Factors that Sustain Health and Safety Management Practices in the Food Industry

Abstract

Due to the significant change in business organizations, scholarly interest has diverted from studying the determinants of financial performance to understanding the environmental activities, sustainability practices, and health and safety management practices. Despite the extensive literature, it is yet to understand either internal or external factors that improve health and safety management practices in SMEs. This research examines the influence of the internal factors—intellectual capital, information technology capabilities (ITC), and entrepreneurial orientation, and the external capabilities—government financial support, institutional pressure, and managerial networking on six health and safety management practices: management commitment, staff training, worker involvement, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies. We researched 410 Pakistani SMEs from the food business industry. The results indicate that intellectual capital significantly improves management commitment, safety communication and feedback, and safety rules and produces; ITC significantly improves management commitment and safety communication and feedback; and entrepreneurial orientation significantly facilitates safety training and worker involvement only. In the external capabilities, government financial support has a significant influence on management commitment, worker involvement, safety rules and policies, and safety promotion policies. Institutional pressure has a significant influence on management commitment, safety training, safety communication, and feedback and safety promotion policies. Managerial networking significantly influences safety training, worker involvement, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies of SMEs. Focusing only on the food industry is the major limitation of this research, this study recommends SMEs to give sufficient attention to their internal and external factors to enhance health and safety management practices. Further implications are discussed.

Intellectual capital and sustainable development: a systematic literature review

“…As the figure shows, the keywords of our study are innovation and knowledge, located in the centre of the map. Indeed, these words recur in our data set as a constant throughout the research period ( ex multis Cillo et al , 2019; Coluccia et al , 2019; Frondizi et al , 2019; Hassan et al , 2019; Jardon et al , 2019; Khan et al , 2019; Caldera et al , 2017; Liu, 2017; Lerro et al , 2014; De Leaniz et al , 2013; Curado, 2008; Martín de Castro et al , 2004; Adams et al , 2003; Guthrie, 2001). Then, the words performance, impact, competitive advance, model and business were recurrent in most of the articles examined and are introduced in Table A1 in the Appendix.…”

“…The classification of the articles carried out with Table A1, through the schematisation of the subtitle and the brief description of the purpose of each article, revealed that most of the scholars analysed, in general, the implications that KM can have on the competitiveness of companies, also through the use of NTs (Ardito et al , 2019; Cillo et al , 2019; Coluccia et al , 2019; Santoro et al , 2019; Bresciani et al , 2018; Natalicchio et al , 2017; Xu and Wang, 2018; Lerro et al , 2014; Curado, 2008; Hussi, 2004; Mavridis, 2004; Zhou and Fink, 2003; Guthrie, 2001; Alee, 2000; Liebowitz et al , 2000; Sullivan, 1999). Some have instead studied in particular the implications that the IC has on the prerogatives of SD and the creation of SBMs, whereas sustainability has become a major issue in commercial operations (Hassan et al , 2019; de Villiers and Sharma, 2017; Xu and Wang, 2018; Barth et al , 2017; Caldera et al , 2017; Evans et al , 2017; Liu, 2017; de Leaniz et al , 2013; López-Gamero et al , 2011; Oliveira et al , 2010; Carrillo et al , 2009; Adams et al , 2003; Sharkie, 2003; Malone and Yohe, 2002). Indeed, IC has a fundamental influence on the development prerogatives of companies and is a long-term source of value (de Villiers and Sharma, 2017).…”

“…According to (de Villiers and Sharma, 2017), the implementation of the IC disclosure also improves the decision-making processes of the company through the involvement of a “network of values” that pushes towards new SBMs. Some scholars (Hassan et al , 2019) have empirically observed the role that the IC, ICTs and EO can play in the sustainability practices of companies, demonstrating that these internal factors positively stimulate organisational activities, for example, in terms of safety, health of the workers and environmental protection. Moreover, according to Vătămănescu et al (2019), IC helps to increase the sustainable competitiveness of companies and generates a process of internationalisation, which favours the exchange of knowledge with the foreign market.…”

“…Starting from the analysis of the results of our research, the importance attributed to intangible resources raises the need to investigate not only the economic but also the cultural and social implications of the IC as a business engine for the creation of long-term value and a beacon for entrepreneurship towards the direction of intelligent and SD. Most studies have investigated the impact that external factors, such as institutional pressures or other external forms of government intervention, have on some business management processes (Hassan et al , 2019). However, they neglected to examine the role of internal resources such as IC, ICTs and EO, which, combined with elements of innovation, can improve processes, convey information and stimulate relationships, with positive effects on environmental and social performance (de Villiers and Sharma, 2017).…”

“…While the issues related to environmental sustainability have been analysed extensively by scholars and professionals, due to numerous natural catastrophes (López-Gamero et al , 2011), aspects of economic and social sustainability have been emerging in recent years (De Leaniz et al , 2013), also thanks to corporate social responsibility (CSR) (de Villiers and Sharma, 2017). Professionals by now understand that they must equip themselves with a system of skills and knowledge to face global challenges and adopt a sustainable approach (Hassan et al , 2019). This is because companies invest in intangible resources (Khan et al , 2019) and the culture of their organisations (Jardon et al , 2019) to achieve sustainable competitive advantages.…”