Influences on Small-Firm Compliance-Related Behaviour : The Case of Workplace Health and Safety

The authors investigate the relative roles of anumber of influences on workplace health and safety in small firms and, morespecifically, the adoption of compliance-related improvement measures. Fromfindings drawn from a survey of over a thousand British small enterprises,marked variations in firm behaviour with respect to health and safety werefound, underlining the heterogeneity of small firms in this respect, and theway such behaviour reflects their varied contexts. Factors identified as being particularly associated with a propensity tomake compliance-related improvements were: regulatory enforcement activity, useof external assistance with respect to health and safety issues, enterprisesize and growth performance, management training and experience, and membershipof trade or business associations. Although, as a group, ethnic-minority businesses were found to be neithermore or less likely to make improvements of this type compared with theirwhite-owned counterparts, detailed analysis revealed that such variations didexist between individual ethnic groupings; variations that are themselves seento reflect a number of factors, particularly the employment size and sectoralcontext. Primarily the authors conclude that inspections on the part of regulatoryofficials are the most important influence, although there is some scope formore innovative approaches to encouraging compliance-related improvements.(Publisher’s Abstract)