• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Health and safety representatives' contributions to occupational health and safety : case studies from New Zealand's metal manufacturing sector : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Human Resource Management at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Icon
    View/Open Full Text
    02_whole.pdf (1.607Mb)
    01_front.pdf (150.4Kb)
    Export to EndNote
    Abstract
    This study focuses on the contributions that health and safety representatives make to occupational health and safety in New Zealand workplaces. It investigates how they and other organisational actors conceive the role purpose, how representatives interpret and enact their roles and how they impact on occupational health and safety. The study comprises two business cases of organisations in the metal manufacturing sector. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with eight representatives and 23 other organisational actors known to influence the health and safety representatives’ role, including the representatives’ managers, co-workers, health and safety managers, senior managers and a union representative. The interview data was thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2006), and triangulated to attain a more accurate picture of reality (Mathison, 1988). The Danish National Working Environment Authority’s (2002) impact ladder was used in a novel way to systematically evaluate the representatives’ impacts. Consistent with overseas findings, health and safety representatives also contribute to the improvement of workplace health and safety in New Zealand. Yet, representatives have different interpretations of their purpose, which influences role enactment. To characterise these differences, a typology was developed that included a range of ‘types’ into which representatives can be grouped: administrators, workshop inspectors, problem solvers and craft experts. Commonly, all types of health and safety representative foster positive labour relations, and nearly all in this study were perceived by workers to improve health and safety by providing a legitimate avenue of redress. Otherwise, contribution differed among the types; administrators contributed by implementing and maintaining health and safety management systems; workshop inspectors improved workers’ attitudes towards health and safety; problem solvers facilitated improvements to production from a health and safety perspective; and craft experts influenced the development of standards and procedures for the management of hazards at the strategic level. Factors influencing health and safety representatives’ role enactment and impact appeared to relate to how the purpose of the role is defined and communicated at the workplace, the representatives’ expert power bases and abilities, and the nature of their job role. The study identifies the implications of these findings for health and safety policy, training and further research. Finally, it highlights the value of a cross-perceptual approach to enrich understanding of the multifaceted nature of representatives’ contributions to workplace health and safety.
    Date
    2010
    Author
    Harris, Leigh-Ann
    Harris, Leigh-Ann
    Rights
    The Author
    Publisher
    Massey University
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10179/2337
    Collections
    • Theses and Dissertations
    Metadata
    Show full item record

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Icon
      Title:
      Organisational learning and food safety crises : a critical case study of the Sanlu and Fonterra crises : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University, New Zealand 
      Author:
      Ding, Guoyu
      Date:
      2022
    • Icon
      Title:
      Food safety in small and medium hospitality enterprises in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Health Science at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand 
      Author:
      Kramer, Jan
      Date:
      2013
    • Icon
      Title:
      An ergonomics analysis of manual versus chainsaw high ladder pruning of Pinus radiata in New Zealand : a thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy at Massey University 
      Author:
      Ford, Dave
      Date:
      1995

    Copyright © Massey University
    | Contact Us | Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1-beta1
     

     

    Tweets by @Massey_Research
    Information PagesContent PolicyDepositing content to MROCopyright and Access InformationDeposit LicenseDeposit License SummaryTheses FAQFile FormatsDoctoral Thesis Deposit

    Browse

    All of MROCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Copyright © Massey University
    | Contact Us | Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1-beta1