The role of management commitment in adoption of occupational health and safety at higher education institutions

Shabir Ahmad () and Tahir Iqbal ()
Additional contact information
Shabir Ahmad: Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia
Tahir Iqbal: Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 2022, vol. 9, issue 3, 103-117

Abstract: At the very core of organizational sustainability lies the health and safety of its people, the welfare of society, and the conservation of resources. Adoption of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is considered as a way forward to achieve organizational sustainability. However, due to an increased number of incidents, OHS has become a serious concern in Pakistan. This creates a dire need for OHS adoption in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to prevent such incidents and achieve sustainable OHS performance. This study aims to examine the factors playing a vital role in OHS adoption that leads to sustainable OHS performance in HEIs of Pakistan. The data were collected through a survey questionnaire from academic and administrative employees of the top 23 universities of Pakistan. A total of 306 responses were analysed in the Partial Least Square (PLS) approach of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the research hypotheses and validate the model. The findings showed that external pressure (regulatory, mimetic, competitive, and social) serves as the main stimulus for the adoption of OHS practices in HEIs of Pakistan. In addition, management commitment in implementing the OHS practices serves as a mediator that catalyses the impact of external pressure on OHS adoption. Consequently, successful adoption of OHS practices leads to sustainable OHS performance in HEIs. The findings imply that external pressure alone may not be sufficient to push HEIs for OHS adoption unless the top management shows real commitment.

Keywords: sustainable OHS performance; regulatory pressure; mimetic pressure; competitive pressure; social pressure; formal policy; formal training; encouragement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I38 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://jssidoi.org/jesi/uploads/articles/35/Ahmad ... ion_institutions.pdf (application/pdf)
https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/939 (text/html)

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:ssi:jouesi:v:9:y:2022:i:3:p:103-117

DOI: 10.9770/jesi.2022.9.3(7)

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues is currently edited by Manuela Tvaronaviciene

More articles in Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues from VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Manuela Tvaronaviciene ().