Premium
Workplace safety: A call for research
Author(s) -
Brown Karen A.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.649
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1873-1317
pISSN - 0272-6963
DOI - 10.1016/0272-6963(95)00042-9
Subject(s) - flexibility (engineering) , business , workforce , function (biology) , diversity (politics) , public relations , quality (philosophy) , human resource management , public sector , construct (python library) , marketing , politics , dimension (graph theory) , operations management , knowledge management , computer science , management , political science , economics , economic growth , philosophy , mathematics , epistemology , evolutionary biology , pure mathematics , law , biology , programming language
The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the increased importance of workplace safety in the field of operations management, and to suggest ways in which this topic can be woven into research agendas. A key tenet is the proposition that the competitive priority construct (quality, cost, delivery and flexibility) may need to be expanded to include social responsibility ‐ with workplace safety as one dimension of this new priority. The cost of workplace injuries in the U.S. is increasing at an alarming rate, and accident occurrences have grown steadily over the last several years. The manufacturing sector is especially vulnerable to safety problems and, thus, is the central focus of this paper. A number of new factors are increasing the importance of related issues for operations managers. Three of these factors ‐ the quality movement, changes in technology and changes in operations practices ‐ are embedded within the operations function. Two others ‐ workforce diversity and organized labor interests ‐ are associated with the human resource function but have links with operations. Political, legal and public forces stem from outside the boundaries of the organization, but still have important influences on operations management. Regardless of the origins of these phenomena, all have direct effects on the management of operations and all have significant implications for research in this field.