Innovative workplace practices and occupational injuries and illnesses in the United States
Economic and Industrial Democracy
2001
22
4
485-516
case study ; frequency rates ; job rotation ; new work practices ; occupational accidents ; occupational disease ; total quality management ; work organization ; work load
Occupational safety and health
English
Bibliogr.
"This article studies the consequences of organizational innovations on occupational injuries and illnesses in the American private sector over the past 20 years. High-performance workplace practices such as total quality management, job rotation and autonomous work teams can damage workplace health and safety: they can increase the intensity of work both in manufacturing and tertiary industries, and some practices can even be incompatible with the design and the assimilation of safety rules. Using surveys on organizational changes in the USA, management literature and BLS-OSHA data, we show for 26 sectors that the adoption of high-performance practices seems correlated to a dramatic increase in occupational injuries and illnesses."(Author's summary)
Digital
The ETUI is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ETUI.