinese coal mining industry) is even worse in terms of OHS outcomes (Lu & Li, 2011). According to several studies (Chen & Chan, 2010; Li et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2008), China, as a developing country, is different from developed Western countries with regard to societal attitudes and workers’ attitudes to OHS in that most contemporary Chinese safety studies focus on post-accident analysis and typically do not embody the idea of pro-active prevention in OHS (see Theme 3 above). These significant inter-country differences and their implications for OHS have not been well-drawn out in the literature (Alarcón et al., 2016; Lu & Li, 2011), creating a golden opportunity for IHRM researchers.

Research Gap 3: A Lack of Measurement Precision in OHS Presents an Opportunity for HR Analytics Researchers. Recall that, across 564 articles in the 17 target journals, we identified only 32 studies that focus purely on methodological, rather than theoretical or conceptual, issues (Chen & Chen, 2012; Lin et al., 2008). This small minority of studies embraces topics as diverse as: measurement development; developing an instrument to construct safety climate and safety culture questionnaires in different countries; introducing a safety orientation scale; and measuring young workers’ safety behaviors. Among the 32 articles, 15 of them focus on methodologies used for safety climate/culture alone. In addition to these pure methodology papers, another 90 articles (16.92%) in our review also deal with other evaluation and validation issues in OHS (e.g. comparing differences in safety climate measures, scale development and validation studies, or evaluation of a safety culture maturity framework). But, once again, the lion’s share of these methodological studies were conducted by non-HRM researchers in non-HRM journals. Our review thus demonstrates that a tremendous opportunity exists for emerging HR analytics scholars (see Angrave, Charlwood, Kirkpatrick, Lawrence, & Stuart, 2016) to contribute to this body of literature. In particular, HR analytics researchers could add value to defining and measuring not only OHS, but also its antecedents and determinants, thus further contributing to the ongoing debate surrounding the elusive HR-performance link (Guest, 2011).

Research Gap 4: A Dearth of Qualitative OHS Research Presents an Opportunity for HR Scholars to Imbue More Depth and Meaning into a Largely Correlational Field of Study. Across the HRM and safety science articles we reviewed (see Figure 6), the epistemological methods used to collect and analyze the data are highly skewed in favor of quantitative research: 37.79% of studies adopt the survey method alone, 17.83% used government and other secondary datasets for largely quantitative analyses, 13.55% were based on literature reviews and theory building, just 8.73% employed case study methodologies, only 5.88% exclusively used the qualitative interview method, and 14.77% utilized other quantitative/qualitative methods or mixed methods. Indeed, it would be fair to conclude that the quantitative research design is dominant, reflecting the fact that many studies investigate correlational relationships. Although Baril-Gingras, Bellemare, and Brun (2006) explained the potential contribution of qualitative methods to OHS studies, the qualitative research design appears to be an underutilized choice, with only 16.22% articles using any qualitative techniques (e.g. 33 interviews, 39 qualitative case study, 12 archival data, 3 focus group, 2 action research and 2 observation-orientated articles) when collecting/analyzing data.

Figure 6. Research Methods in OHS Research. Notes: ‘Interview +’ means the primary source of data collection was interviews but supplementary data collection was used (e.g. use of external datasets); ‘Survey +’ means the primary source of data collection was surveys but supplementary data collection was used (e.g. use of external datasets); and ‘Literature Review’ refers to qualitative literature review.

In light of this research gap, we argue that HR researchers are uniquely qualified to contribute to future OHS research using a diversity of qualitative methods and data collection approaches. There are several additional suggestions that can be included in this area, including further cross-national qualitative studies carried out at different levels of organizations in different locations. Multidimensional qualitative data, for example, especially from different geographical and disparate regions and multiple workplaces of large multinationals, would be timely and important to both OHS theorists and practitioners. Articulating a multi-level and cross-level qualitative integrated model would be very useful to further understanding of OHS research, particularly in the sub-field of HRM.

Another key advantage of qualitative methods is that they enable causal complexity thinking (Misangyi et al., 2017) and advance configurational research logic (Fiss, 2007). In contrast to existing OHS studies that rely heavily on variation-based analytical or research design logic (e.g. using regression methods to analyze each individual independent variable, or no more than three ways net interaction effects on a selected dependent variable), new configurational thinking embraces causal complexity which is best understood through dialogue and interviews. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative studies do not suffer from endogeneity as such, and it is therefore easier to unpack which factors cause which outcomes. In addition to configuration thinking, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) can be used to detect multiple causal pathways leading to the same outcome, which can, in turn, enrich theoretical development of the intersection of OHS and HRM. In other words, through further qualitative methods, we can determine if organizations can follow multiple, but equally effective, safety management approaches, of which identical components of these approaches might function completely differently for various organizations or safety situations.

Research Gap 5: OHS Research is Strong on Empirics, but Relatively Weak on Theoretical Rigor, Providing an Opportunity for HR Theorists to Contribute to the Development of Conceptual Debates. Our review of the 17 target journals, as established above, points to a large number of empirical studies, albeit mostly quantitative ones, on OHS, its antecedents and outcomes. What is less common in the literature are purely theoretical studies. Laporte (2011) suggested that increasing social complexity renders existing explanatory theories diminished in value under today’s conditions. For example, our analysis found that a consensus on the measurement of ‘safety climate’ has not yet been reached regarding the number and nature of the dimensions comprising the construct (Lu & Yang, 2011; Morrow et al., 2010). Existing confusion also stems from a lack of consensus around how best to build OHS theory. For instance, when Zohar (2010: 1521) reviewed his own concept three decades on, he claims ‘whereas there has been some significant progress in this direction [measuring safety climate] over the last 30 years (e.g. leadership as a climate antecedent), much more work is required for augmenting safety climate theory’.

To address this continuing gap, it would appear that OHS research could benefit from the rigorous application of key HRM theories. Are there, for example, different OHS outcomes in workplaces characterized by unitarism, pluralism and conflict (Ackers, 2002)? Where does OHS stand in relation to the ‘best practice’ and ‘best-fit’ debate in HRM and IHRM (Purcell, 1999)? To be sure, HR scholars are better positioned to answer such conceptual questions compared to organizational psychologists or indeed economists or sociologists. Another theoretical space in which HR scholars could add value is in the application of institutional theory. Institutions are ‘humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions’ (North, 1990: 6). OHS, as an economically important and socially sensitive area of study, has been institutionalized in both formal and informal domains. To be specific, there are formal national OHS legislations that set out regulatory requirements on organizations. Meanwhile, there are also normative expectations in the institutional domain that exert a strong cultural influence on organizational behaviors. Firms seeking institutional OHS legitimacy will have a strong incentive to align their OHS practice with external institutional expectations. However, when there are conflicts between the expectations of multiple institutional dimensions or stakeholders, or when external institutional expectations conflict with firm objectives, firms may initiate strategic responses to institutional pressure (Oliver, 1991), sometimes with the intention of re-shaping external institutions, in both mature (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) and emerging (Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004) fields. Given the wealth of studies that use institutional theory in HRM and IHRM journals, HR researchers can provide innovative insights into this exciting new theoretical space.

Research Gap 6: OHS Research is Heavy on Manufacturing, Construction and Mining, but Relatively Weak on Service Industries, Providing Another Avenue for HR Researchers. The majority of OHS studies in our review (453 out of 564) take potential industry effects into consideration. These studies collect data either by focusing on a single industry or across multiple industries where either industry variation is controlled for or the research design is oriented towards explicit industry comparisons (see Figure 7). The OHS research has focused largely on industries recognized as having a high incidence of health-related problems, accidents in particular: manufacturing (19.87%), construction (14.13%), mining (10.15%) and transportation (6.18%). One-fifth of the articles investigated OHS-related issues across multiple industries (22.7%). The service sector, on the other hand, appears to be relatively marginalized, with only 11.48% (52 articles) focused on government, healthcare, retail, personal service, or telecommunications, many of which are increasingly seen as breeding grounds for emotional or psychological ill health. The service sector is also frequently characterized by precarious work, which also has implications of OHS (Quinlan, Mayhew, & Bohle, 2001). It could be further argued that, as economies shift from manufacturing to services, psychological harm may someday even displace physical harm as the central component of OHS (Neal & Griffin, 2006).

Figure 7. Industry Distribution OHS Research. Notes: ‘Multi industries’ refers to studies which investigated data of OHS-related issues from various idustries (i.e. more than two industries); ‘All industries’ refers to studies which conducted an analysis of the overall OHS situation within a country, or studies which used data across all industries.

Table

Research Book/Book Chapter Title	Google Citations
Salvendy, G. (Ed.). (2012). Handbook of human factors and ergonomics. John Wiley & Sons.	1570
Hopkins, A. (2000). Lessons from Longford: The ESSO Gas Plant Explosion 2000. Sydney: CCH Australia.	408
Alli, B. O. (2008). Fundamental principles of occupational health and safety Second edition. International Labour Office, Geneva.	404
Brauer, R. L. (2016). Safety and health for engineers. John Wiley & Sons.	391
Morgan, W. K. C., & Seaton, A. (1975). Occupational lung diseases. WB Saunders Company, 12 Dyott Street, London WC1A 1DB.	351
Lingard, H., & Rowlinson, S. (2004). Occupational health and safety in construction project management. Routledge.	305
Gunningham, N., & Johnstone, R. (1999). Regulating workplace safety: systems and sanctions. Oxford University Press.	300
Hopkins, A. (2005). Safety, culture and risk: The organisational causes of disasters Sydney: CCH Australia.	282
Harms-Ringdahl, L. (2001). Safety analysis: principles and practice in occupational safety. CRC Press.	270
Hutter, B. M. (2001). Regulation and risk: occupational health and safety on the railways. Oxford University Press on Demand.	257
Oxenburgh, M. (2004). Increasing productivity and profit through health and safety: The financial returns from a safe working environment. CRC Press.	249
Hopkins, A. (2008). Failure to learn: The bp texas city refinery disaster paperback Sydney: CCH Australia.	236
Levy, B. S. (Ed.). (2006). Occupational and environmental health: recognizing and preventing disease and injury. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.	198
Geller, E. S. (2001). Working safe: How to help people actively care for health and safety. CRC Press.	190
Bohle, P., & Quinlan, M. (2000). Managing occupational health and safety: A multidisciplinary approach. Macmillan Education AU.	188
Frick, K., Jensen, P. L., Quinlan, M., & Wilthagen, T. (2000). Systematic occupational health and safety management: perspectives on an international development. Pergamon Press.	174
Clarke, S., & Cooper, C. (2004). Managing the risk of workplace stress: Health and safety hazards. Routledge.	165
Hughes, P., & Ferrett, E. (2012). Introduction to health and safety in construction. Routledge.	140
Hughes, P., & Ferrett, E. (2011). Introduction to health and safety at work. Routledge.	137
Quinlan, M., Bohle, P., & Lamm, F. (2010). Managing occupational health and safety. Palgrave Macmillan.	134

Note: 1. Book titles with “Eds” sum up all citations of research chapters of the book. 2. Citations are counted by Google Scholar and updated in 31^st March 2019.

To address this research gap, we suggest more OHS research is needed in service- orientated industries and, once again, HR scholars are well positioned to carry out such research. Some of these neglected industries, particularly retail and healthcare, have been identified as areas with increasing OHS problems (Mbakaya et al., 1999). Likewise, many OHS risks can be linked to a range of cost-cutting strategies imposed by service organizations, such as lower levels of OHS training than in other industries (Mbakaya et al., 1999), hiring less-educated employees (Ferguson, McNally, & Booth, 1984), lower safety requirements (Lindell, 1997) and the absence of union-appointed health and safety representatives (Reilly, Paci, & Holl, 1995). The service sector is thus clearly deserving of further attention by HR researchers.

Research Gap 7: Research Conducted in Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises is Underrepresented in OHS, Presenting Yet Another Opportunity for HR Scholars to Enrich the Literature. In contrast with large firms, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have limited access to human, economic and technological resources (Walker & Tait, 2004). Perhaps as a result, OHS in SMEs has, comparatively speaking, received much less attention in the literature (e.g. only 18 out of 564 articles in the 17 target journals). The handful of studies on OHS in SMEs (Cagno, Micheli, & Perotti, 2011; Champoux & Brun, 2003; Cheng, Leu, Lin, & Fan, 2010; Holten & Crouch, 2014; Ogunyomi & Bruning, 2016; Raffi, Giacomini, & Mattioli, 1995; Susomrith& Brown, 2013; Veng, Hasle, & Christensen, 2015) report that it is extremely difficult to manage employee health and safety due to factors such as: isolation, lack of knowledge and competencies of the firm’s workplace risks and its OHS rights and legal obligations, low unionization rates and poor employment relations, and, of course, a lack of resources.

To address this research gap, we strongly encourage HR scholars to look closely at the idiosyncrasies of OHS vulnerabilities in SMEs. This might involve several areas of reseearch. For example, in the context of advanced economies, SMEs account for over 95% of firms and 60–70% of employment (OECD, 2000). Yet this sector also contributes much higher accident rates (Micheli & Cagno, 2010). At the level of individual employees, several questions are worthy of future investigation, including, but not limited to: what are the unique factors affecting safety behaviors among employees in SMEs? How should leadership act to promote safety during entrepreneurs’ venturing stage? How do entrepreneurs or business owners in high risk industries reconcile their market logic of seeking profitability and their social logic of caring for employees? How can a safety system/climate/culture be formed and sustained in SMEs? Addressing these meaningful questions can pave a pathway to build the profile of OHS in the management of human resources in SMEs.

Final remarks

This review and analysis of a large body of literature contributes to the HRM literature in two important ways. First, it provides a timely synthesis of the OHS literature across more than six decades at the unique intersection of safety science and occupational psychology, human resource management and employment relations. This includes the identification and classification of five OHS research themes over that time period. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, it offers a proposed research agenda to aid scholarly inquiry in future. This agenda encourages scholars to bring the richness of HRM&ER theory and methods to bear on the study of OHS in organizations. Although the OHS literature is fairly mature, it is, as we have demonstrated, poorly integrated into the field of HRM&ER. This is ironic, given that HR managers are, in the final analysis, responsible for employee health and safety.

At least four limitations should be acknowledged. Firstly, although, as a preliminary step, we reviewed all studies on OHS across the entirety of the social sciences, resource and feasibility constraints limited further consideration of the evidence to the published, peer-reviewed articles identified in the 17 target journals; relevant articles published in other journals were unable to be assessed. Although the selection of the 17 journals was based on a robust combination of (i) Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports, (ii) renowned journal ranking lists such as the U.K.’s ABS ranking and (iii) our own expertise in each discipline, the journal selection is nonetheless subjective to some extent. Secondly, although a specific set of search terms were used, they may have failed to fully capture all relevant studies, although such omissions are not likely to be many. Thirdly, the breadth of the categories used in the data analysis means that some of the areas may overlap. The category selection decision for each article was based on the major themes to emerge and on the initial reading and understanding of the 564 articles reviewed in the 17 target journals. Finally, while 564 articles were included and classified into five themes, not all dimensions of each article were able to be addressed in our study. This is because our primary research focus was to provide an overview of the research developed around OHS in last several decades. Thus, for example, it was beyond the scope of the present study to examine the theoretical strength of the articles reviewed or to provide an in-depth analysis of the validity of the research methodologies.

In conclusion, our review spans the fields of safety science, occupational psychology, human resource management and employment relations. This study highlights the depth and breadth of research to date, but also the areas where further research should be conducted, especially by HR researcher. It is recognized that these are important issues to consider and suggested that these areas should be explored in future studies.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank editor, Professor Fang Lee Cooke and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. We would also like to acknowledge the helpful comments provided by Professors Helen De Cieri, Donna Buttigieg, Lin Cui, and Mike M. Zhang on earlier versions.

Disclosure statement

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

Funding

This work was supported by the MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology in China) High-end Foreign Experts Recruitment Program (G20190009171), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (71972148; 71872043; 71872128; 71472016), the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (18YJA630097) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Di Fan

Di Fan (Ph.D. Monash University, CPA) is an Associate Professor in International Business and Strategic Management at UWA Business School, the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. His current research interests include international business strategies and international human resource management. His publications appear in journals such as Organization Studies, Journal of World Business, International Business Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Industrial Marketing Management, Long Range Planning, Global Strategy Journal, Technovation, Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of Human Resource Management and Human Resource Management Review.

Cherrie Jiuhua Zhu

Cherrie Jiuhua Zhu (Ph.D. The University of Tasmania) is a Professor of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Chinese Studies, the Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University (Clayton Campus). Her research has appeared in Human Resource Management (US), Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, British Journal of Industrial Relations, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, International Business Review, World Development, Urban Studies and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Andrew R. Timming

Andrew R. Timming (Ph.D. University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at UWA Business School, University of Western Australia. He is Associate Editor at Human Resource Management Journal and the International Journal of Human Resource Management. He researches employee selection and assessment, employee voice and workplace mobbing behaviors. He has published in Human Relations; Industrial and Labor Relations Review; Human Resource Management; Human Resource Management Journal; Work, Employment & Society; and European Sociological Review, among other journals.

Yiyi Su

Yiyi Su (Ph.D. Peking University) is an Associate Professor in Management at the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University (Shanghai). Her research centres on innovation and entrepreneurship, corporate governance and Chinese Management. Her recent studies are published in International Journal of Human Resource Management, Management International Review, Management and Organization Review, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Long Range Planning and Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

Xinli Huang

Xinli Huang (Ph.D. Candidate UWA) is a Ph.D. candidate in international business and strategic management in the UWA Business School, the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Her research interests are central on international business and corporate strategies, and knowledge management.

Ying Lu

Ying Lu (Ph.D. Monash University) is a Senior Lecturer in International Management at the Department of Management, Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University. Her research has appeared in journals such as Human Resource Management Review, Human Resource Management Journal, Safety Science, Australian Journal of Management, International Journal of Intercultural Relations and Asian Ethnicity.

Notes

1 Although other HRM/ER journals could have been included (e.g., Work and Stress or Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations), pre-setting journal inclusion strategy and resource constraints forced us to delimit our analysis to these outlets.