The scientific literature regarding preventive occupational health and safety activities in small enterprises has been reviewed in order to identify effective preventive approaches and to develop a future research strategy. During the last couple of years, there has been a significant increase in the number of studies of small enterprises, but the research community is scattered between many different disciplines and institutions. There is a lack of evaluation of intervention studies, both in terms of effect and practical applicability. However, there is sufficiently strong evidence to conclude that employees of small enterprises are subject to higher risks than the employees of larger ones, and that small enterprises have difficulties in controlling risk. The most effective preventive approaches seem to be simple and low cost solutions, disseminated through personal contact. It is important to develop future intervention research strategies which study the complete intervention system: from the intermediaries through dissemination methods to the resulting preventive activities of the small enterprises.

Limited research has been conducted on owner-managers' responses to the working environment (occupational health and safety). This should be understood in the light of the way owner-managers develop identity from their business, and a better understanding is needed to develop preventive programmes that fit the owner-managers' interpretation of the working environment. Qualitative interviews were carried out with the owner-managers or the managers responsible for the working environment in 23 small firms from the construction and metal industries. The interviews were analysed for attitudes on the working environment, understanding of risk, responsibility for the working environment, and attitudes towards regulation. The analysis revealed both a great heterogeneity of views on the working environment and groups of owners who share important characteristics. Most owner-managers take a positive approach to the working environment, but also try to 'talk risk down', criticize regulation as bureaucracy and push a part of the employer responsibility on to the employees. They try to follow what they experience as a generally acceptable standard for the working environment among the stakeholders in the sector, but some Downloaded from Hasle et al. 623owner-managers also tend to neglect the working environment. The reason for the down grading of risk and the push to share responsibility can be found in the close social relationships and the identity work processes of the owner-managers with their business. They try to act as decent people and thus avoid personal guilt and blame if employees should get injured.

a b s t r a c tIn spite of progress in intervention research, our understanding of the transformation of knowledge from the research into national working environment programmes is limited. Research in state regulation is mainly aimed at compliance and efficiency of public administration, while little attention is paid to why and how public and private organisations subsequently are to improve their working environment. This paper suggests a model which can bridge this gap. It is based on a combination of theories about basic policy instruments (regulation, incentives and information) with realistic analysis focusing on mechanisms and context, and finally institutional theory proposing coercive, normative and mimetic mechanisms as explanations for organisational behaviour.The model is applied to an intervention aimed at reduction of the risk of musculoskeletal disorders among bricklayers in Denmark. Our analysis of the case shows how various actors, including the authorities, employers, unions and bi-partite committees, developed a programme combining the policy instruments over a considerable period of time and that all three institutional mechanisms affected the outcome. This integration of various actors and instruments, which was not necessarily planned from the beginning, proved to be an effective way of facilitating the implementation of new preventive measures in bricklaying. The analysis also indicates new intermediary mechanisms, such as programme development, as an iterative process, and the importance of joint messages from employers and unions. The model thus provides new insights into the relationship between policy instruments and workplace health and safety outcomes.

This study examined Nordic research on psychosocial work environment and disability management, specifically employer strategies for preventing work disability in common mental disorders (CMDs). A scoping review was performed to identify strategies across several research databases, alongside contact with content experts, hand-searching of non-indexed journals, and internet searches. Identification and selection of relevant studies, charting of data, and collating and summarizing of results was done using a six-step framework for conducting scoping reviews. Several key elements and knowledge gaps were identified in current prevention approaches and workplace initiatives across the included studies. We propose a program theory for workplace prevention of CMD-related work disability. The program theory may help specify employer strategies, and bridge activities with stakeholders outside the workplace.

In this essay we describe the development of health and safety professionals in Denmark. We show how the historical particularities of the so-called 'Danish model', compromises between various health and safety stakeholders, and a lack of pure health and safety educations led to the establishment of an occupational group of professionals characterized by heterogeneity in backgrounds and multidisciplinarity in approaches and methods.Then we discuss how recent tendencies to the mainstreaming of enterprises' health and safety efforts have challenged the composition of the health and safety professionals, and made other types of professionals competitors in terms of solving health and safety issues. In the essay we propose a conceptual model that combines insights from new institutional theory on fields and knowledge on the tasks of health and safety professionals. In this way the model helps us illustrate the relationship between health and safety professionals and their competitors in the health and safety work within Danish enterprises.Finally we discuss if and how a further professionalization could take place in the Danish context

This article examines the development of the professionalized working environment activities as they are executed in the Danish Occupational Health Service (OHS). In an historical analysis of OHS, the development of professional approaches to the working environment is shown to have shifted in focus from: an early concern with the control of occupational diseases and machine safety, to a more technical prevention emphasis in the early 1980s, through to a change agent and process consultant approach. The article concludes that we are entering a new era for cooperation with new role models for working environment professionals.

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Denne artikel undersøger på baggrund af et omfattende casestudie i et social-center sammenhængen mellem ændringer i arbejdsorganiseringen og belastninger i arbejdet. Belastningerne vurderes i forhold til ændringer i de psykosociale rammer for arbejdet, og i denne sammenhæng inddrages en række overvejelser over det socialfaglige arbejdes kultur. Endelig diskuterer artiklen om sådanne ændringer af arbejdets organisering påvirker de enkelte aktørers risikoopfattelse.