The political connections of businesses bear implications for the economy. This dissertation studies the political connection of railways in the United Kingdom during the 19th century using several novel data sets. The first chapter of the dissertation begins by quantitatively investigating the implications of the political connections of railways for capital investment. Politically connected railways did significantly more capital investment than their non-connected counterparts. In addition, within-firm increases in political connections were associated with increased subsequent capital investment. The latter part of chapter one introduces the private bill process in the legislature as a likely channel relating political connections and capital investment. Politically connected firms proposed and passed considerably more legislation enabling capital investment than non-politically connected firms. Chapter two of the dissertation focuses on consumer and employee safety, relating safety to political connections and showing that politically connected railways were considerably deadlier than non-politically connected railways. A century of fatal railway accidents data is presented along with supplementary data sources to demonstrate this point. Chapter three of the dissertation looks at political connections as the outcome rather than as the explanatory variable. Political connections are related to voting rights in U.K. constituencies across five general elections spanning major franchise reforms. Within-constituency results show that for a given constituency increases in the franchise are associated with decreased likelihood that railway directors will run or win seats in the House of Commons.

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M. Tech. (Labour Relations Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Industrial accidents have proved to be more prevalent and costly than anticipated especially in developing countries including South Africa. Occupational accidents have direct and indirect cost implications for an organisation as well as society. Governments in many countries have tried to implement legislation to try and curb the scourge of industrial accidents. The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the level of employee adherence to the Occupational, Health and Safety Act (OHSA) 85 of 1993 in the steel manufacturing sector. This research provided an overview of various factors that influences employee’s level of understanding and adherence to the OHSA. This included factors such as information and training in health and safety; employee safety perception, employee safety awareness, employee safety adherence, employee behaviour with regard to health and safety, the role of the union in health and safety issues, accident reporting mechanism, and employee’s perceptions of the influence of rewards on health and safety. A structured questionnaire consisting of closed-ended questions was developed and disseminated in order to gather relevant data. Given the scale of the research, a quantitative research method was implemented. The population for the study strictly consisted of employees working in the steel manufacturing sector. A purposive sampling technique was selected. Statistical Package for Social Sciences 22.0 (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. The sample size of (n) =165 employees was involved in the study. The response rate for the total was (98.5%). Descriptive, frequency, correlation, regression and means analysis was employed in this study. The results of the study indicated that majority of the employees were aware and adhered with the requirements of the OHSA with the organisation. It was suggested that strong stake holder partnerships between unions, employers and employees be formulated. The state should reinforce the Department of Labour inspectorate by giving it more powers to be able to execute its task meritoriously and efficiently. It further suggested that the state must rapidly focus on recruiting and training more health and safety labour inspectors to ensure appropriate enforcement of health and safety regulations. Lastly it is advisable to create and engrave a health and safety culture within the organisation that focuses on highly on employee involvement and mutual trust. The proposed recommendation for the study, limitations and the conclusion of the study were outlined in Chapter 5.

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