EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Ruthless Exploiters or Ethical Guardians of the Workforce? Powerful CEOs and their Impact on Workplace Safety and Health

Jesper Haga (), Fredrik Huhtamäki () and Dennis Sundvik ()
Additional contact information
Jesper Haga: Hanken School of Economics
Fredrik Huhtamäki: Hanken School of Economics
Dennis Sundvik: Hanken School of Economics

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 177, issue 3, No 9, 663 pages

Abstract: Abstract The allocation of resources among different stakeholders is an ethical dilemma for chief executive officers (CEOs). In this study, we investigate the association between CEO power and workplace injuries and illnesses. We use an establishment-level dataset comprising 31,924 establishment-year observations between 2002 and 2011. Our main result shows that employees at firms with structurally powerful CEOs experience fewer workplace injuries and illnesses and days away from work. We reason that CEOs derive a private benefit from low injury and illness rates and that powerful CEOs are better at influencing employees to take workplace safety and health seriously. Additional analyses reveal fewer injuries and illnesses in firms led by CEOs with expertise power. However, increased injuries and illnesses were linked to firms controlled by CEOs with ownership power. Moreover, we find that structurally powerful CEOs mitigate injury and illness differences in relation to geographical proximity to corporate headquarters. We contribute with both research and practical implications on the topics of CEO power and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general and workplace safety and health in particular.

Keywords: CEO power; Corporate social responsibility; Real effects; Workplace safety and health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-021-04740-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:177:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-021-04740-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04740-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:177:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-021-04740-4