IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jadmsc/v14y2024i4p72-d1371251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Occupational Health and Safety Reporting in the Top 100 Australian Companies: Does Organisational Risk Profile Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Jodi Oakman

    (Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora 3083, Australia)

  • Suzanne Young

    (La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Bundoora 3083, Australia)

  • Victoria P. Weale

    (Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora 3083, Australia)

  • Alison Pattinson

    (Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora 3083, Australia)

Abstract

Increasingly, good quality and safe working conditions that promote employee health are expected by stakeholders. The aim of this study is to examine the extent and quality of occupational health and safety (OHS) reporting in the Top 100 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Method: Publicly available annual reports from the Top 100 ASX companies were reviewed using a policy scorecard against five dimensions drawn from the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012–2022. The dimensions were: OHS information, legislation, leadership, work health disorders, prevention and best practice. Results: Mean rank scores of high and low-risk industry sectors were compared. High-risk sectors provided more explicit coverage of OHS information across all five domains in comparison to low-risk sectors ( p > 0.05). The Information Technology sector scored the lowest across all five dimensions. Conclusion: Higher quality reporting from those in high-risk sectors may be influenced by stakeholder expectations, as well as industry norms. The current analysis suggests that relying on stakeholders to drive improved reporting may be problematic, as those industries that are perceived to have a low OHS risk profile may not consider the need to provide transparent reporting on their strategies to ensure they are providing good quality working conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jodi Oakman & Suzanne Young & Victoria P. Weale & Alison Pattinson, 2024. "Occupational Health and Safety Reporting in the Top 100 Australian Companies: Does Organisational Risk Profile Matter?," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:72-:d:1371251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/4/72/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/4/72/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emiel Duuren & Auke Plantinga & Bert Scholtens, 2016. "ESG Integration and the Investment Management Process: Fundamental Investing Reinvented," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 525-533, October.
    2. Kerry A. Humphreys & Ken T. Trotman, 2022. "Judgment and decision making research on CSR reporting in the COVID‐19 pandemic environment," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(1), pages 739-765, March.
    3. Jan Bebbington & Carlos Larrinaga & Jose M. Moneva, 2008. "Corporate social reporting and reputation risk management," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(3), pages 337-361, March.
    4. Aditya Jain & Stavroula Leka & Gerard Zwetsloot, 2011. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Psychosocial Risk Management in Europe," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(4), pages 619-633, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Castaldo, Sandro & Ciacci, Andrea & Penco, Lara, 2023. "Perceived corporate social responsibility and job satisfaction in grocery retail: A comparison between low- and high-productivity stores," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Tan, Yafei & Zhu, Zhaohui, 2022. "The effect of ESG rating events on corporate green innovation in China: The mediating role of financial constraints and managers' environmental awareness," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    3. Heidi Reed, 2024. "“When money is more valuable than people…”: The pandemic as a call for business to care," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 435-455, March.
    4. Konstantinos Evangelinos & Stefanos Fotiadis & Antonis Skouloudis & Nadeem Khan & Foteini Konstandakopoulou & Ioannis Nikolaou & Shaun Lundy, 2018. "Occupational health and safety disclosures in sustainability reports: An overview of trends among corporate leaders," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(5), pages 961-970, September.
    5. Clementino, Ester & Perkins, Richard, 2020. "How do companies respond to environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103046, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Trinks, Arjan & Ibikunle, Gbenga & Mulder, Machiel & Scholtens, Bert, 2017. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity and the Cost of Capital," Research Report 17017-EEF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    7. Kaouther Chebbi & Mohammed Abdullah Ammer, 2022. "Board Composition and ESG Disclosure in Saudi Arabia: The Moderating Role of Corporate Governance Reforms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-25, September.
    8. Zou, Jin & Yan, Jingzhou & Deng, Guoying, 2023. "ESG rating confusion and bond spreads," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    9. Tamas Barko & Martijn Cremers & Luc Renneboog, 2022. "Shareholder Engagement on Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 777-812, October.
    10. Maung, Min & Wilson, Craig & Yu, Weisu, 2020. "Does reputation risk matter? Evidence from cross-border mergers and acquisitions," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Lukas Benz & Stefan Paulus & Julia Scherer & Janik Syryca & Stefan Trück, 2021. "Investors' carbon risk exposure and their potential for shareholder engagement," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 282-301, January.
    12. Walid Ben‐Amar & Claude Francoeur & Sylvain Marsat & Aida Sijamic Wahid, 2021. "How do firms achieve corporate social performance? An integrated perspective," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(3), pages 1078-1090, May.
    13. Sandgren, Mattias & Uman, Timur & Nordqvist, Mattias, 2024. "The role of the strategic apex in shaping the disclosure strategy: A family firm in crisis," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3).
    14. Heidi Reed, 2023. "“When money is more valuable than people…”: The pandemic as a call for business to care," Post-Print hal-04461114, HAL.
    15. Francesco Cesarone & Lorenzo Lampariello & Davide Merolla & Jacopo Maria Ricci & Simone Sagratella & Valerio Giuseppe Sasso, 2023. "A bilevel approach to ESG multi-portfolio selection," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, December.
    16. Xiaoxia Jia & Weiyi Guang, 2024. "Can Innovation Improve Corporate ESG Performance? The Moderating Effect of Internal and External Incentives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-21, August.
    17. Annebeth Roor & Karen Maas, 2024. "Do impact investors live up to their promise? A systematic literature review on (im)proving investments' impacts," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 3707-3732, May.
    18. Hannah Jun & Seoyoung Moon, 2021. "An Analysis of Sustainability Integration in Business School Curricula: Evidence from Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, March.
    19. Daniel Zdolšek & Sabina Taškar Beloglavec, 2023. "Sustainability Reporting Ecosystem: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Overhaul during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-22, April.
    20. Mara Cerquetti & Domenico Sardanelli & Concetta Ferrara, 2024. "Measuring museum sustainability within the framework of institutional theory: A dictionary‐based content analysis of French and British National Museums' annual reports," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 2260-2276, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:72-:d:1371251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.