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This article was downloaded by: [University of California, Berkeley] On: 21 November 2014, At: 01:26 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sjht20 Merging Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management with Food Control: A Healthy Recipe for the Hospitality Industry Preben H. Lindøe a & Terje Lie a a Rogaland Research , Stavanger, Norway Published online: 05 Nov 2010. To cite this article: Preben H. Lindøe & Terje Lie (2002) Merging Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management with Food Control: A Healthy Recipe for the Hospitality Industry, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2:2, 145-162, DOI: 10.1080/15022250216285 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15022250216285 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Merging Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management with Food Control: A Healthy Recipe for the Hospitality Industry

This article was downloaded by: [University of California, Berkeley]On: 21 November 2014, At: 01:26Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and TourismPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sjht20

Merging Systematic Occupational Health and SafetyManagement with Food Control: A Healthy Recipe forthe Hospitality IndustryPreben H. Lindøe a & Terje Lie aa Rogaland Research , Stavanger, NorwayPublished online: 05 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Preben H. Lindøe & Terje Lie (2002) Merging Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Managementwith Food Control: A Healthy Recipe for the Hospitality Industry, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2:2,145-162, DOI: 10.1080/15022250216285

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15022250216285

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose ofthe Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be reliedupon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shallnot be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and otherliabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Merging Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management with Food Control: A Healthy Recipe for the Hospitality Industry

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Merging Systematic Occupational Health andSafety Management with Food Control: A HealthyRecipe for the Hospitality Industry

Preben H. Lindøe and Terje LieRogaland Research, Stavanger, Norway

........................................................................

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenge of implementing management systemsrelated to occupational health and safety as well as handling the quality offood within the hospitality industry. Smaller enterprises play a significantrole in employment and economy within the industry, but also providethe location of accidents, fatalities and low quality of products. The theoret-ical framework of the discussion is ‘‘The Nordic Occupational HealthModel’’. A case study within the Norwegian Hospitality Association pro-vides the empirical data. The paper documents that introducing systemsfor food control in parallel with systems for occupational health and safetygives positive outcomes on internal management, environmental issues andfire safety. The external condition promoting the results seems to be astrategic decision of the association on getting quality issues on the agenda,followed by a collaborative process among the members involving consult-ants, seminars, guidelines and checklists as well as support from local FoodControl Authorities. The paper concludes that combining food control asa market mechanism related to the customer, with the regulating of occupa-tional health and safety related to the employees, seems to be a healthyrecipe for the industry.

Keywords: food control, occupational health and safety management,quality management, small and medium size enterprises

Introduction

Small enterprises not only play a significant role in employment and theeconomy, but they also provide the location for accidents and fatalities in...........................................................................................

For correspondence: Preben H. Lindøe, Rogaland Research, P.O. Box 8046, NO-4068 Stavanger,Norway; e-mail: [email protected]

Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2002. © 2002 Taylor & Francis

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the workplace. Estimates from the European Union indicate that the work-force is exposed to 10 million occupational injuries annually of which theshared numbers by small enterprises is considerable (Walters, 2001). In aneffort to meet this challenge there has been an orientation towards newprinciples of regulatory systems of Occupational Health and SafetyManagement in the workplace (Frick et al., 2000). Along with the develop-ment of new regulatory systems, enterprises are trying to adapt to newQuality Management Systems. In an increasingly competitive market-place,the customers also impose requirements of formalized quality systemsthrough demands on vendors and suppliers. In the Norwegian context theoffshore and aluminium industries were the first employers implementingInternal Control1 in order to handle Occupational Health and Safety (Lindøe& Hansen, 2000). The focus of these industries has primarily been on safetyand environmental issues, which have represented the highest and mostvisible risks, both for the enterprise and society in general. When riskssuch as occupational health issues are less visible, companies have shown atendency to be slower in making progress, even in the most successful cases.In a Norwegian context, most of the enterprises in the HospitalityIndustry are small. They have a weak financial basis, the unions are smalland they are inexperienced when it comes to Occupational Health andSafety Management. In Norway as well as in other places, implementingInternal Control in smaller and medium size enterprises has faced differentchallenges and the progress has been very slow (Flagstad, 1995). After tenyears with Internal Control, two out of ten enterprises with less than fiveemployees as well as about half of the enterprises with between five andten employers have implemented Internal Control procedures (Gaupset,2000). International studies confirm the same tendency (Eakin et al., 2000;Walters, 2001). It seems obvious that there may be a mismatch betweenthe requirements of an Internal Control system and the ‘‘simple’’ form ofsmall enterprises where little of its behaviour is formalized (Mintzberg,1979). Small enterprises lack the competence needed for ensuring that issuesrelated to occupational health, work environment and safety are handledadequately. Moreover, they lack the resources to develop such competenceor to enlist external partners and consultants, in addition to the fact thattheir management has not been taking an active role in the developmentand implementation of Internal Control. In short, small enterprises may notbe well suited for systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management.This becomes a challenge when the majority of enterprises in Norway, aswell in many other countries, are to be found in this category. However,a national evaluation of the industries (Skaar et al., 1999) found that enter-prises within the hotel and restaurant sector in Norway have made dramaticimprovements regarding implementation of Internal Control. In an industry...........................................................................................

1The term ‘‘Internal Control’’ corresponding with ‘‘Occupational Health and Safety Management’’ is usedwhen referring to the specific Norwegian regulation.

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Occupational Health & Safety and Food Control 147

dominated by small enterprises, the numbers reporting having implementedan Occupational Health and Safety Management System have increasedabout 120% from 1996 to 1999. In the same period of time, other serviceindustries showed very little improvement.The problem statement discussed in this paper concerns the mechanismsor the factors that may explain why small enterprises in the service industryhave made such a substantial improvement in a relatively short time. Thepaper consists of four main parts. The first one is an introduction to thenew Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in the Norwegian context.Secondly, we present a framework for discussion and the method used forthe data collection. The third part will be a presentation of the ExtendedOccupational Health and Safety Programme from the NorwegianHospitality Association. Finally, we present the findings and analysis of thedata related to a wider context.

The Nordic Occupational and Health Model

In the Nordic countries the influence from Britain, America and Germanyon occupational health legislation, prevention health policies and tradeunion positions can easily be identified before the 1960s (Bruun et al.,1992). From the 1960s onwards, a ‘‘Nordic Occupational Health Model’’emerged. In a comparative analysis of the Nordic and European countries,Vogel stated the following:

The changes which set in from the late Sixties make it possible to definea Nordic occupational health model in terms of its interconnections withindustrial relations, the debates on blueprints for society, and the featuresof the prevention policies put in place. This model is genuinely differentfrom those found elsewhere in Europe, although obviously not uniform(1988, p. 22).

In 1985 the Norwegian government launched a programme for improvingthe work environment and safety administration by assessing the suitabilityof various methods, approaches and instruments based on the experienceswith offshore Internal Control, which the authorities would later adopt forgeneral use (NOU, 1987: 10A). The Norwegian authorities were able tobase the new regulation onshore on the previous work from both the oiland the aluminium industries even though the two industries had somefeatures that were quite different from most onshore enterprises. Both indus-tries were operating in international markets, basing themselves on pro-cessing technology and had a high risk for pollution and fatal injuries.Furthermore, the financial base for both industries was strong, and theycould afford the human resources and expertise needed for the new system.Despite the fact that the onshore industries were smaller and less financiallysecure, the principles of Internal Control were introduced for all onshoreactivities on 1 January 1992. The new regulation stated that the manage-

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ment of an enterprise had an obligation to conduct systematic follow-upsand to make sure that specific requirements in the work environment weremet, covering such areas as pollution, explosion hazard, fire, productcontrol, electrical installations and equipment (Lindøe, 1997).In Norway, Internal Control includes occupational health and safety aswell as the external environment. One obvious reason for including theexternal environment into the regulation has been the risk of pollutionfrom oil and metal industries. In both cases, a major concern for the enter-prises as well as the authorities has been to prevent pollution of the sea andthe air. When the principles of Internal Control were extended to otherindustrial sectors, the authorities kept the emphasis on the external environ-ment in the regulation. The Ministry of Local Government and Labourinitiated an internal evaluation and reformulation of the Internal ControlRegulation in 1996, and a revised regulation came into effect on 1 January1997: Regulation concerning Systematic Health, Environment and SafetyActivities at Enterprises (Internal Control Regulation).

The method used

The method applied in the case study presented in this paper combines theformative and summative elements in the evaluation conducted during thetime of operation of the programme. For this approach, Finne, Levin, &Nilssen (1995) coined the term ‘‘Trailing Research’’, describing it as aformative, dialogue-based process analysis aiming at the formation of aconstructive dialogue among the stakeholders in the actual programme.The method can be traced back to the new generations of evaluation theoryunderlining the formative aspect of the evaluation in design and dialogue(Guba & Lincoln, 1989). However, it also draws from Norwegain experi-ence (Lindøe et al., 2002).A ‘‘Health, Environment and Safety barometer’’ was constructed in orderto be able to monitor effects from the project. Aiming to reach all the 2200members of the Norwegian Hospitality Association the form had to be verysimple and was limited to two A4 pages. The main part was a list of 24questions defining the status in the enterprise within the following fourcategories: Occupational Health and Safety, External Environment, FireProtection and Food Control. In addition the enterprises were asked torespond to their relation to and co-operation with Labour Inspection, FoodInspection, Fire Inspection and Inspection for Electrical Installation. Theenterprises were identified according to type, annual sales, number ofemployees and location. The barometer was used to measure results threetimes during the project period and the responses are listed in Table 1.

The extended health, environment and safety programme

The Hospitality Industry in Norway has an annual turnover of about20 billion NOK. This figure breaks down as 9.4 billion within Hotels and

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Table 1. Response to the OHMS barometer.

Year

1997 1998 2000

Number of responses 1174 1107 976Percentage 53.3 50.3 44.4

9.6 billion within Food and Beverage. The total number of employees in2000 were 73,000 (Statistics Norway). On 1 January 1977, the former‘‘Norwegian Hotel and Restaurant Association’’ and ‘‘The Association ofOvernight- and Service-Enterprises’’ merged into one association andbecame third in volume within the Federation of Norwegian Enterprises.The new association has 50,000 employees and 2250 member units ofwhich about 80% have less than five million NOK in annual turnover.On the one hand, the Association of Overnight and Service Enterprisesrepresented the typical small enterprise with limited financial resources anda low level of competence. As a consequence, most of the members werenot involved in systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management.On the other hand, the Norwegian Hotel and Restaurant Association withits many bigger enterprises, most of them members of business groups, hadapplied themselves to the implementation of the Internal Control from thevery beginning in 1992.As a part of a strategic plan, the new association intended to improvethe reputation of the industry among the public and their customers regard-ing Occupational Health and Safety. An ambitious programme called‘‘Extended Occupational Health, Environment and Safety’’ was set up andaimed to get 80% of the members to a level of activity that could beaccepted by the inspection authorities. The programme was implementedin three stages. The first stage involved motivation and training of manage-ment, whereas the second stage involved the employees in a participatoryapproach. The third stage focused on safety for guests and employees. Atthis point in time, the Internal Control regime had already been in placefor five years and the Labour Inspection was authorized to penalise enter-prises who hadn’t started implementing Internal Control. As many membersfound themselves in that position, it became urgent for the association toact quickly. It is important to keep this in mind as a point of reference andto understand the effort needed. On the one hand, the former members ofthe Association of Overnight and Service Enterprises had a great potentialfor improvement. On the other hand, as already stated above, smaller enter-prises had difficulties implementing systematic Occupational Health andSafety Management.By the end of 1994, the ‘‘Regulation on In-house control based on riskanalysis to meet the requirement of the Food Control Act’’ was passed.

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Although the two regulations are quite similar regarding procedures, theFood Control regulation, building on Hazard Analysis Critical ControlPoint, is more demanding when it comes to risk analysis. The guidelinesto the regulation underline that the method has to be applied through thewhole value chain from the suppliers, transport, storage, production andretailing. For the Hospitality Industry the deadline for introducing theregulation was 1 January 1998. Consequently, the members of the newassociation only had one year to implement the new regulation on FoodControl. The Norwegian Hospitality Association made a firm decision tostart implementing the programme, and managed to get it funded throughthe Working Environment Fund in the Federation of NorwegianEnterprises. This institution has played an important role in supporting theintroduction of Internal Control in Norway, being one of the main fundingagencies when the system was introduced early in the 1990s. This efforthas led to good results. Comparing members of the Federation ofNorwegian Enterprises with non-members shows that 60% of the membershave implemented Internal Control compared to 35% as a general score(Skaar et al., 1999).

Findings from the case study

Main features

The time-frame for development of systematic Occupational Health andSafety Management and Food Control within the members of the associ-ation can be traced by using data from the barometer from 1997 to 2000.Both the requirements in the content in the Food Control regulationand the time-frame for fulfilling them had been more rigorous than forInternal Control. Nevertheless, the implementation of Food Control withinthe industry has been more expedient and far-reaching than that ofOccupational Health and Safety Management as shown in Table 2.From 1997 to 1998 the numbers of enterprises reporting an implementedFood Control quadrupled, going from 12 to 49%. While 35% had notstarted the process in 1997, the number was as low as 7% in 2000.

Table 2. Status for Occupational Health and Safety Management and Food Control (%).

Internal Control Food Control

IM UW NS IM UW NS

1997 27 43 30 12 45 351998 45 38 17 49 12 162000 58 26 16 68 16 72000* – – – 72 19 9

IM=Implemented, UW=Underway, NS=Not started. *Torvatn et al. (2001)

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Occupational Health & Safety and Food Control 151

In 1997, the number of enterprises with a systematically implementedOccupational Health and Safety Management was 27% and the improve-ment was much slower than for Food Control. In 2000, 16% reported theystill had not started. The last row in the table shows data from a surveydone for the Norwegian Food Control Authority among 150 restaurantsand hotels (Torvatn et al., 2001). These data are almost the same as thoseprovided by the barometer. In both cases the progress correlates with thesize of the enterprise. Within the smallest segment of enterprises (belowMNOK in annual turnover) less than half of the enterprises had started theprocess in 1997. Within one year three out of four enterprises reportedthat they had started the process. However, in the course of the followingtwo years the process of implementation decreased and in 2000 two out often of the enterprises still seemed to be in a passive mode. Enterprisescounting from 5 to 20 MNOK in annual turnover showed even betterimplementation in relative terms. Although the percentage of enterprisesthat had not started was reduced from 28 to 8% from 1997 to 1998, theprocess stagnated over the next two years. In the group counting from 20to 50 million in annual sales per year the implementation rate has steadilyimproved year by year. The picture is clear enough. For enterprises withless than 20 MNOK in annual turnover a ‘‘saturation’’ occurs when itcomes to the implementation of Internal Control. This category counts foramong 80% of the members in the association and between 70 and 80%of the covered population in the survey.

Systematic occupational health and safety efforts

Six out of the 24 indicators from the barometer describe systematicOccupational Health and Safety efforts, and Table 3 gives an overview ofthe degree of implementation. ‘‘Written goals’’ receive the lowest rating of

Table 3. Degree of implementation of Internal Control (%).

Degree of implementation

Imple- Under Intend to Nomented way Planned start intention

Written Occupational Health and 54.9 22.7 8.9 8.5 5.1Safety-goalsDivision of labour and 61.3 21.5 5.8 6.2 5.3responsibilitiesAccomplished Internal Control 60.3 27.1 5.9 3.9 2.7Laws and regulation in place 73.4 13.3 5.9 3.2 4.1Agreement with local Occupational 64.7 2.9 4.5 12.2 15.7Health ServiceKeeps relevant statistics 63.8 9.7 5.7 7.7 13.2

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55% whereas ‘‘access to relevant laws and regulations at the workplace’’gets the highest score of 73%. Six out of ten enterprises claim that systematicInternal Control is now in place. About 65% of the enterprises have formalagreements with Occupational Health Service and collect statistical data forillness-related absence. However, a fairly big portion of the enterprisesclaims that the efforts are ‘‘underway’’. Using the perspective that the sys-tematic Internal Control is a never-ending process it is fair to put thecategories ‘‘implemented’’ and ‘‘underway’’ into one category. From thispoint of view almost nine out of ten enterprises have ‘‘fulfilled’’ the taskand an additional 6% have made a decision to start.

Other occupational health and safety efforts

Looking for other Occupational Health and Safety efforts we find variableresults, even if some of the efforts have a high implementation rate. Mostenterprises have the First Aid kits and the protective equipment in place(94% and 82% respectively). Almost nine out of ten have a written agree-ment with all the employees according to the Working Environment Act.The rest are planning to do it. Three out of four enterprises have a safetydelegate, but only six out of ten enterprises have offered the required basic40-hour course in Working Environment issues. The statistics of theNorwegian Hospitality Association show that 55% of their members havebelow ten employees, the limit provided by the Working Environment Actfor voluntarily having a safety delegate.The scores indicate that the enterprises live up to the standard in theregulation by putting a safety delegate in place even if they don’t followup the training (Table 4).

Environmental efforts

The degree of implementation when it comes to environmental efforts issubstantially lower than for the effort regarding Occupational Health and

Table 4. Accomplishing other programme efforts (%).

Degree of implementation

Imple- Under Intend to Nomented way Planned start intention

First Aid kits in place 93.8 3.1 1.9 0.5 0.6Index of chemical substances 59.9 14.3 8.6 6.4 10.8Safety delegates in place 75.6 5.2 4.0 4.6 10.8Forty hours training for Safety 48.9 8.7 14.6 11.1 16.7DelegatesProtective equipment 82.0 7.3 3.2 2.3 5.2Written contract with employee 86.5 8.0 2.5 2.1 1.0

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Safety as indicated in Table 5. Only one out of three has a written policyon environmental issues.Environmental efforts like ‘‘co-operation with the municipality’’, repla-

cing detergents and articles for one use only with ‘‘green products’’ scoresabout the same. However, 73% of the enterprises use source segregation.For those where the effort is relevant, 86% have installed spare showers orare planning to do so.

Fire safety

In the enterprises there is a high consciousness when it comes to firesecurity. As shown in Table 6, 97% state that the escape routes are safe,94% have marked the routes and 83% have a plan for evacuation.

Impact of the programme

In the latest barometer test the members were asked if they had startedusing the guidelines and checklist developed in the project. By combiningthe answers with other data from the barometer, we looked for correlationsbetween the use and improvement of Internal Control and Food Control.

Table 5. Accomplished environmental efforts (%).

Degree of implementation

Imple- Under Intend to Nomented way Planned start intention

Sorting waste 61.3 11.6 5.9 10.1 11.1Co-operation with municipality 32.9 13.4 5.5 20.0 28.2regarding environmental issuesExclusive use of environmental 46.4 15.1 6.2 25.1 7.2sound detergentsReplacement of disposable supplies 38.1 15.8 4.4 23.5 18.8Spare shower in guestroom 40.6 4.7 1.6 7.6 45.6

Table 6. Accomplished safety efforts against fire (%).

Degree of implementation

Intend toImplemented Underway Planned start No intention

Free escape routes 96.1 1.4 0.8 0.3 0.5Marked escape routes 94.1 2.4 1.5 0.9 1.2Fire evacuation plan 82.8 8.2 4.4 1.6 3.1

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154 Preben H. Lindøe and Terje Lie

Table 7 shows that nearly one third of the enterprises have started usingeither the guidelines and/or the checklists, which indicates that between700 and 800 of the members have used the material.Correlations between the use of the material and the effects on the practiseof Occupational Health and Safety Management and Food Control arepresented in Table 8. The criteria for accomplishment are summarized fromenterprises both responding to ‘‘implemented’’ and ‘‘on the way’’. The 24indicators in the barometer are grouped under the five categories of effortas presented earlier.The table shows a positive correlation between all kinds of systematicOccupational Health and Safety Management efforts and the use of guide-lines and checklists. Enterprises taking the tools into use have a higherdegree of implementation than enterprises that are not using them. Thecorrelations are statistically significant, but rather low in some cases.The enterprises were also asked to assess the usefulness of the guidelinesand the checklist on a five-point scale from ‘‘very useful’’ to ‘‘not useful atall’’. Among the enterprises using the guidelines about nine out of tenassessed the usefulness to be ‘‘very high’’ or ‘‘fairly high’’. About the samenumbers count for the checklists, and the correlation between the twoanswers is very high (r=0.92). This implies that the same enterprisesbenefiting from the guidelines were also benefiting from the checklists. Apositive correlation can also be documented between the subjective state-ment and most of the indicators from Table 8, except when it comes toenvironmental issues.

Table 7. Use of guidelines and checklists (%).

Use of guidelines Use of checklists None of them No answer

31,4 34,3 56,5 5,0

Table 8. Correlation between OHS indicators and whether guidelines and checklists havebeen used or not (Pearsons r).

Guidelines Checklists None ofOHS indicators used used them used Not answered

Internal Control system 0.22** 0.16** −0.14** −0,11**Occupational Health and Safety 0.13** 0.13** −0.09** −0.07**Management-environmentOccupational Health and Safety 0.09* 0.08* −0.05 0.08**Management-fireFood Control 0.16** 0.15** 0.10** 0.13**Other Occupational Health and 0.12** 0.08* 0.03 0.12**Safety Management efforts

**p<0.01, *p<0.05

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Occupational Health & Safety and Food Control 155

Participating at OHS seminars

The latest barometer test also includes a question about participation in twoseminars. The statistical data indicates that participation in the seminars wasas low as 13% at ‘‘The manager takes initiative’’ and 8% at ‘‘Involvedworkers’’. About three out of four enterprises did not have any participantsat the seminars. The correlation between the participation at the seminar‘‘The manager takes initiative’’ and the use of the guidelines and checklistsare fairly high (r=0.36 and 0.29). However, the correlation between theparticipation at the seminar ‘‘Involved workers’’ and the use of the guide-lines and checklists are weaker, but still positive and statistically significant.The data indicate that some of the members are especially active, bothwhen it comes to using seminars and material packs.Table 9 shows that there is a statistically significant, but rather low positivecorrelation between participation at the seminar ‘‘Involved workers’’ andthe different Occupational Health and Safety Management indicators andFood Control. The seminar ‘‘The manager takes initiative’’ shows a positivecorrelation with Internal Control system and Food Control. The subject-ive assessment of the two seminars is high, as nine out of ten enterprisesstated that the benefit has been very high or fairly high.

Inspections

As presented earlier in this paper, the introduction of the systematicOccupational Health and Safety Management in Norway has been a longprocess where the authorities have played an important role in both theprocess of planning and the follow up. The inspections from the differentauthorities are part of the follow up. We asked the enterprises to indicatewhether they had had a visit from any of the relevant authorities and toassess their relationship with them. Table 10 shows the extent of inspectionsin 2000 from the local Fire Inspection, Electricity Inspection, Food

Table 9. Correlation between participation at seminars and implementation ofOccupational Health and Safety Management.

The manager takes InvolvedOHS indicators initiatives workers

Internal Control-system 0.11** 0.14**Occupational Health and Safety Management – 0.01 0.06*environmentOccupational Health and Safety Management – 0.00 0.08**fireFood Control 0.09** 0.08*Other Occupational Health and Safety 0.07* 0.15**Management efforts

**p<0.01, *p<0.05

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Table 10. Frequencies of inspections (%).

Have been visited by the localinspection Yes No Don’t know

Fire Inspection 68.7 28.3 3.0Electricity Inspection 46.9 45.7 7.4Food Control Authority 75.6 22.2 2.2Labour Inspection 28.7 66.7 4.6

Inspection and Labour Inspection. How the enterprises benefited from theseinspections is assessed very differently. Two out of three enterprises assessedthe Food inspections as being very useful regarding implementation ofinternal control. Assessment of Labour inspection scores substantially lowerand scarcely four out of ten reported their usefulness regarding imple-menting Internal Control.We checked the correlation between the assessing of the inspections andthe degree of implementation of Internal Control. The Food Inspectionsare only related to the implementation of Food Control. The data showthat the enterprises showing the highest rate of implementation are thesame who assess the inspections. The findings confirm an effect frequentlyobserved: having more knowledge and valuable information, the mostcapable enterprises benefit the most from the inspections. The same tend-ency was observed regarding the Labour Inspection. The enterprises thatalready had Internal Control were the ones getting most benefit from theinspections.We asked the enterprises to assess their relationship with different author-ities and Occupational Health and Safety experts. Two out of three enter-prises said the co-operation with the Food Inspection was good, whereashalf of them said the same about the Fire Inspection. However, only twoout of ten gave a positive assessment of the co-operation with the LabourInspection. Regarding the co-operation with the association only one outof three gave a positive assessment of the co-operation. This was also thecase for the Occupational Health Service. Finally, only 5% of 47 enterprisesassessed the co-operation with OHS consultants as good.

Analysis

One of the main problems in acheiving a breakthrough in small enterpriseshas been the motivation and communication from the authorities (Flagstad,1994). In the introduction we underlined the mismatch between the generalrequirement to Internal Control systems adapted from the bigger industriesand the characteristics of smaller enterprises. Bigger industries were positivetowards the Internal Control regulation. The offshore and the aluminiumindustry were well prepared for the new regulatory regime. In both cases,

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there were few actors involved, and it was possible to have a dialoguebetween the authorities involved in the regulation. Armed with credibilityand conducting themselves in a professional manner, they became efficientpartners for the implementation of the Internal Control concept as indicatedin Figure 1 below (Lindøe & Hansen, 2000).However, the implementation process in small enterprises was quitedifferent from the larger industries. These smaller enterprises had limitedresources, operated in local markets, had fewer relations with the authorities,and had a rather limited experience with implementing business systems.It should be pointed out that these enterprises do not constitute an industrialsector, but represent a variety of businesses. The role of the LabourInspection, which is the relevant authority for most SME’s, has responsibilityfor more than 200,000 enterprises. Their role is relatively weak as we alsohave seen from this case study. The heterogeneity of the SME sector becamea real obstacle to the implementation of Internal Control and there was agap between the authorities who had framed the Internal Control systemand the SMEs who were supposed to practise the system.

Fig. 1. Implementation of Internal Control in different sectors (Lindøe and Hansen,2000, p. 451).

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We may put our findings in place by using a framework defining themain participants and their relations to some of the activities in the pro-gramme. Figure 2 gives an outline of the participants and their part in theprocess. The starting point is the merger of the two associations and thepriority given to ‘‘Extended Occupational Health and Safety’’, followed byextensive training and production of material and support by inspectionsfrom authorities.

‘‘Naming and framing’’ Occupational Health and Safety

By merging the two associations the Hospitality industry felt a need for‘‘naming and framing’’ Occupational Health and Safety as one of the stra-tegic issues they should deal with. By making this decision they faced apotential criticism of lacking standards among their members and thus theindustry made it legitimate to spend time and resources on improvement.However, in order to implement standards and procedures the employersand employees needed to be motivated. The association had anOccupational Health and Safety adviser who was partly funded by theFederation of Norwegian Enterprises. He played a key role in the com-munication with the enterprises, and was engaged as project leader. Boththe adviser and other resource persons engaged had relevant professionalskills achieved by working with the Hospitality Industry for many years.They were able to transform the ‘‘systems-thinking’’ and bureaucratic termsfrom Internal Control into understandable terms for people in the small

Fig. 2. Actors and activities in the ‘‘Extended Occupational Health and SafetyManagement’’ programme.

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enterprises. Their professional knowledge and experience were decisiveboth in communicating with and motivating the members as wellas devel-oping guidelines and checklists in a very concrete and useful way (SeeTables 7 and 8).

Synergy between Occupational Health and Safety Management and FoodControl

The experience from the programme is particularly interesting when itcomes to the relationship between Internal Control and Food Control. TheInternal Control regulation had been in place for five years prior to themerger of the associations on 1 January 1997. At that point in time, theenterprises had one year to install the systematic Food Control. Data fromthe OHS barometer and national surveys show that the enterprises withinthe hotels and restaurants were lagging behind most of the other industriesat the time. However, from 1997 onwards there was a substantial improve-ment in the implementation of Internal Control (Table 2). From then onthe implementation of Food Control started and within three years FoodControl was implemented or underway in more than nine out of ten mem-bers in the association. This corresponds with the findings of Torvatn et al.(2001, p. 38) which state that the tempo of implementation has in generalbeen higher for the Food Control than for Internal Control.Food Control is directly related to the products, market and customerrelations. Managers and employees in this industry know that damaged orunwholesome food products are a risk and may put them out of businessif they reach the consumer. The regulation of Food Control falls in linewith Quality Management Systems for improving products and processesaccording to specific requirements from customers as seen in a case studyof 18 small- and medium-sized enterprises in four different branches (Lindøeet al., 1996). The enterprises in the food industry managed to integrateInternal Control and Quality Management Systems despite their differencesin scale, having from 16 to 135 employees. The background and contextfor the implementation in this industry was different from the others. Thenew regulation of Food Control had to be implemented within a limitedtime frame and the enterprises received special attention and support fromthe local Food Control Authority. Furthermore, they also took part inseveral networks in which they got special training in the integration andimplementation of Internal Control and Quality Management Systems. Itlooks as if it is easier, both for Food Control authorities and the managementto get their message through. The dramatic events regarding Europeanfarming, being highly exposed in the media, may have created an additionalpulling effect on the implementation of Food Control. Our conclusion isthat the implementation of systematic Food Control has had a substantialpositive effect in speeding up the process of Internal Control within theindustry.

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The role of the authorities

Our assumption that the regulation of Food Control has had a positiveinfluence on the implementation of Occupational Health and SafetyManagement is strengthened by the role of the authorities. During 1999three out of four enterprises reported that Food Inspection made an inspec-tion while only three out of ten reported a visit from Labour Inspection.Two out of three enterprises said the co-operation with the Food Inspectionwas good, while only two out of ten gave a positive assessment of theco-operation with the Labour Inspection.From this information we may conclude that the Food Control Authorityplays a more active and influential role towards the enterprises than theLabour Inspection is able to do. The reasons for this may differ. The datafrom the survey show significant differences from district to district.However the main reason may be found in structural differences such asthe number of enterprises to inspect and in the ‘‘market mechanism’’ asalready pointed out. In fact, when the new regulation of Food Control waspassed, the Food Control Authority gave from the beginning priority tothe hospitality industry at national level. In the case of the Labour inspection,priority has been given to different industries based on local judgement.

Conclusions

Walter (2001) emphasizes that utilizing structures and processes withinnetworks as branches in order to convey, amplify and help to reinforcehealth and safety messages and to effect their operation becomes an essentialstrategy. The framework and the processes of the project ‘‘ExtendedOccupational Health and Safety Management’’ is an example of such amechanism. We can underline four core elements in the mechanism fromthe findings in the case study.First of all, the stakeholders in charge have to prioritise OccupationalHealth and Safety as an area for improvement and put the issue on theagenda. This provides legitimacy and an opportunity to link OccupationalHealth and Safety to strategic and economic issues. Private and publicfunding may be available for associations and networks of enterprises as ithas been in this case. In our case the new association of the industry turnedout to be the key player.Secondly, the use of competent resources in the intervention is importantregarding the motivation, communication with and training of personneland in the development of relevant material. The ‘‘change agents’’ andresource persons need relevant professional skills, knowledge and experiencedecisive both in communicating with and motivating the members as wellas in developing the guidelines and checklists. Guidelines and checklistshave to be very concrete and useful in practice. Combining general ‘‘QualityManagement’’ competence and more specific competence and insight fromthe industry seems to be essential.

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A third point is to channel possible synergies of a ‘‘market mechanism’’with the effects produced by regulation from the authorities (Zwetsloot,1994). The enterprises identified ‘‘Food Control’’ as linked to the produc-tion process, the products and their position in the market. As a con-sequence, the management was easily motivated regarding the formalrequirement of Food Control. It seems to be useful to create an understand-ing both in theory and practice of the importance of integrating FoodControl and Occupational Health and Safety Management. The results showthat systematic Food Control may have a substantial positive effect inspeeding up the process of implementing Occupational Health and SafetyManagement within the Hospitality industry.Our last point regards the role of the authorities. Due to the generalcondition of smaller enterprises, their great number and the relatively limitedcapacity of Labour Inspection, their influence has been weak. In additionthe heterogeneity of the industries where the smaller enterprises operatehas turned out to be a real obstacle to the implementation of systematicOccupational Health and Safety Management. Consequently there has beena gap between the Labour inspection authorities that have framed theInternal Control system and the smaller enterprises that are supposed topractise the system. If an inspection authority can link the ‘‘control issues’’to a context of ‘‘market mechanism’’ and economy it may also play a moreactive and influential role towards the enterprises.However, there will still be vital issues concerning Occupational Healthand Safety that may not give any ‘‘pay-off ’’ in the marketplace. The chal-lenge will be to combine the perspective of ‘‘self-regulation’’ among theactors in the marketplace with the perspective of the common interestsamong the social partners in society. These mutual interests can be foundbehind the Nordic Model of Occupational Health and Safety. The questionremains whether the model is still robust and whether it reflects values thatcan be part of a healthy recipe together with market-oriented systems.

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