A Sociotechnical Analysis of Accounting for Employee Health and Safety: Evidence from a Multiple Case Study

Emilio Passetti () and Massimo Battaglia ()
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Emilio Passetti: University of Padova
Massimo Battaglia: Sapienza University of Roma

A chapter in Accounting, Accountability and Society, 2020, pp 43-59 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This study aims to analyze the technical, organizational, and cognitive factors that influence implementation and integration within the decision-making process of an accounting instrument for employee health and safety. The empirical material was gathered through an interventionist study of two Italian waste-management companies over almost two years. The analysis reveals that the instrument was implemented, yet weakly integrated and then discontinued by both companies. In some instances, the instrument was used to support the decision-making process of employee health and safety organization. However, the link between financial information and employee safety was considered ambiguous. The resulting failure was not due to the inadequacy of the instrument per se but to the ineffective management of the integration phase and to the related presence of various hindrance factors. The study contributes to the literature and practice of accounting for employee health and safety, showing that in such a context, the financial orientation of the information can hamper decision making. The study also contributes to the debate concerning accounting instrument development in the context of corporate social responsibility.

Keywords: Accident-cost analysis; Accounting; Employee health and safety; Cognitive factor; Organization decision making; Organizational factor; Social accounting; Sociotechnical perspective; Technical factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:csrchp:978-3-030-41142-8_3

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-41142-8_3

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