The impact of prevention measures and organisational factors on occupational injuries

This paper analyses the impact of risk prevention practices and organisational factors on occupational injuries. These consist of occupational safety measures, as regards both the intensity and the orientation of risk prevention, the implementation of quality management tools, the enhancing of workers empowerment, and the use of flexible production technologies. To that end, we estimate a negative binomial regression based on a sample of 213 Spanish industrial establishments, defining a constant random parameter to account for non-observable heterogeneity. Our results show that the emphasis on the innovative dimensions of prevention activities, the intensive use of quality management tools, and the empowerment of workers are all factors contributing to reduce the number of injuries. By contrast, the implementation of flexible manufacturing processes is associated to higher accident rates. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.