See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271583521

Managing occupational health and safety in the

mining industry

Article in Journal of Business Research November 2013

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.04.013

CITATIONS READS

7 178

2 authors, including:

James Chen
Asia University
40 PUBLICATIONS 35 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Triple helix theory of Management-of-Technology Education (MOTE): An empirical study of a

semiconductor design training View project

All content following this page was uploaded by James Chen on 01 September 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
 Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

Managing occupational health and safety in the mining industry

James K.C. Chen , Dulamjav Zorigt
Department of Business Adiministration, Asia University, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The mining industry is a high health risk occupation. Companies should implement occupational health and
Received 1 January 2012 safety management (OHSM) rules and regulations. These companies face a rapidly booming mining sector
Received in revised form 1 March 2012 and need the help of OHSM to achieve business goals. Being aware of the inuential factors on the OHSM
Accepted 1 April 2012
is needed to reduce work-related fatalities and increase the company's efciency. Few studies identifying
Available online 8 May 2012
the inuential factors on the implementation of OHSM in the mining industry are available. This study pro-
Keywords:
vides a general overview of OHSM and investigates the relationship between ve factors inuencing the
Inuential factors implementation of occupational health and safety management among currently operational mining compa-
Investment nies. The results show that the correlation of the ve domains varies. Using factor loading to examine the
Integrated OHSM most inuential factor to the least inuential factors, the order is shown as follows: act and regulation, stake-
Stakeholder pressure holder pressure, investment, integrated OHSM and organizational culture. In addition, lack of adequate in-
Organizational culture vestment from the government was reported by the majority of the OHS specialists. This nding is
Act and regulation noteworthy in that there was an OHS specialist agreement that their companies do not spend at least 1% of
OHSM implementation
their production and service cost to implement OHSM requirements.
Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In every country around the globe, governments are increasing the
quality, health, and safety requirements in several occupations. Many
organizations in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacic regions are
adopting stringent safety management practices to manage hazards
and risks and to resolve workplace problems and accidents (HKG,
1995). Cooper (1997) argues that safety management practices help
organizations to manage health and safety risks, and comply with
health and safety legislation. Ineffective safety policies can contribute
to the causes of accidents. It is therefore necessary for an organization
to install a set of safety management practices and to be capable of
foreseeing the potential risks. Many organizations also employ inter-
national and national safety standards as guidance to develop their
own safety management systems. Maguire (2002), Osborne and
Zairi (1997), and Wilkinson and Dale (1998) describe a safety man-
agement system (SMS) as a system comprising standards, procedures
and monitoring arrangements that aim at promoting the health
The authors thank the peer-reviewers Arch G. Woodside, Boston College, and M.
Moslehpour, Asia University, and the JBR reviewers who read and commented on an
early version of this manuscript.
Corresponding authors at: Department of Business Administration, Asia University,
No. 500, Lioufeng Rd., Wufeng, Taichung City, 41354, Taiwan. Tel./fax: + 886 4 2332
3456x1968, + 886 4 2332 1157.
E-mail addresses: kcchen@asia.edu.tw (J.K.C. Chen), sunstar_angela@yahoo.com
(D. Zorigt).
and safety of people at work and to protect the public from work
accidents.
Economic activities in Mongolia are based traditionally on herding
and agriculture. Mongolia's mineral deposits; such as copper, coal,
molybdenum, tin, tungsten, and gold; account for a large part of the
industrial production. Because of a booming percentage in the mining
sector, Mongolia's economy had a high growth rate of 7% in 2010. The
Mongolian mining industry plays a major role in the economy, espe-
cially in the total output of the industrial sector. For the last 56 years
it has been a main driver of the economic growth, which has averaged
at over 7% per annum.
Currently, Mongolia's mining and minerals sector generates more
than three quarters of its total export. Mongolia's vast territory has a
great potential to have rich mineral deposits including gold, copper,
coal, uorspar, silver, and uranium. Therefore, there are so many
foreign investors who have been interested in investing in the
Mongolian mining sector and co-operate with the Mongolian govern-
ment. Companies and corporations running mining and exploration
businesses in Mongolia make substantial contributions to the econo-
my by paying over 20 types of taxes, fees and charges to the state and
local budgets. The mining industry is a leading industry in terms of
contribution to the economic development of the country, and it is
also considered as one of most dangerous elds of industry by the
number of accidents, injuries, occupational diseases and fatalities. As
this sector develops, the demand of qualied occupational health
and safety management grows. The importance of managing OH&S
has been highlighted in ofcial reports of major industrial accidents

0148-2963/$ see front matter. Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.04.013
2322 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
in Mongolia and is receiving increasing emphasis in OH&S legislation
(Johnson, 1996).
However, Mongolia executives lack the attitude necessary for
implementing occupational health and safety management. This ab-
sence appears in the speech by Mark Bailey, Board Member of MISA
who says, It is observable that the way Mongolians implement
something is quite different from Australia. In Asia, particularly in
Mongolia, there is quite different attitude. In general, many Mongo-
lians are risk-takers and are not likely to take responsibility for
what they are doing. However, Mongolian mining industry grows
and a merging of two cultures occurs to produce a more pragmatic
approach to occupational health and safety. An approach that not
only promotes responsible awareness and behavior to safety in the
workplace and at home, but also factors to implement the occupa-
tional health and safety management successfully here in Mongolia.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 dis-
cusses the related theoretical concepts of OHSM. Section 3 discusses
the research method. Section 4 describes the data analysis and out-
come result. Section 5 presents the nding and discussion. Section 6
presents the conclusion.
2. Literature review
Workplace fatalities and injuries bring great losses to both indi-
viduals and societies. Magretta (2002) points out that (1) human
error is the fundamental reason behind accidents and (2) manage-
ment is responsible for the prevention of accidents. Management af-
fects everyone because it is present in every aspect of the world. It
applies to managing oneselffocusing our abilities toward our goals.
It applies to our working relationships with others because it affects
our choices about them. Management is about putting together orga-
nizations that work to accomplish a mission.
2.1. Overview of OHSM
Getting hurt at work or becoming ill through work is not a pleas-
ant subject to think about. The reality is that over 200 people a year
lose their lives at work in Britain. In addition, around 150,000 non-
fatal injuries are reported each year, and an estimated 2 million suffer
from ill health caused or made worse by work (Health and Safety
Executive, 2008). State Specialized Inspection Agency (SSIA) Inspec-
tors of Mongolia revealed that in 2010, there were 366 industrial ac-
cidents with 401 people involved.
Believing that these things happen in highly unusual or excep-
tional circumstances that rarely occur in the workplace is a mistake.
Some basic thinking and acting beforehand could usually have
prevented these things from happening. Implementing health and
safety measures doesn't have to be expensive, time consuming or
complicated. In fact, safer and more efcient working practices can
often save money, and more importantly, they also can help to save
lives (Health and Safety Executive, 2008). ASCNI study group on
human factors (1993) states that the primary aims of health and safe-
ty management is to intervene in the accident causation process and
break that chain. Booth and Lee (1993) express this view and they go
on to say that occupational safety should be a part of everyday deci-
sion making. These safety management practices may vary with the
types of organization and the stages of organizational development.
The evaluation of factors that inuence an OHS provides a useful
feedback to employees, personnel and administrative staff. This pro-
cess may produce higher safety consciousness as well as contribute
to the well-being in a workplace (Gallagher, 2000; Huang et al.,
2009). Currently, supervisors or auditors can use a number of instru-
ments or audit tools in their evaluation of OHSMS inuential factors.
The factors or criteria that affect OHS practices usually depend on
company policy and regulations, where its evaluation process in-
volves a number of approaches or/and parameters, which are often
based on imprecise data (Watada & Pedrycz; 2008; Watada, Tanaka,
& Anna Rosa, 1998). Generally, OHS has become common and im-
portant in companies/organizations' code of ethics over the past
20 years. Closely related to this distinct term is OHS management
system (OHSMS), which has been dened as a combination of the
planning and review, the management organizational arrangements,
the consultative arrangement and the specic program elements
that work together in an integrated way to improve health and safety
performance (Gallagher, Underhill, & Rimmer, 2003).
Asfahl (2009) says that health and safety of the employees is an
important aspect of a company's smooth and successful functioning.
Health and safety are decisive factors in organizational effectiveness.
Health and safety ensure an accident-free industrial environment.
Companies must attach the same importance toward implementing
high OH&S performance as they do to the other key objectives of their
business activities. This may result to proper attention to the safety
and welfare of employees which can yield valuable returns to a compa-
ny by improving employee morale, reducing absenteeism and enhanc-
ing productivity, and minimizing potential of work-related injuries and
illnesses. Therefore, occupational health and safety management should
be a central concern of any business.
2.2. Investment
Investment takes one of the crucial places for implementing and
prospering occupational health and safety management. Especially,
government's nancial support has much contribution to the OHSM.
Nowadays, the growing use of OHSM shows both a choice of one kind
of OHS intervention in preference to others and a signicant investment
of nancial and human resources by both government and business
(Gallagher, Underhill, & Rimmer, 2001; Wooden & VandenHeuvel,
2000). Quinlan (1999) advocates that if organizations do not invest in
health and safety then legislation will be produced to force investment
and decrease protability.
Using a recent accident at a mine owned by the Jixi Mining Group
as an example, Zhao pointed out that the State Administration of Coal
Mine Safety Supervision (SACMSS) had issued six warnings to the
group. The warnings stated that its investment in safety systems
and operations had fallen and as a result there were serious hazards.
The lack of investment in safety systems Zhao mentions has been the
subject of widespread discussion.
The formation of gas underground causes the most serious threat
to coal miners. According to a report quoted in the People's Daily,
gas-related accidents caused 43% of all fatalities in coal mines during
2001. Furthermore, in the ten-year period from 1991 to 2000, the
number of coal miners killed in gas-related accidents nearly doubled.
In recent years, investment in safety in China's key mines has fallen
between 3 and 4 billion Yuan short of previously set targets. In
Heilongjiang Province alone, investment in coal-mining safety was
570 million Yuan short of the planned target gure (Pringle & Frost,
2003). Occupational research is seen as a more complex issue in
India, which includes child labor; poor industrial legislation; vast
informal sector; less attention to industrial hygiene and poor surveil-
lance data across the country. In India, general awareness about occu-
pational safety, and occupational and environmental hazards was not
spread in the society. With these structural changes the workers in
low resource settings are more likely to be affected by the dangers
of high technology than their counterparts in developed countries.
Under the supervision of the inspector general of India, a small num-
ber of three hundred factory inspectors are responsible of checking
the industrial safety in this vast country, compared to 3000 factory in-
spectors in a small country like Japan. This shows the poor concern of
the government about industrial safety and subsequently occupation-
al health (Agnihotram, 2005).
Based on the above examples, it is obvious that efcient invest-
ment makes OHSM more effective and prosperous. In the Mongolian
 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
case, Mongolian government does not really pay attention to the oc-
cupational health and safety management even though this eld is
getting more and more advanced. Ganzorig is a safety manager of
the Tanan Impex LLC in Mongolia and reports, We know that the
base of every business is occupational health and safety management.
Occupational health and safety is related to every business eld, thus
is crucial aspect to consider. If Mongolian government realized the
importance of occupational health and safety management, current
status of OHSM would be much better. In Mongolia, the mining
sector's prosperity is growing so fast that the sector attracts much for-
eign investors' attention. Many foreign companies are running busi-
ness in Mongolia. Those foreign companies which have their own
investors are really different from Mongolian domestic mining com-
panies in Mongolia in terms of provision, safety equipment, food,
campus and so on. However, because of lack in investment, those do-
mestic mining companies have hardships to prosper in occupational
health and safety management in Mongolia.
Fig. 1 shows that SouthGobi Sands LLC foreign company expends
US$ 1000 for one person, the other three are Mongolian companies,
and we can see that foreign mining companies operating their busi-
ness in Mongolia has more investment to the implementation of
OHSM than those domestic companies in Mongolia. Article 26.2 of
the Law on Labor Safety and Hygiene which was newly constituted
by the Mongolian parliament on May 22, 2008 states that Budget or-
ganization shall spend at least 0.3% of costs of product and services
which will be done by state budget to labor safety and hygiene,
preventive measures for industrial accidents, acute poisoning and oc-
cupational disease and for business entities and organization they
shall spend at least 1.0% of production and services costs.
In the Chilean case Borregaard, Blanco, and Wautiez (1998) de-
scribe in greater detail how investments by foreign mining companies
dominate over domestic mining companies. However, the most con-
cerning issue in today's Mongolia is bribery. Bribery took place every-
where in Mongolia that makes it difcult for people to follow the law
and regulation.
2.3. Integrated occupational health and safety management
Mansour (1994) states that the integration of occupational health
and safety management with total quality management (TQM) pro-
vides a company with signicant cultural and practical principles,
tools, and techniques to benet both safety and quality. A company's
mandatory compliance to safety, health and environmental regula-
tions is a minimum and can be signicantly enhanced by adding a
long-range management planning and implementation process with
deeper cultural change toward continuous improvement in safety
and quality. Quinlan and Bohie (1991) point out that the purpose of
integrating health and safety into other management systems is the
need for health and safety management to be central, rather than an
add on organization objective. The concepts and philosophy of total
quality management have gained worldwide acceptance. Many stud-
ies have reported that TQM has helped many companies to increase
$1,000
Tanan Impex LLC
$800
(in Mogonlia)
Ivanhoe Mines
$600
Mongolia Inc
SouthGobi Sands
$400
LLC
MT drilling LLC (in
$200
Mogonlia)
$0
1 person Unit US$
Fig. 1. Investment to one person per month.
2323
their competitiveness, effectiveness and productivity (Kozak &
Krafcisin, 1997). The philosophy has sparked an improvement in spe-
cic areas, such as customer relations and participation, process con-
trol and teamwork. Many authors (e.g. Weinstein, 1996; Wilkinson &
Dale, 1998) also argue that TQM success can produce safety man-
agement success. Safety management can be combined with quality
management to create a synergy.
The issue of developing a policy of integrating health and safety
is discussed by Karuppan, Karuppan, and Schaefer (1996) and states
that the way forward in reducing accidents is to develop a TQM
approach. They proposed a total safety management (TSM) model
based around the TQM model. Their argument was that quality
models reduced defects and improved productivity, so the adoption
of TSM would reduce accidents. There are six principles that could
dene the overall area of the TQM (Quek & Sha'ri, 2003; Martins &
de Toledo, 2000) and they are given in the following perspectives:
(1) management leadership and commitment; (2) continuous im-
provement; (3) total customer satisfaction; (4) employee involve-
ment; (5) training and education; (6) reward and recognition. TQM
principles do not work individually; it is a collective recipe that
complements each other. Hence for the purpose of implementation
all of the stated principles have to be adopted, since they are all an
interlinked element to the concept of TQM, after all TQM focuses on
the process not the individual (Tavana, Ortiz, & Torney, 2003).
Several positive aspects encourage the integration of safety man-
agement practices with TQM, including clear safety values with stake-
holders (e.g. suppliers, employees, and community), an identity with
an understanding of safety at the executive level, and the strategic
goal of business excellence. Osborne and Zairi (1997) also argue that
organizations need to consider, among many factors, addressing or-
ganizational (e.g. tradition and culture), people (e.g. executive leader-
ship), resources (e.g. Finance) and external aspects (e.g. regulation
and legislation) in order to integrate OH&S management with TQM
philosophy.
Nevertheless, several obstacles or barriers may hinder the integra-
tion and affect the processes of the integration of safety and quality
management practices (Osborne & Zairi, 1997). For instance, TQM
is driven predominantly by a positive motive, which is to delight
the customers, whereas safety is driven by a more negative motive,
which is to comply with legislation to avoid penalties. In a multiple
TQM analysis study it has been noted that management leadership
and commitment is the main element that causes the TQM imple-
mentation to fail (David & Stanley, 2004).
Table 1
Main causes of TQM program failures.
Source: Martins and de Toledo (2000) TQM Programs: a framework proposal.
Author(s) Main causes of TQM program failures
Early and Godfrey Mission statement not focused
(1995) Lack of denition and attention to critical points (vital few)
Decient implementation plans
Lack of performance measurement
Resnick-West Improper leadership
(1994) TQM is not seen as a new work system
Lack of reference model of quality
Lack of strategic focus
Wood and Urban Focus on company's image, not on facts and results
(1994) Focus on known internal processes, not on critical ones
Focus on minimum standards, already established
Difculty in maintaining the momentum of change
caused by TQM
Valle (1995) Search for and identication of existent problems
Non existence of quality information system
Lack of continuity of program
Preventive activity not well developed
Obstructed communications channels and weak coordination
between departments
2324 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
Table 1 summarizes the main causes of TQM implementation fail-
ure as seen in multiple studies. Top management commitment is seen
as an essential piece of successful TQM implementation. In addition,
executive value, knowledge and leadership are focused more on the
positive aspects of TQM than the perceived negative aspects of safety.
Therefore, it is benecial to resolve these possible obstacles before
attempting the integration of safety management practices with TQM.
2.4. Stakeholder pressure
Stakeholders are the individuals, partnerships, corporations or
public authorities for whom duty is carried out. Stakeholders' own at-
titude to health and safety can have a profound effect on the project's
health and safety performance (Baxcendale & Jones, 2000). Petro-
chemical companies in particular make it clear that contractor safety
performance is a key condition of the contract. A comprehensive re-
port by Baxcendale and Jones (2000) shows that the ndings from a
UK consultation and international survey emphasize that a stakehold-
er has a signicant inuence over occupational health and safety but
is not using this inuence to the full. The industry feels that many
stakeholders are ignorant of their role and are detached from their
projects. Stakeholders take a wide variety of approaches to health
and safety. Following the award of a contract, some stakeholders ex-
pect site work to start within a very short time. The commitment
level of stakeholders is varied with the report suggesting that some
stakeholders are demanding regarding safety standards.
Most stakeholders place little importance on health and safety and
they often do not see occupational safety as an issue to concern them.
This can lead to them putting unnecessary pressure on the project re-
quirements. If the stakeholder is perceived to give health and safety a
low priority then this does not encourage contractors to invest in oc-
cupational health and safety. Points of view expressed by respondents
to a survey undertaken by the Institution of Civil Engineers (2001) to-
ward stakeholders gave the following responses.
From Figs. 2 and 3, stakeholders are likely to overlook the occupa-
tional health and safety management of their companies. Most of
them do not understand their stakeholder responsibility which
appears in Fig. 2. Ganzorig, safety manager of Tanan Impex LLC in
Mongolia states, In Mongolia, it is so hard to implement OH&S man-
agement in an efcient way as the stakeholders just tend to overlook
the safety management. In Mongolia, stakeholders are likely to take
all authorities and limit the development of safety management in
Mongolia. That's really big concern nowadays that our government
need to support the development of OH&S management in Mongolia
(Mineral Safety Industry Association, 2010).
2.5. Organizational culture
One factor that affects the implementation of management prac-
tices that have received signicant attention is culture. Culture can
be dened at different levels that range from the group to the organi-
zation to the national level (Erez & Earley, 1994). Culture comprises
values and norms that guide individuals' behavior. Many view or-
ganizational practices and theories as culturally bound (Adler, 1997;
Hofstede, 1980) which would mean that the values of a country
should be compatible with a management practice for it to result in
Fig. 2. Do stakeholders understand their safety responsibilities?
Fig. 3. Does lack of construction experience in stakeholders mean safety is overlooked?
employee motivation. Traditionally, practices such as employee in-
volvement have been thought of as congruent with participative cul-
tures such as the United States, and are believed to be less congruent
with more authoritarian cultures such as the Mexican culture. For
example, Hofstede's (1980) rankings of power distance show that
Mexico is a culture that accepts large power differences. Qualitative
accounts also provide evidence of a control or authoritarian culture
at work (Kras, 1995).
In addition, empirical research conducted in Mexico on man-
agement styles also has shown that compared to an identical U.S.
plant, the management style in the sister Mexican plant was more au-
thoritative, a style congruent with high power distance (Morris &
Pavett, 1992). Moreover, Hofstede (1980) points out that Mexico
ranks high on uncertainty avoidance. More obviously, Mexicans feel
uncomfortable with ambiguous and uncertain situations. Ongoing
learning and experimentation, behaviors that can facilitate learning
within an organization, would result in ambiguity on the job, which
would not be congruent with Mexican preferences. Mexico's values
of high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance would appear
to make it a less than ideal culture to implement a learning strategy
focused on employee involvement and empowerment. This lack of
congruence may make learning strategies that require employee in-
volvement more difcult or impossible to successfully implement in
a country such as Mexico. There are many other factors that consti-
tute organizational culture through HR practices as shown below.
The model that Fig. 4 summarizes shows the environmental and
organizational factors that inuence the choice of HR practices.
Hence, part of the value provided by this model lies in the reection
of factors that have not received much attention. For example, this
case shows the importance of environmental factors such as regional
values, socioeconomic factors, the level of education, and industry ef-
fects. In addition, the model reects a diverse set of organizational
factors such as management's overall philosophy as well as their
specic attitude toward the culture that inuence HR practices.
Honkasalo (2000) identied that the HR practices result in an organi-
zational culture and a set of congruent employee behaviors. Ganzorig,
safety manager in Tanan Impex LLC, reported that Mongolians nd
it hard to set strong organizational culture due to people's attitude.
Thus, setting strong organizational culture is a big challenge for
many of the business entities in Mongolia. Strong human resource in-
volvement is required for solving this issue. Finally, the model shows
how certain organizational factors can also be affected by environ-
mental factors such as national values.
Based on the model, the HR practices then result in an organiza-
tional culture and a set of congruent employee behaviors. The organi-
zational culture and employee behaviors are also inuenced directly
by environmental factors. For example, a lower level of education
may impede an employee from being more self-directed. Similarly,
an employee that respects high power differences may be more reluc-
tant to take initiative or speak up to a manager/supervisor.
From the perspective of OHS specialists' roles, the role of the OHS
specialist is to facilitate the development of a systematic approach to
OHSM that suits the culture, environment and risks of the organiza-
tion. The view that these aspects of organizations are equally real
and as important to OHSM as management structures and processes
is shared by Waring (1996a, 1996b) who considers that Work orga-
nizations are human activity systems, and success for them is decided
 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
Organizational
factors:
Method of
founding
Management
Philosophy
Management
attitude towards
culture
Ability to deal
Environmental
factors:
National values
Regional values
Education
Socioeconomic
Fig. 4. An integrated model of the relationship between organizational, environmental, and HR practices on employee behavior.
not only by systematic structures and processes, but also by complex
human factors such as culture, power relations and motivations. He
argues that understanding both the inner and outer contexts of orga-
nizations is critical, as well as taking into account as many relevant
factors as possible, in order to increase the likelihood of successfully
managing OHS in a sustainable way.
Also crucial is the concept of culture which is more usefully
thought of as a metaphor for a collective identity or world view,
and is a complex set or system of shared characteristics of a group
of people which include, for example beliefs, values, attitudes, opin-
ions, motivations, meanings, ideas, expectations, language expres-
sion, ways of doing things, rituals, ceremonies, quirks, symbols and
habitual responses to situations. Importantly, within an organization
there may be a number of sub-cultures and world views.
While an organization may strive to achieve a safety culture it is
unlikely that this can be directed or achieved by a directive or decree.
Structures and procedures for OHS will not in themselves achieve a
positive organizational culture. Rather, the quality of OHS arrange-
ments is likely to be inuenced by the prevailing culture. Culture, to
the extent that it can be changed, emerges gradually from the charac-
teristics of its members. It may be more important to recognize the
variety of sub-cultures and develop strategies to work with these,
encouraging group learning over a longer period of time (Waring,
1996a, 1996b).
2.6. Act and regulation
Many accidents and incidents on mine sites have a causal factor in
the rules and regulations that supposedly are in place to prevent the
incident from occurring. The causes involve a lack of awareness or un-
derstanding, ignorance, or deliberate violations. To better understand
the reasons why mineworkers break or ignore rules or why the rules
are ineffective, it is necessary to evaluate their attitudes and percep-
tions. In the past, regulators and senior personnel in the mining in-
dustry have had a major inuence over the direction and content of
the regulatory framework. This is exemplied in the following quota-
tion by the author of a number of analyses of industrial disasters,
including the Longford and Moura accidents Unfortunately the peo-
ple at the top tend to go around giving lectures and saying how
2325
HR
PRACTICES:
Organizational
Standard
Culture
Culture specific
Translated Results Employee
bhi
important safety is, and how no accident is acceptable and we must
all pull together here. Unfortunately, no amount of per talk is going
to alter the way things are done. If you want to alter the way things
are done, you have to go down to the grass roots level and nd out
how things are actually being done, and why they are being done,
and why are these operators violating rules, as they often are. And
good reasons are available as to why they are violating rules. In this
way you can nd out what is necessary to have them do the right
thing. It's about changing systems and changing procedures. It is not
about getting people to believe that safety is important, which is, un-
fortunately, so often the message that is conveyed (David & Stanley,
2004).
In Malaysia, responsibility in ensuring safety and health of the
Malaysian workforce is not solely borne by the ministry of human re-
sources. Several other government agencies are also involved partic-
ularly in enforcing legislation related to safety and health. Pesticides
Act 1974 was enacted mainly to regulate and ensure safety use of pes-
ticides especially in the agriculture sector and also the general public.
In Mongolia, the government is mainly involved in passing a new act
and in regulation. Actually, occupational health and safety manage-
ment had not been developed so much in Mongolia.
However, as the organizations and individuals have been realizing
the importance of occupational health and safety management, the
Mongolian government passed a law on labor safety and hygiene on
May 22, 2008. This law is expanding occupational safety and health
regulation of labor law with the aim of providing state policy and
principle on occupational safety and health, basic requirement of
work place and its implementation management, monitoring struc-
ture, rights and responsibilities of state, worker, business entity, com-
pany, and organization on this matter, to prevent industrial accidents
and occupational disease, and to create a safe and healthy working
environment for the employees. So that SMEs and other organizations
in Mongolia got to be able to implement the law on labor safety and
hygiene to their businesses. This action of the government contrib-
utes to the activity of occupational health and safety management,
thus prospers the implementation of this management system in
Mongolia (Mineral Industry Safety Association, 2008). On the other
hand, a Monkhtuul, safety ofcer in South Gobi Sands LLC stated
that how much money is contributed by government in which way
2326 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
is always unknown, which seems very suspicious that there might be
some kind of unseen corruption.
In America, the occupational health and safety administration has
made an important contribution in reducing work-related fatalities
by passing its occupational health safety administration act (OHSA).
Using data from the survey of occupational injuries and illnesses,
based on OHSA logs, BLS reports that the rate of occupational injuries
and illnesses has been declining steadily for the last 15 years, with a
36% decrease seen between 1992 and 2003. In terms of occupational
illnesses, OSHA has been successful in reducing exposures to certain
widely recognized chemical hazards, and as a result, has unquestion-
ably saved thousands of lives. Before OSHA issued its rst asbestos
standard, uncontrolled exposure to this carcinogen was widespread.
The OSHA lead standard has no doubt prevented many cases of lead
poisoning (David, 2006).
Therefore, effective and efcient law enforcement is particularly
vital in ensuring compliance to safety and health law in the country.
For multinational companies operating in the country, they are highly
recommended to use their own requirement and standards with re-
gard to occupational safety and health as long as they meet the min-
imum requirements stipulated in the Malaysian legislation. While the
efforts of the government are commendable, efforts by employers
seem to be lacking especially those from the small and medium enter-
prises. Controlling exposures and ensuring safety and health in the
workplace are slowly becoming of interest to unions. Studies have
shown that awareness of OSHA 1994 and its effectiveness in meeting
the objects of the act need to be improved and hence it is important
that employers and employees know, understand and comply with
the provisions stipulated in the legislation. To promote safety and
health in the workplace it is important to ensure that exposures to
health hazards are regulated and well controlled (Rampal, 2000;
Rampal & Nizam, 2006).
The literature review incorporates inuential factors such as in-
vestment, integrated OHSM, stakeholder pressure, organizational
culture and act and regulation with the implementation of occupa-
tional health and safety management in Mongolia. It offers denition
and background of the above ve factors. The review concludes
with propositions from literature aimed at examining the correlation
between the ve domains and the implementation of OHSM in
Mongolia undertaken in this study.
2.7. Research goals and hypotheses
The main goal of the study is to investigate the correlation of the
ve factors to the implementation of OHSM in Mongolia. The hypoth-
eses focus on the correlation of ve factors to the IOHSM. The hypoth-
eses for this research are as follows.
H1. Investment relates positively with implementation of OHSM.
H2. TQM relates positively with implementation of OHSM.
H3. Stakeholder pressure relates positively with implementation of
OHSM.
H4. Organizational culture relates positively with implementation of
OHSM.
H5. Act and regulation relates positively with implementation of
OHSM.
3. Research method
This section describes the research method of this study to test the
hypotheses and the rationale behind them. The section describes the
population, sample and the sampling approach.
3.1. Research aim
The overall goal of the research is to identify the views of the re-
spondents on the following domains inuencing the implementation
of occupational health and safety management. Thus, the main goal of
the study is to investigate the level of domains inuencing the im-
plementation of OH&S management. From the identication of the
research goals, the specic hypothesis was formulated. The hypothe-
ses focus on the inuence of various factors on the implementation of
OHSM.
3.2. Research design
According to Adams and Schvaneveldt (1985) research design
refers to a plan, blueprint or guide for data collection and interpretation
a set of rules that enable the investigator to conceptualize and observe
the problem under study. From the hypotheses the research is of a
quantitative nature. This was chosen as the best method to draw con-
clusions utilizing techniques that emphasize validity and reliability.
The study includes ve independent variables: investment, inte-
grated OHSM, stakeholder pressure, organizational culture, and act
and regulation, and one dependent variable that is the implementa-
tion of OHSM in Mongolia.
3.3. Questionnaire design
The questionnaire designed for this research comprises two parts.
The rst part of the questionnaire includes demographic information
such as gender, age, education, job position and working years. The
second part has 6 sections, such as investment, integrated occupa-
tional health and safety management, stakeholder pressure, organiza-
tional culture, act and regulation and implementation of occupational
health and safety management. A survey questionnaire with 30 items
was developed to obtain the responses from OHS specialists em-
ployed in mining companies in Mongolia. For the survey, the ques-
tionnaire designed consists of ve Likert scale points.
3.3.1. Online pilot test
The questionnaire was then piloted about 1 month with some 29
participants through electronic survey. The questionnaire was put on-
line. The participants included directors, human resource managers
and other safety specialists.
3.3.2. Final questionnaire
The research questionnaire was then subjected to a few minor
changes resulting from the responses received at the electronic sur-
vey pilot study above resulting to 28 questions in total on the elec-
tronic survey.
3.4. Research samples and population
Trochin (2000) describes a research population as a group that the
researcher wants to generalize to and the sample as the group of peo-
ple that are selected to be in the study. This was supported by Sekaran
(2000) when he dened a sample as a subset of the population in
question and comprises a selection of members from that particular
population. The sample of this research was chosen based on the con-
venient sampling method. The population chosen for the research
topic came from specialists from seven different mining companies
in Mongolia. The total population who took the postal questionnaire
is 93.
All of those specialists have a working experience of 530 years in
the mining sector. Ages of the sample range from 25 to 45. Most of
them got a master's degree in Mongolia and abroad except for a few
specialists holding a bachelor's degree. This study uses non-randomly
chosen seven master mining companies as follows: Tanan Impex LLC,
 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331 2327

Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia Inc, South Gobi Sands LLC, MT Drilling, Erdenet section, coefcients less than 0.6 are considered poor, coefcients
Mining Company, Major Drilling Mongolia LLC, and Centerra Gold LLC. greater than 0.6, but less than 0.8, are considered acceptable and
These selected companies/organizations come from the same business coefcients greater than 0.8 are considered good. This study uses
type and working environmental culture. Cronbach's alpha values from 0.67 to 0.834, which is acceptable.

4. Data analysis
4.4. Regression analysis
4.1. Characteristics of the targeted sample
In this study, we adopt the ve factor scales as independent vari-
The total population who participated in the online survey is 93. ables and one dependent variable which is implementation of OHSM
There are 80 specialists who successfully completed the question- to construct ve regressions. The result of the regression analysis ap-
naire which was posted online, resulting in a response rate of 86%. pears in Table 3.
He, Chan, and Wu (2005) note that positive regression coefcients
4.2. Demographic data imply a positive contribution to the prediction outcome. With regard
to this study, an analysis outcome refers to the implementation of
Demographic data were collected in various aspects. Table 2 pre- OHSM based on a ranked order of inuential factors. The obtained re-
sents the summary of the results. The data indicates that 65% of the sults presented in Table 3 imply that investment (INV), stakeholder
participants were male; 46.3% of the respondents were 3039 years pressure (SP) and act and regulation (AR) exhibit a positive impact
old; 67.5% of the participants hold a master's degree; 23.8% of the re- on OHSM. On the other hand, integrated OHSM (IOHSM) and organi-
spondents work in Ivenhoe Mines Mongolia Inc; 16.3% of respondents zational culture (OC) point to the negative impact.
are safety managers and safety coordinators and 45% of the partici- The F test for Model 1 is 45.263 with a p-value lower than of 0.01
pants have a working experience of 1120 years. It is observable that represents the probability of error that is involved in accepting
that male participants doubled the female participants which reveals the observed result as valid, that is, as a representative of the popula-
that majority of the labor force in the mining sector is men rather tion (Maccoll, 2004). So the relationship between the dependent and
than women. In addition most of the specialists hold master's de- independent variables is signicant. The value of adjusted R 2 indi-
grees. Thirty-seven participants are at the age of 3039 as the middle cates that the model explains 31% of the variance. The coefcient of
age work force is booming in Mongolia during the past few decades. Model 1 is positive and is signicant at the 0.002 p-value. H1 is ac-
Thirty-six of the specialists have 11 to 20 years of working experience cepted. That means investment is one of the most inuential factor
in the mining sector. that contributes to the implementation of OHSM, thus companies
should pay attention to the investment made to the implementation
4.3. Reliability analysis of OHSM.
The F test for Model 2 related coefcient is 0.712 with a p-value
Cronbach's alpha coefcients were calculated to estimate the reli- higher than 0.05. Therefore, the relationship between the integrated
ability of the factors inuencing the implementation of OH&S man- occupational health and safety management (IOHSM) and RIOHSM
agement. As advised by Sekaran (2000), and discussed earlier in is not signicant at the p-value 0.402 level. H2 is rejected. This implies
that integrating OHSM with TQM is not really an inuential factor to
the implementation of OHSM in Mongolian mining companies as
Table 2
Demographic information.
many of the Mongolians are not aware of TQM and they may not
adopt it to their business practices.
Frequency Percentage Cumulative The F test for Model 3 is 61.483 with a p-value lower than 0.001.
(%) percent (%)
So the linear relationship between stakeholder pressure (SP) and
Gender Male 52 65.0 65.0 RIOHSM is signicant. The value of adjusted R 2 indicates that this
Female 28 35.0 100
model explains 43% of the variance. The coefcient of Model 3 is pos-
Age 2029 23 28.8 28.8
3039 37 46.3 0.75 itive and is signicant at the 0.000 level. H3 is accepted. That means
4049 17 21.3 96.3 stakeholder pressure is one of the most inuential factor to RIOHSM,
Above 50 3 3.8 100 so that stakeholders in the mining company should diminish their
Education Secondary school 1 1.3 1.3 pressures on the employees.
Bachelor 25 31.3 32.5
Master 54 67.5 100
The F test for model 4 is nonsignicant with a p-value higher than
Company Tanan Impex LLC 14 17.5 17.5 0.05. Thus, the linear relationship between organizational culture
name Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia 19 23.8 41.3 (OC) and RIOHSM is not signicant (p b 0.43). Thus, H4 does not re-
Inc ceive support. The nding indicates that organizational culture is
South Gobi Sands LLC 16 20.0 61.3
not signicantly inuential to implementing OHSM in Mongolian
MT Drilling 12 15.0 76.3
Erdenet Mining company 4 5.0 81.3 mining companies.
Major Drilling Mongolia 3 3.8 85.0 The F test for model 5 is 79.58 with a p-value lower than 0.05.
LLC Therefore, the linear relationship between act and regulation (AR)
Centerra Gold LLC 12 15.0 100 and RIOHSM is signicant. The value of adjusted R 2 indicates that
Job position Director 5 6.3 6.3
this model explains 75% of the variance. The coefcient of model 5 is
HRM 8 10.0 16.3
Safety manager 13 16.3 32.5 positive and is signicant at the p-value 0.042 level. The ndings sup-
Safety ofcer 12 15.0 47.5 port H5. Act and regulations are the most inuential factors among all
Safety inspector 9 11.3 58.8 of these ve factors to the implementation of OHSM in Mongolian
Safety trainer 10 12.5 71.3
mining companies, so that mining companies should pay attention
Safety coordinator 13 16.3 87.5
Safety clerk 10 12.5 100 to the act and regulations involved to OHSM in Mongolia. Considering
Working 510 26 32.5 32.5 the above interpretation, the major factors that affect the successful
years 1120 36 45.0 77.5 implementation of OHSM in mining companies include investment
2130 17 21.3 98.8 to the RIOSHM (INV); stakeholder pressure to the RIOHSM (SP); act
3140 1 1.3 100
and regulations of the RIOHSM (AR).
2328 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331

Table 3
Regression analysis test score.

Dependent variable Implementation of occupational health and safety management (RIOHSM)

Model 1 Model2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

(INV * RIOHSM) (IOHSM * RIOHSM) (CP * RIOHSM) (OC * RIOHSM) (AR * RIOHSM)

Independent variables
INV 0.57
IOHSM 0.10
CP 0.66
OC 0.09
AR 0.77

Parameters of the models

F (signicance) 45.263 0.712 61.483 0.633 79.580
0.002 0.402 0.0 0.429 0.042
R square 0.317 0.009 0.441 0.008 0.740
Adjusted R square 0.356 0.004 0.434 0.005 0.756
p b 0.05.
p b 0.01.
p b 0.001.

In addition, based on the obtained coefcients, the study identies
a number of less inuential factors to the implementation of OHSM
such as integrating OHSM with total quality management (IOHSM)
and organizational culture to the RIOHSM (OC). These are less in-
uential (critical) during the implementation procedure of OHSM.
Furthermore, these inuential factors should also have their own
weights, which cannot be simply avoided. Considering all of these fac-
tors with certain execution tactics and techniques, OHSM objectives
likely will be successfully achieved.
4.5. Results of the correlation analysis
The hypotheses of the study focus on the inuence of the ve fac-
tors to the implementation of OHSM in Mongolia. The individual re-
search hypotheses documented earlier in the section Research goals
and hypotheses of this research were tested. From Table 4, three hy-
potheses are accepted; two hypotheses are not accepted.
5. Finding and discussion
likely that OHS specialists were to report that they did not receive ad-
equate investment support for the implementation of OHSM. The nd-
ing is consistent with Agnihotram (2005) who states that Indian
industrial safety has shown the poor concern of the government sup-
port about industrial safety and subsequently occupational health.
As political corruption took place everywhere in country, it is hard
for people to follow the law and regulation. The popularity of corrup-
tion may have been a reason to the response of the OHS specialists.
The majority of the specialists indicated that domestic mining compa-
nies are likely to invest less than foreign mining companies operating
in Mongolia. This nding is consistent with Borregaard et al. (1998),
who have described in greater detail how investments by foreign
mining companies dominate over domestic mining companies.
The result of hypothesis testing for this variable reveals a signi-
cant and positive correlation between INV and implementation of
OHSM (r = 0.317, p b 0.01). Therefore, the evidence is sufcient to
support the claim that investment correlates signicantly with the
implementation of OHSM.

After presenting the results of the research in the previous section, 5.2. Integrated OHSM
the implications of these results are now discussed in the highlight of
the literature of this research. The concepts and philosophy of total quality management (TQM)
are gaining worldwide acceptance. The majority of OHS specialists
5.1. Investment
Table 5
Score of mean, standard deviation of variables.
Investment support for OHSM implementation is very important. A
lack of adequate investment from government was reported by the Variables Mean Standard deviation
majority of OHS specialists which was revealed by the mean score of INV1 2.58 0.77
2.58 (INV1) in Table 5. This nding is noteworthy in that there was INV2 4.87 0.90
an OHS specialist agreement that their companies do not spend at INV3 4.85 1.05
IOHSM 4 2.06 0.48
least 1% of their production and service cost to the implementation
IOHSM 5 1.95 0.64
of OHSM. Analysis of this result indicated that the greater the IOHSM 6 3.02 0.50
agreement that the mining companies are not likely to follow the IOHSM 7 3.10 0.93
above Article 26.2 of the Law on Labor Safety and Hygiene, the more SP8 4.92 0.83
SP9 2.35 0.67
SP10 4.85 0.88
Table 4 SP11 4.23 1.03
Summary of hypothesis testing. OC12 4.56 0.57
OC13 1.45 0.72
H1 Investment relates positively with implementation of OHSM Accepted OC14 2.15 0.57
H2 TQM relates positively with implementation of OHSM Not accepted AR15 4.67 0.91
H3 Stakeholder pressure relates positively with implementation Accepted AR16 4.80 0.60
of OHSM AR17 3.02 1.20
H4 Organizational culture relates positively with implementation Not accepted AR18 4.15 1.09
of OHSM RIOHSM19 4.37 0.48
H5 Act and regulation relates positively with implementation Accepted RIOHSM20 4.25 0.62
of OHSM RIOHSM21 4.23 1.15
 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
were not sure that integrating OHSM with TQM increases companies'
effectiveness and competitiveness which is revealed by the mean
score of 3.02 illustrated. This result is not consistent with the points
stated by Kozak and Krafcisin (1997) that highlighted that TQM
helps many companies to increase their competitiveness, effective-
ness and productivity. Furthermore, there was an OHS specialists' dis-
agreement on the idea that the way forward in reducing accidents is
to develop a TQM approach; the mean score of 1.95 (IOHSM5) in
Table 5 is indicative of this disagreement.
In a literature review, Karuppan et al. (1996) state that the way
forward in reducing accidents is to develop a TQM approach. His ar-
gument is that quality models reduce defects and improve productiv-
ity, so the adoption of TQM would reduce work-related fatalities. In
addition, majority of the OHS specialists disagreed with the statement
management leadership and commitment do support integrating
OHSM with TQM in mining companies in Mongolia that was re-
vealed by the mean score of 2.06 (IOHSM4). This result matches
with the ndings by Geeva (2009) who identied that management
leadership and commitment is the main element that causes the
TQM implementation success. Therefore, top management commit-
ment is needed to the integration of OHSM with TQM in mining com-
panies to achieve higher productivity, efciency and competitiveness.
The mining companies operating in Mongolia should enhance em-
ployees' overall awareness of TQM and its benet of integration to the
other managements. Consequently, the result of hypothesis testing for
this variable revealed that there was a weak, insignicant and nega-
tive correlation between IOHSM and RIOHSM (r = 0.009, p > 0.05).
Therefore, this study concludes that there is insufcient evidence at
the p-value level of signicance to support the claim that integrated
OH&S management correlates signicantly to the implementation of
OHSM.
5.3. Stakeholder pressure
Stakeholders' own attitude to health and safety can have a pro-
found effect on the project's health and safety performance. OHS spe-
cialists considered commitment to OHS by the chief executive as most
important to them and most of them strongly agreed that the chief
executive provided support to them that the mean score for this var-
iable was 4.92 (SP8); see Table 5. This result supports the ndings by
Gallagher (2000) who identies that support from the stakeholder is
a critical characteristic that inuences OHS performance by driving
health and safety change within organizations. Over half of the re-
spondent disagreed with the statement that stakeholders do under-
stand their OHS responsibilities that was implied by the mean score
of 2.35 (SP9) in same table. This nding is consistent with the survey
done by the Institution of Civil Engineers (2001) who found that most
of the stakeholders do not really understand their OHS responsibili-
ties. OHS specialists also reported that stakeholders are ignorant of
their OHS roles for developing the implementation of occupational
health and safety management in Mongolia (see mean scores in
Table 5). This result supports the ndings from a comprehensive re-
port done by Baxcendale and Jones (2000), who nd that many stake-
holders in industry are ignorant of their OHS roles.
The majority of the OHS specialists agreed that stakeholders place
little importance on OHS and they often ignore it which was revealed
by the mean score of 4.23 (SP11) in Table 5. This result is also in
agreement with the ndings by Baxcendale and Jones (2000), who
found that most stakeholders place little importance on health and
safety and they often do not see occupational safety as an issue to
concern them. The overall result of hypothesis testing for this variable
revealed that there was a strong, signicant and positive correlation
between SP and implementation of OHSM (r = 0.441, p b 0.001).
Therefore, this study concludes that there is sufcient evidence at
the p-value level of signicance to support the claim that stakeholder
pressure correlates signicantly to the implementation of OHSM.
2329
5.4. Organizational culture
Culture is one factor that affects the implementation of manage-
ment practices that do receive substantial attention. Over half of the
OHS specialists agreed that human resource practices have a strong
impact in setting up strong organizational culture which was revealed
by the mean score of 4.56 (OC12) in Table 5. Honkasalo (2000) iden-
tied that the HR practices result in an organizational culture and a
set of congruent employee behaviors.
On the other hand, majority of the OHS specialists strongly dis-
agree that structures and procedures for OHS will not achieve a posi-
tive OHS culture which can be seen from the mean score of 1.45
(OC13) in the same table. In the literature review, Waring (1996a,
1996b) identied that structures and procedures for OHS will not
achieve a positive OHS culture. Rather, the quality of OHS arrange-
ments is likely to be inuenced by the organizational culture. Lack
of setting strong organizational culture that promotes implementa-
tion of OHSM in Mongolian mining companies is reported by OHS
specialists (see Table 5).
Nowadays, employees' attitude has been changed a lot which is
difcult to deal with. That is the reason why organizational culture
cannot be a strong inuence to the implementation of OHS manage-
ment in Mongolian mining companies. The Overall results of testing
for this variable estimate a weak, insignicant and negative correla-
tion between OC and implementation of OHSM (r = 0.008, 0.429 >
0.05). Therefore, the study concludes that there is insufcient evi-
dence at the p-value level of signicance to support the claim that or-
ganizational culture correlates signicantly to the implementation of
OHSM.
5.5. Act and regulation
The above regression analysis coefcient suggests that there is a
positive inuence between act and regulation (AR) and the imple-
mentation of occupational health and safety management which
was revealed by the mean score of 4.67 (AR15) in Table 5. This sug-
gests that AR is somewhat positively related to the RIOHSM. OHS spe-
cialists reported that Mongolian law on labor safety and hygiene
prospers the implementation of OH&S management in Mongolia.
This nding is consistent to the Mineral Industry Safety Association
(2008) report which says this action of government has been con-
tributing a lot to the activity of occupational health and safety man-
agement, thus prospers the implementation of this management
system in Mongolia. The mean score of 4.80 (AR16) reveals that
Mongolian mining companies are not striving to keep the law and
regulation and it was reported by most of the OHS specialists. This
nding supports the research by Mekos (2010) who nds that law
and regulation had been inadequately kept resulting in occupational
health problems which had not been controlled in Thessaloniki
(Greece). The majority of the OHS specialists were not sure whether
the Mongolian government follows Article 26.3 of the Law on Labor
Safety and Hygiene. A Monkhtuul, a safety ofcer in South Gobi
Sands LLC stated, Board of directors informs that government con-
tributes to the expense of organization by the state budget to their
employees in OHS meeting. However, how much money are con-
tributed in which way is never reported, that seems suspicious.
Therefore, it might be also involved with poor management as gov-
ernment should contribute to prevent from organizational expense
including work related fatalities and others. The majority of the OHS
specialists agreed that passing OHS related act to the RIOHSM con-
tributes to reducing work-related fatalities. These ndings accorded
with the research by David (2006), who identied that passing
OHSA act made occupational health and safety administration make
an important contribution to the OHSM by reducing work-related fa-
talities. The result of hypothesis testing for this variable revealed that
there was a strong, signicant and positive correlation between AR
2330 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
and implementation of OHSM (r = 0.740, p b 0.05). Therefore, this
study concludes that there is sufcient evidence at the p-value level
of signicance to support the claim that act and regulation correlates
signicantly to the implementation of OHSM.
6. Conclusion
This study nds that the specied ve domains differ in terms of
their correlations. Investment, stakeholder pressure and act and regu-
lation had statistically signicant strong positive correlation with the
implementation of occupational health and safety management. Inte-
grated occupational health and safety management and organization-
al culture had a weak negative correlation with the implementation of
occupational health and safety management in mining companies in
Mongolia. From the government's point of view, sufcient contribu-
tion from the state budget is needed to prosper and implement the
OHSM in mining companies as the mining sector has currently been
booming in Mongolia.
From the respondents' view act and regulation is the most inuen-
tial factor on RIOHSM in case of following the law and regulation as it
is stated without corruption. The Mongolian government needs to
take action on prospering the implementation of occupational health
and safety management. To be frank, it is important to get out of cor-
ruption which will likely affect the attitude of not only the mining
companies but also other business entities and the whole society,
thus will let people constitute a strong organizational culture which
was revealed to have a weak inuence on the implementation of occu-
pational health and safety management. From the company's point of
view, mining companies operating in Mongolia need to integrate oc-
cupational health and safety with total quality management (TQM)
which will contribute a lot to their own companies' success and ef-
ciency in the implementation of OHSM. It was found that many of
the management leaders and commitment ignore above integration,
thus other employees in the company have less awareness of the im-
portance of TQM.
In short, for effective implementation of OHSM, safety has to be
linked with factors such as sufcient investment, TQM management,
reducing stakeholder pressure, constituting strong organizational cul-
ture and keeping act and regulation to become an integral part of the
overall OHS management system with a long term goal of continual
improvement and implementation of OHSM to let the business pros-
per more and more with zero hazard.
6.1. Recommendation
Replication (and possible enlargement of the sample) of the study
in other business areas would be highly desirable. In this regard, sim-
ilar studies on factors affecting to RIOHSM at other business sectors
such as SMEs would seem appropriate. In addition, the study needs
to be done not only through questionnaire survey but also through
practical expert interviews in the business sector site. Therefore, ben-
ets and practical implications would be evident, and the result of
this research will deliver useful information for contribution to the
implementation of occupational health and safety management in
the mining industry.
References
Adams, G. R., & Schvaneveldt, J. D. (1985). Understanding research methods (pp. 45).
(1st edition). New York: Longman Press.
Adler, N. J. (1997). International dimensions of organizational behavior (pp. 63). (3rd
edition).
Agnihotram, R. V. (2005). An overview of occupational health research in India. Indian
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 9(1), 1014.
Asfahl, C. R. (2009). Industrial Safety & Health Management (pp. 4). (6th edition).
Baxcendale, T., & Jones, O. (2000). Construction design and management safety regula-
tions in practiceProgress on implementation. International Journal of Project Man-
agement, 18(1), 3340.
Booth, R. T., & Lee, T. R. (1993). The role of human factors and safety culture in safety
management. Papers presented by the Engineering Manufacturers Industries Division
of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in association with the Hazards Forum
(pp. 1213).
Borregaard, N., Blanco, H. Y., & Wautiez, F. (1998). Exported-led growth and the environ-
ment in Chile: An analysis of the induced environmental policy response in the mining
sector (pp. 17). : CIPMA.
Cooper, M. D. (1997). Evidence from safety culture and risk perceptions is culturally
determined. The International Journal of Project & Business Risk Management, 1(2),
185202.
David, M. (2006, September). Manufactured uncertainty: Protecting public health in
the age of contested science and product defense. Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, 1076, 149162.
David, L. G., & Stanley, B. D. (2004). Quality management: Introduction to total quality
management for production. Processing and services (pp. 19). (fth edition).
Early, J. F., & Godfrey, A. B. (1995). But it takes too long. Quality Progress, 28(7), 5155.
Erez, M., & Earley, C. (1994). Culture, self-identity, and work (pp. 2627). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Gallagher, C. (2000). New directions: Innovative management plus safe place in Parse.
Proceedings of the First National Conference (pp. 6582). Sydney: Crown Content
Press. http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au
Gallagher, C., Underhill, E., & Rimmer, M. (2001). Review of the effectiveness of OHS
management systems in securing healthy and safe workplaces. Report prepared
for the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (pp. 23). Sydney:
NOHSC.
Gallagher, C., Underhill, E., & Rimmer, M. (2003). Occupational safety and health man-
agement systems in Australia: Barriers to success. Policy and Practice in Health and
Safety, 1(2), 6781.
Geeva, R. (2009). Total quality management at an original device manufacturer a
case study: Failure analysis department. Master Thesis, University Technology
Malaysia; 16.
He, Y. Q., Chan, L. K., & Wu, M. L. (2005). Balancing productivity and consumer satisfac-
tion for protability: statistical and possibilistic regression analysis. European Jour-
nal of Operational Research, 176(1), 252263.
Health and Safety Executive (2008, October 1). An introduction to health and safety.
http://www.hse.gov.uk
HKG (1995). Consultation paper on the review of industrial safety in Hong Kong, govern-
ment education and manpower branch (pp. 6566).
Hofstede, G. (1980). Motivation, leadership, and organization: Do American theories
apply abroad? Organizational Dynamics, 1(9), 59.
Honkasalo, A. (2000). Occupational health and safety and environmental management
systems. Environmental Science & Policy, 3(1), 3945.
Huang, H. Y., Dai, E. S., Liu, J. T., Tu, C. T., Yang, T. C., & Tsai, H. J. (2009). The embryonic
expression patterns and the knockdown phenotypes of zebrash ADP-ribosylation
factor-like 6 interacting protein genes. Developmental Dynamics, 238(1), 232240.
Johnson, J. V. (1996). Extending the boundaries of occupational health psychology:
State-of-the-art reviews: II. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1(2), 115116.
Karuppan, C. M., Karuppan, M., & Schaefer, I. M. (1996). A TQM approach to industrial
safety. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 37(2), 8788.
Kozak, R. J., & Krafcisin, G. (1997). Safety management and ISO 9000/QS-9000: A guide to
alignment and integration (pp. 9596). Wenatchee Washington: Quality Resources
Press.
Kras, E. S. (1995). Management in two cultures: Bridging the gap between U.S. and
Mexican managers. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press.
Maccoll, B. (2004). Service quality importance-performance analysis as a strategic tool
for management: The exploration of key customer satisfaction drivers in a South
African electricity utility. MBA thesis, Graham's town: Rhodes University; 36
Magretta, J. (2002). What management is: How it works and why it's everyone's busi-
ness. New York: The Free Press.
Maguire, K. (2002). Quality and health and safety may not always be two sides of the
same coin A lesson from the service sector for managers and enforcers. Journal
of Environmental Health Research, 1(2), 3540.
Mansour, R. (1994). Behavior of mobility-disabled people in earthquakes: A simulation
experiment. Institute of Safety and Systems Management, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles. Earthquake Spectra, 10(2), 381401.
Martins, R. A., & de Toledo, J. C. (2000). Total quality management programs: a frame-
work proposal. Work Study, 49(4), 145151.
Mekos, K. Z. (2010). Complaint reports for violations of health and safety legislation in
the area of Thessaloniki (Greece). Safety Science, 48(2), 209214.
Mineral Safety Industry Association (2008). 4th edition; 3.
Mineral Safety Industry Association (2010). 10th edition; 12.
Morris, T., & Pavett, C. M. (1992, March). Management style and productivity in two
cultures. Journal of International Business Studies, 23(1), 169179.
New Civil Engineer (2001). Safety: What do you think? (pp. 2627). : New Civil
Engineer, Institution of Civil Engineers.
Osborne, J., & Zairi, M. (1997). Total quality management and the management of occupa-
tional health and safety (pp. 1516). Sudbury: Cambridge University Press, HSE
Books.
Pringle, E. T., & Frost, D. S. (2003). The absence of rigor and the failure of implementa-
tion: Occupational health and safety in China. International Journal of Occupation
and Environment Health, 9, 309310.
Quek, E. E., & Sha'ri, M. Y. (2003). A survey of TQM practices in Malaysian electrical and
electronic industry. Total Quality Management, 14(1), 6377.
Quinlan, M. (1999, August). The implications of labour market restructuring in indus-
trialized societies for occupational health and safety. Economic and Industrial De-
mocracy, 20(3), 427460.
 J.K.C. Chen, D. Zorigt / Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 23212331
Quinlan, M., & Bohie, P. (1991). Managing occupational health and safety in Australia: A
multidisciplinary approach (pp. 6466). Australia: Macmillan Press.
Rampal, K. G. (2000). Current developments and future directions of occupational
health in Malaysia. Medical Journal of Malaysia, 55(3), 295298.
Rampal, K. G., & Nizam, J. M. (2006). Developing regulations for occupational exposures to
health hazards in Malaysia. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 46(2), 131135.
Resnick-West, T. S. (1994). Avoiding barriers to quality implementation. The Total
Quality Review, 4(1), 1922.
Sekaran, U. (2000). Research methods for business: A skills building approach (3rd edition).
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Tavana, M., Ortiz, J. N., & Torney, S. E. (2003). Modeling station duty ofcer opera-
tions assistant at Johnson space center. Advances in Engineering Software,
34(3), 139162.
Trochin, W. M. K. (2000). Research methods knowledge base. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Valle, B. M. (1995). Failures in quality programs. Controle de Qualidade (in Portuguese),
5(41), 3640.
View publication stats
2331
Waring, A. (1996). Safety management systems. London: Chapman & Hall.
Waring, G. F. (1996). Industry differences in the persistence of rm-specic returns.
American Economic Review, 86(1), 4849.
Watada, J., & Pedrycz, W. (2008). A possibility regression approach to acquisition of lin-
guistic rules. In W. Pedrycz, A. Skowron, & V. Kreinovich (Eds.), Handbook on gran-
ular commutation (pp. 719740). : John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Watada, J., Tanaka, T., & Anna Rosa, A. (1998). Analysis of safety from macro-ergonomic
point view. The Japanese Journal of Ergonomics, 34(6), 333339.
Weinstein, M. B. (1996). Total quality approach to safety management. Professional
Safety, 41(1), 1822.
Wilkinson, G., & Dale, B. G. (1998). System integration: The views and activities of cau-
tion bodies. The TQM Magazine, 10(4), 288292.
Wood, T., Jr, & Urdan, F. T. (1994). Total quality management: a critical review. Revista
de Adiministracao de Empresas (in Portuguese), 34(6), 4659.
Wooden, M., & VandenHeuvel, A. (2000). Immigrants' labour market experiences in
the early settlement years. Australian Bulletin of Labour, 26(1), 5969.