The relationship between management’s commitment and effective safety and health committees in Malaysia
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2014-0089 |
| Pages | 204-222 |
| Date | 13 February 2017 |
| Published date | 13 February 2017 |
| Author | Ummu Kolsome Farouk |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
The relationship between
management’s commitment and
effective safety and health
committees in Malaysia
Ummu Kolsome Farouk
Faculty of Accounting and Management,
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Cheras, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between management’s commitment and
effective occupational safety and health committees (OSHCs), which are a form of representative employee
involvement in Malaysia.
Design/methodology/approach –Using data from a survey of 231 manufacturing companies in Malaysia,
the study empirically examines both passive and active management commitment and its relationships with
the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs.
Findings –Respondents to the survey, who were members of OSHCs, felt that both passive and active
management commitments had significant, positive relationships with OSHCs’perceived effectiveness, with
active management commitment having a stronger relationship with the dependent variable –the
effectiveness of OSHCs. All three variables were perceived to beat the medium level, with active management
commitment recording the lowest mean value.
Research limitations/implications –The research is limited by the fact that it is cross-sectional.
However, this allows its findings to be placed in the context of past research, underpinned by Malaysia’s
manufacturing sector and legislative framework.
Practical implications –This paper provides suggestions for how the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs
can be improved in the Malaysian context.
Originality/value –This study conceptualises management’s commitment in terms of passive and active
commitment,given the context of the currentlegislative framework, andit addresses the relationshipsbetween
both types of management commitment and the effectiveness of OSHCs, in the heretofore-unexamined
Malaysian manufacturing context.
Keywords Workplace, Employee involvement, Empowerment, Employee participation,
Management activities, Laws and legislation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
If workers’occupational safety and health (OSH) is ignoredin designing both work processes
and the work environment, it will likely cause deaths, injuries or diseases. The resulting
societal, economic and non-economic costs have been estimated by the International
Labour Organization at 4 per cent of the annualglobal gross domestic product,amounting to
$2.8 trillion (Miller and Haslam, 2009; ILO, 2013).
In Malaysia, the incidence of occupation-related deaths and injuries is highest in the
workplaces of its manufacturing sector, compared with its other economic sectors (Social
Security Organization, 2014). Furthermore, the number of industrial accidents in this sector
showed a rising trend along with the sector’s growth in the 1960s. And because of the
changing nature of hazards in the workplace, this negative trend was exacerbated by the
inability of the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), a public authority,
Employee Relations
Vol. 39 No. 2, 2017
pp. 204-222
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2014-0089
Received 11 August 2014
Revised 18 January 2015
30 September 2015
29 May 2016
12 November 2016
Accepted 14 November 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
The author would like to thank the safety officers from the manufacturing sector and the government
officials from the Department of Occupational Safety and Health in Malaysia who participated in
the study.
204
ER
39,2
to either make timely OSH laws or enforce them, given its financial and human resource
constraints. In 1994, therefore, the government introduced a preventive strategy, in the form
of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (OSHA, 1994). This law represented a shift
away from prescriptive laws and regulations enforced by a public authority and towards
employers and employees jointly taking responsibility to manage OSH in the workplace,
through occupational safety and health committees (OSHCs). The law regulating OSHC’s
composition and functioning is the Occupational Safety and Health (Safety and Health
Committee) Regulations 1996 (SHCR, 1996).
This shift towards the OSH “self-regulation”approach has also occurred in other
Commonwealth countries –such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand –and its beginnings
can be traced to the Robens Committee Report of 1972 (Beck and Woolfson, 2000).
The report engendered Robens-type legislation, which is supportive of the twin principles of
employee involvement and the joint commitment of employers and employees in managing
OSH in the workplace (Barrett et al., 1983). Integral to the success of this approach are
effective OSHCs (Bernard, 1995), a form of representative employee involvement which, in
Malaysia, comprises at the very least equal numbers of both management and non-
management employee representatives (Regulation 5; SHCR, 1996), mandated in all types of
workplaces with 40 or more employees (Section 30; OSHA, 1994).
The purpose and significance of this study
The literature from developed countries has shown the importance of management
commitment in establishing effective OSHCs, although this factor has been conceptualised
in various ways. Therefore, this focussed descriptive study provides evidence about the
perceived effectiveness of OSHCs in Malaysia, an industrial developing country, and seeks
to show how management’s commitment –conceptualised as both passive and active
commitment –is associated with effective OSHCs. The context here is the current
reflexive (e.g. regulation by goal setting enabling employers to self-regulate) legislative
framework that compels passive management commitment and encourages active
management commitment. A focussed descriptive study such as this, describes the
phenomenon of interest in the context of Malaysia’s specific socio-cultural, political,
economic and legal environment; enabling other developing countries to learn from
Malaysia’s experience with OSH self-regulation via OSHCs. Furthermore, a study
conducted in Sri Lanka (De Silva and Wimalaratne, 2012) evidences that although
48 per cent of the members of the construction industry have formed OSHCs these
committees were not functioning at a satisfactory level. Hence, from a narrower
perspective, this study may be beneficial to any business entity th at has incorporated the
OSHC as an approach to managing OSH at the workplace.
Research questions
To achieve its research objectives, this study seeks to answer these questions:
RQ1. What is the perceived state of effectiveness of OSHCs in Malaysian manufacturing
firms?
RQ2. What are the perceived states of passive and active management commitment in
Malaysian manufacturing firms?
RQ3. Do both passive and active management commitments have positive relationships
with the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs in Malaysian manufacturing firms?
RQ4. Which type of management commitment (passive or active) has a stronger
positive relationship with the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs in Malaysian
manufacturing firms?
205
Effective
safety and
health
committees
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