Obey the Law and Do a Little Bit Extra? The paper provides evidence on how firms’ stakeholder orientation is associated with standard measures of corporate governance using a panel of 1778 US companies during the period of 1995-2006. We construct two binary indicators, one measuring stakeholder hostility and the other stakeholder friendliness using data from KLD ratings agency. Based on these indicators, we classify firms into four groups representing stakeholder hostile, neutral, friendly and ”friendly and hostile” firms. Our results show that both stakeholder friendly and hostile firms tend to have significantly lower insider ownership, smaller option grants, lower pay-performance sensitivities, larger boards, older executive officers and directors, lower institutional ownership and larger number of anti-takeover defenses than the firms in the neutral group. We also find that the probability of stakeholder hostile activity is positively related to the strength of corporate governance, but the effect is insignificant except in local and global community areas. A possible explanation is that in these areas stakeholders are protected mainly by ethics and social norms rather than by various regulations that is commonplace in labour, environment and customer related areas. These findings lend support for the idea that stakeholders are best protected by various regulations. Corporate Governance and Workplace Safety. This paper examines how the weakening in corporate governance affects workplace safety. We use anti-takeover laws in the US in the 1980s as a source of variation in corporate governance. Our measures of workplace safety are the number of violations of OSHA workplace safety regulation, penalties paid for these violations, the number of accidents and employees’ complaints about their workplace safety. We find that firms affected by the regulation presented significantly more workplace safety violations and penalties than otherwise similar firms that were not affected by the regulation. Accidents and complaints tend to decrease as a result of the anti-takeover regulation, but the results are not entirely robust. We also document that the increase in workplace safety violations was significantly smaller in unionized firms. This suggests that unions can play an important role in curbing managerial discretion. How Responsible is Private Equity? The financial success of leveraged buyout targets (LBOs) is frequently associated with deteriorating conditions for other stakeholders, such as workers, customers, suppliers, tax-payers and society as a whole. We obtain a comprehensive set of stakeholder ratings for a sample of 373 LBOs and examine the pre-and post-LBO performance of these ratings. LBO targets are characterized by weak stakeholder relations across a number of measures compared to their peers, in terms of corporate governance, transparency, employee relations and community relations. Controlling for this selection, we do not find systematic evidence in favor of the idea that private equity funds gain at the expense of other stakeholders. Private equity ownership alters targets in the direction of higher pay, improved work-life benefits, increased charitable giving, and decreased concerns related to retirement benefits, adverse economic impact, tax disputes, unfair marketing practices and antitrust problems. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2010; Sammanfattning jämte 3 uppsatser.

O trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar e propor a utilização de soluções tecnológicas que permitam a redução dos riscos causados por arcos elétricos nas instalações de uma unidade industrial com sistema isolado de geração elétrica. Por ser extremamente danosa à segurança das pessoas que interagem com uma instalação elétrica e por causar danos significativos aos equipamentos e instalações, a energia incidente, proveniente de um arco elétrico, deve ser mensurada em conformidade com as normas existentes e os riscos devem ser controlados e mitigados, de maneira a não comprometer a integridade física das pessoas e das instalações. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho propõe alterações no sistema de proteção e a inserção de dispositivos dedicados à identificação de arcos elétricos no interior de painéis da unidade em questão, contribuindo significativamente para a redução da energia incidente liberada na ocorrência de um arco elétrico. Essa redução da energia incidente é conseguida devido à redução do tempo para eliminação da falta, necessitando, dessa forma, de dispositivos e relés de proteção voltados exclusivamente para a proteção contra arco elétrico. / This dissertation aims to evaluate and propose the use of technological solutions that enable the reduction of risks caused by arc flash on the premises of an industrial unit with insulated system of electricity generation. It may be extremely damaging to the safety of people who interact with electrical installations and could cause significant damage to the equipment and facilities, the incident energy from an arc flash should be measured in accordance with existing standards, their risks must be controlled and attenuated, in order not to compromise the physical integrity of people and facilities. That way, this paper proposes changes into the system of protection and the insertion of devices dedicated to the identification of arc flashes inside panels of the unit concerned, contributing significantly to the reduction of incident energy released in the event of an arc flash. This reduction is obtained by lowering the time for the elimination of absence, requiring, therefore, devices and protective relays devoted exclusively to protect against electric arc.

This diploma thesis is about integration process of assembly line automation on rail assembly. In the beginning is introduced Bosch Company, then follows up theoretical part about automation and assembly lines. After theoretical introduction continues description of current state of rail assembly and choice the best line for automation and its detailed description. After that, the work deals with finding of the best solution for line automation. Found solutions are evaluated using the decision matrix. After the best one of them is chosen. There is also calculation of investments, because the one of important conditions is, that payback period has to be less than two years. Next step is choice of the most suitable supplier and integrator, which can cope with all requirements. At the end of thesis is analysis of risks done and thanks to this, are potentials for improvement of workplace safety found.

Η τακτική ανασκόπηση και αξιολόγηση της επίδοσης ενός οργανισμού σε θέματα εργασιακής ασφάλειας και υγείας αποτελεί απαραίτητη διεργασία για την αποτελεσματική διαχείριση των θεμάτων αυτών. Η αξιολόγηση της επίδοσης είναι στενά συνδεδεμένη με την παρακολούθηση, που στην περίπτωση της εργασιακής ασφάλειας και υγείας γίνεται μέσω δεικτών, αποτελεσμάτων και προληπτικών. Και οι δύο διεργασίες έχουν ως στόχο την παροχή πληροφοριών για την τρέχουσα επίδοση και την υποστήριξη αποφάσεων για τη βελτίωσή της. Ωστόσο, η βασική διαφορά τους έγκειται στο ότι η παρακολούθηση αποτελεί μία «περιγραφική» διεργασία, που κυρίως επικεντρώνεται σε διαδικασίες και αποτελέσματα, ενώ η αξιολόγηση αποτελεί μία «ερμηνευτική» διεργασία, που εξετάζει σε βάθος τις αλληλεπιδράσεις παραγόντων και προσπαθεί να ανακαλύψει τα αίτια που οδηγούν σε συγκεκριμένες ενέργειες ή αποτελέσματα. Η παρούσα διατριβή αφορά τη συστημική προσέγγιση που απαιτείται για την ανάπτυξη και εφαρμογή μιας διεργασίας αξιολόγησης της επίδοσης σε θέματα εργασιακής ασφάλειας και υγείας. Προς αυτήν την κατεύθυνση, η διατριβή εξετάζει αρχικά τις θεωρητικές προσεγγίσεις πάνω στο αντικείμενο της αξιολόγησης της επίδοσης σε θέματα ασφάλειας, και τις επαναπροσδιορίζει μέσα από το πρίσμα της ολιστικής προσέγγισης στα θέματα διαχείρισης της ασφάλειας. Η διατριβή στοχεύει κυρίως στη διαμόρφωση ενός θεωρητικού πλαισίου με βασικές θέσεις για τη συστημική προσέγγιση επιμέρους θεμάτων που σχετίζονται με την αξιολόγηση, όπως είναι το επίπεδο της ανάλυσης, οι αλληλεπιδράσεις παραγόντων που επηρεάζουν ή σχετίζονται με τη διαχείριση της ασφάλειας, η καθιέρωση κριτηρίων αξιολόγησης που να προκύπτουν μέσα από μια συμμετοχική διεργασία και να αντανακλούν τον συμβιβασμό μεταξύ διαφορετικών απόψεων και αντιλήψεων. Για την επικύρωση του θεωρητικού πλαισίου, προτείνεται η εφαρμογή της Μεθόδου Μαλακών Συστημάτων (Soft Systems Methodology), η οποία χρησιμοποιείται για την ανάπτυξη και την εφαρμογή μίας διεργασίας αξιολόγησης της επίδοσης σε θέματα εργασιακής ασφάλειας και υγείας σε έναν συγκεκριμένο δημόσιο οργανισμό. / Regular review and evaluation of an organisation’s occupational health and safety performance are essential processes for the effective safety management. Performance evaluation is closely related to monitoring, which, in the case of occupational health and safety is done through reactive and proactive indicators. Both processes, monitoring and evaluation, aim at providing information on the current performance, and at supporting decisions on safety improvement actions. However, their basic difference is based on the fact that monitoring is a “descriptive” process, which is mainly focused on procedures and results, while evaluation is an “interpretivistic” process, which explores the inter-relations of safety related factors and seeks to identify the causes of particular actions or results. The present thesis discusses the systemic approach required for the development and implementation of an occupational health and safety evaluation process. Towards this purpose, the various theoretical positions on the subject of safety performance evaluation are initially examined and redefined through the lens of a holistic safety management approach. This thesis aims mainly at formulating a theoretical framework consisted of basic positions on the systemic approach of specific issues related with safety performance evaluation, such as: level of analysis, inter-relations of safety related factors, evaluation criteria selected through a participatory process, thus reflecting the compromise between different views and beliefs. For the validation of this theoretical framework, Soft Systems Methodology is proposed and implemented for the development and implementation of an occupational health and safety performance evaluation process in a particular organization of the public sector.

For a multi-national company like Adidas, supply chain management is one of the most crucial aspects of business operations. Products cannot be sold unless Adidas’s supply chain is well-managed and efficient, and public perception of a brand/company is critical to success. This case study analyzes the effectiveness of Adidas's distinct “collaborative approach” to supply chain management, which is characterized by not only monitoring and auditing suppliers, but also training them to make Adidas’s standards their own and approaching suppliers with the intention of building long-term relationships where the suppliers can become self-sufficient. This study reviews the structure of Adidas's supply chain, the nature of Adidas's collaborative approach to supply chain management, the benefits that collaboration provides over the conventional "compliance" approach to supply chain management, and the potential shortcomings of Adidas's approach. A conclusion is reached that the collaborative approach is the backbone of Adidas's success as one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world because of its holistic nature and consideration for unique cultural challenges.

In public health, prevention is a fundamentally political process as both the selection of problems to be addressed and solutions recommended reflect decisions that are informed by economic, social and cultural forces. Yet prevention is often presented as a monolithic enterprise, an objective and scientific discourse that does not take sides. Behind this facade of political neutrality, diversely positioned individuals and groups often fail to find and/or sustain a common ground for shared prevention initiatives. Increasingly, many prevention awareness campaigns focus upon true accounts or injury narratives that serve both as a catalyst to build multipartite consensus through developing shared collaborative prevention discourses and practices and to mobilize public support for health and safety issues. While the use of the true account form is a recommended strategy in the public health literature directed toward practitioners, the engagement of true accounts in prevention campaigns has not been adequately problematised and examined from a critical social theoretical perspective. A qualitative, sociologically oriented case study of the use of the true account form, the commemorative, in young worker safety campaigns is proposed to deepen our understanding of this particular type of prevention intervention in particular and prevention as an enterprise more generally. The study investigates the socio-historical context in which the Young Worker Memorial LifeQuilt, a Canadian young worker educational initiative, emerged and unraveled as a multipartite prevention campaign centered upon the true account form of consensus commemoratives. A key finding is that true accounts of young workers killed on the job are socially mediated to diffuse blame and build consensus between diversely positioned occupational health and safety practitioners and the family survivors of workplace tragedies. What is included and excluded from these true accounts of workplace injuries, as socially constructed narratives in multipartite prevention awareness campaigns, may be, in part, a product of the terms and conditions negotiated between lead players. The true accounts included in collaborative, cross-institutional prevention campaigns, while referencing real events, may be told in ways that accommodate and harmonize the political perspectives of diversely positioned stakeholders. Conversely, the true account form is a potentially problematic strategy for collaborative prevention discourses and practices, as consensus commemoratives can be retold as critical remembrances of workplace death, with the result that the unifying narrative of a shared, collective memory project is undermined. This dissertation finds that the activity of collaboration shapes prevention as a socio-political activity/practice.

In public health, prevention is a fundamentally political process as both the selection of problems to be addressed and solutions recommended reflect decisions that are informed by economic, social and cultural forces. Yet prevention is often presented as a monolithic enterprise, an objective and scientific discourse that does not take sides. Behind this facade of political neutrality, diversely positioned individuals and groups often fail to find and/or sustain a common ground for shared prevention initiatives. Increasingly, many prevention awareness campaigns focus upon true accounts or injury narratives that serve both as a catalyst to build multipartite consensus through developing shared collaborative prevention discourses and practices and to mobilize public support for health and safety issues. While the use of the true account form is a recommended strategy in the public health literature directed toward practitioners, the engagement of true accounts in prevention campaigns has not been adequately problematised and examined from a critical social theoretical perspective. A qualitative, sociologically oriented case study of the use of the true account form, the commemorative, in young worker safety campaigns is proposed to deepen our understanding of this particular type of prevention intervention in particular and prevention as an enterprise more generally. The study investigates the socio-historical context in which the Young Worker Memorial LifeQuilt, a Canadian young worker educational initiative, emerged and unraveled as a multipartite prevention campaign centered upon the true account form of consensus commemoratives. A key finding is that true accounts of young workers killed on the job are socially mediated to diffuse blame and build consensus between diversely positioned occupational health and safety practitioners and the family survivors of workplace tragedies. What is included and excluded from these true accounts of workplace injuries, as socially constructed narratives in multipartite prevention awareness campaigns, may be, in part, a product of the terms and conditions negotiated between lead players. The true accounts included in collaborative, cross-institutional prevention campaigns, while referencing real events, may be told in ways that accommodate and harmonize the political perspectives of diversely positioned stakeholders. Conversely, the true account form is a potentially problematic strategy for collaborative prevention discourses and practices, as consensus commemoratives can be retold as critical remembrances of workplace death, with the result that the unifying narrative of a shared, collective memory project is undermined. This dissertation finds that the activity of collaboration shapes prevention as a socio-political activity/practice.

Workplace accidents and injuries are a growing problem for organizations in Sweden as well as in many other countries. As a consequence, improving workplace safety has become an area of increasing concern for employers and politicians as well as researchers. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to an increased understanding of how leadership and management practices can influence safety in organizations. In Study I, three leadership styles were investigated to determine their relative importance for different safety outcomes. A leadership style specifically emphasizing safety was found to contribute the most to employee safety behaviors; transformational leadership was found to be positive for safety behaviors only when it also involved a safety focus; and a transactional leadership style (management-by-exception active) was shown to be slightly negatively related to workplace safety. Study II examined the role of leader communication approaches for patient safety and the mechanisms involved in this relationship. Support was found for a model showing that one-way communication of safety values and leader feedback communication were both related to increased patient safety through the mediation of different employee safety behaviors (safety compliance and organizational citizen behaviors). Study III explored whether and in what ways the use of staff bonus systems may compromise safety in high-risk organizations. The three investigated systems were all found to provide limited incentives for any behavioral change. However, the results indicate that design characteristics such as clearly defined and communicated bonus goals, which are perceived as closely linked to performance and which aim at improved safety, are imperative for the influence that bonus programs have on safety. Group-directed goals also appeared to be more advantageous than corporate- or individual-level goals. The thesis highlights the importance of actively emphasizing and communicating safety-related issues, both through leadership and in managerial practices, for the achievement of enhanced workplace safety. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript.</p>

[pt] O Brasil é o quarto país no ranking mundial de acidentes com vítimas fatais e o décimo quinto em relação aos demais acidentes de trabalho, segundo a Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT). Se as empresas são obrigadas a arcar com alíquotas maiores por lei pelos acidentes, o trabalhador, além de poder arcar com a vida, arca também com a culpa. É comum a liderança relacionar a ocorrência de um acidente a um comportamento inseguro do trabalhador. Essa visão é até certo ponto alimentada por uma literatura que enfatiza a responsabilidade do empregado justificando os acidentes através de categorias, como erro humano, ato inseguro, dentre outras. Este trabalho busca contribuir para os estudos das causas de acidentes de trabalho, examinando como a questão da responsabilidade é descrita por aqueles que gerenciam a segurança do trabalho. A partir de uma perspectiva etnometodológica, pretende-se identificar que concepções de senso comum sustentam as explicações que eles apresentam. O corpus é constituído de entrevistas realizadas com profissionais cuja posição hierárquica é mais próxima do topo da pirâmide e lidam com trabalhadores que executam atividades com risco iminente. Os resultados apontam, por um lado, a persistência da noção de ato inseguro, responsabilizando o trabalhador, com base em explicações que reforçam questões como agência, conhecimento e até intenção em provocar o acidente. Por outro lado, os resultados mostram também explicações que apontam para a responsabilização da empresa, o que nem sempre é assumido em casos de acidentes. Quanto àqueles envolvidos com o gerenciamento da segurança do trabalho, explicações de base cultural servem para desresponsabilizá-los, uma vez que a cultura da empresa e do trabalhador impossibilita qualquer ação eficaz. Dados esses resultados, verifica-se que, na prática, a tendência é buscar culpados e não apurar a responsabilidade de todos na ocorrência de acidentes. / [en] Brazil is the fourth country in the world ranking of accidents with fatal victims and the fifteenth in relation to other accidents at work, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). If companies are forced to pay higher rates by law for accidents, the worker, in addition to being able to afford life, is also to blame. It is common for leadership to relate the occurrence of an accident to unsafe worker behavior. This view is to some extent fueled by a literature that emphasizes employee responsibility by justifying accidents through categories such as human error, unsafe act, among others. This research seeks to contribute to the study of the causes of occupational accidents, examining how the issue of responsibility is described by those who manage work safety. From an ethnomethodological perspective, we intend to identify which common-sense conceptions support the explanations they present. The corpus consists of interviews with professionals whose hierarchical position is closest to the top of the pyramid and deal with workers who carry out activities with imminent risk. The results indicate, on the one hand, the persistence of the concept of an unsafe act, making the worker responsible, based on explanations that reinforce issues such as agency, knowledge and even intention to cause the accident. On the other hand, the results also show explanations that point to the responsibility of the company, which is not always assumed in cases of accidents. As for those involved in the management of work safety, culturally based explanations serve to reassure them, since the culture of the company and the worker precludes any effective action. Given these results, it turns out that, in practice, the tendency is to seek guilty and not to ascertain the responsibility of all in the occurrence of accidents.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-02-24T20:10:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CristianeACC_DISSERT.pdf: 769165 bytes, checksum: b07191d8079e469329883492d6054541 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-25 / OBJETIVO: As doen?as osteomusculares s?o as afec??es ocupacionais mais prevalentes em cirurgi?es-dentistas. Nosso prop?sito: 1) investigar os conhecimentos, aplicabilidades cl?nicas dos princ?pios ergon?micos em discentes e docentes em atividades cl?nicas de uma universidade p?blica 2) pesquisar a incid?ncia de sintomatologias dolorosas no pesco?o, ombros, parte superior e inferior das costas, cotovelos, quadris, coxas, joelhos, tornozelos e p?s no universo de alunos em est?gios cl?nicos. 3) incitar discuss?es de normas e diretrizes ergon?micas na universidade. M?TODOS: Esse estudo investigou o universo de alunos matriculados em disciplinas cl?nicas (148) e respectivos professores (30) do curso de odontologia da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal-RN a respeito dos princ?pios ergon?micos utilizados na rotina cl?nica. Paralelamente foi pesquisada a incid?ncia de sintomatologia dolorosa nos alunos por interm?dio do question?rio n?rdico e a partir dos resultados foi mensurado o ?ndice de severidade dos sintomas em alunos. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) ? um instrumento de diagn?stico, proposto para padronizar a mensura??o de relatos de sintomas osteomusculares. A an?lise dos dados foi atrav?s do programa SPSS-Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, vers?o 17.0 realizada anal?tica e descritivamente, com determina??o das m?dias (x), desvio-padr?o para vari?veis quantitativas, freq??ncias simples e relativas para as vari?veis categ?ricas, al?m da estat?stica de associa??o entre grupos (teste t) e a an?lise de associa??o do quiquadrado com n?vel de signific?ncia 5% entre as vari?veis (Person). As respostas das quest?es abertas foram codificadas e transformadas em freq??ncias, descritas posteriormente. RESULTADOS: A aplicabilidade de medidas ergon?micas nas cl?nicas universit?rias n?o foi evidenciada pelo universo de discentes e docentes. Quanto ao relato de sintomas osteomusculares o sexo feminino foi o mais acometido qualquer que seja o n?vel acad?mico cursado. As regi?es anat?micas de maior grau de severidade de relatos dos sintomas foram: pesco?o, parte inferior das costas, punhos, m?os e ombros, com signific?ncia etat?stica p<0,001. CONCLUS?O: Em fun??o dos achados os autores apresentam um protocolo de interven??o cl?nica baseado nos determinantes ergon?micos da Associa??o internacional de ergonomia (EAI) como medida de preven??o da sa?de ocupacional dos futuros cirurgi?es-dentistas ainda em processo de forma??o nas cl?nicas odontol?gicas das universidades.