Search results

Contaminated food is a major source of illnesses around the world. This research seeks to learn how people assign responsibility for two food contamination risks and how they allocate costs to reduce these risks to four members of the food supply chain. The aims are to identify differences between countries and test options to control for cultural differences.

A random sample of online panellists from six countries (N = 6,090) was surveyed on how they assigned responsibility for controlling natural and accidental food contamination (traditional food safety) and for controlling intentional contamination (food defense) to farmers, transporters/distributors, retailer grocery stores/restaurants and consumers. They were also asked how they would allocate food safety and defense costs to the four groups. Differences between countries were tested with dummy variables and cultural measures.

In nearly every country, respondents assigned the least responsibility and allocated the smallest cost shares to consumers. In multivariate models, responsibility and cost-share results differed, suggesting that preferences varied by country and that respondents did not allocate costs the same way they assessed responsibility. The food safety and defense models also differed, implying that the respondents believed the two sources of contamination represented different risks.

This is the first study to examine how adults allocate the responsibility and costs for food safety and defense to farmers, transporters/distributors, retailer grocery stores/restaurants and consumers. Other research did not differentiate between these two food risks. This study also compared Hofstede's cultural measures with the recently developed Minkov's cultural measures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the responsibility that should be taken by different pork supply chain participants to ensure pork quality and safety, with the aim of providing some guidance for strengthening the supervision of pork quality and safety.

The pig farmer survey and the pork consumer survey were conducted in Funing County, Jiangsu Province, using the best-worst scaling (BWS) and a mixed logit model.

The results showed that the designation of responsibility for ensuring pork quality and safety was of, in descending order, feed producers and suppliers, backyard farmers and farms of designated size, pork processing workshops and companies of and above designated size, slaughterhouses, supermarkets, farmer’s markets, pig transporters, and consumers. Both pig farmers and pork consumers believed that those involved in the initial pork supply chain should take greater responsibility for pork quality and safety.

Allocation of responsibilities across the entire pork industry chain was investigated from the perspective of pig farmers and pork consumers using the BWS and a mixed logit model. The results of this study might explain the unique problems that occur in pork supply chain management in large developing countries like China.

In total, 69 foremen from 13 Hong Kong construction companies were invited to participate in a study designed to investigate foremen’s opinions regarding 27 safety supervisory tasks. These fell into six categories, including handling new workers, training, safety, discipline, coordinating, and motivating. Results of the survey and subsequent follow‐up interviews showed that over two thirds of foremen claimed that they had the responsibility to perform certain tasks but only half said that they had the authority to perform these tasks. Further interviews and on‐site observations of foremen were then conducted in order to validate the findings by way of case study material. It is concluded that foremen play a key role in ensuring that safety management systems operate effectively. It appears, from the results of the study, that this role is not being performed properly and that the key interface between worker and management, the role of the foreman, is not paid sufficient attention by senior management and is an area requiring urgent attention if Hong Kong’s poor site safety record is to be improved.

While coping with severe damages of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak worldwide, this study enlightens the potential effects of the pandemic on young adults' willingness to avoid game meat consumption as well as to purchase animal welfare products.

In a structural equation model (N = 234), food safety concerns and perceived responsibility for a future change of individuals, marketers and the government as predictors are related to behavioral intentions. Further, two antecedents of food safety concern including risk perception and anxiety related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are tested.

Using a Chinese sample, results indicated that food safety concern – triggered by risk perception and anxiety – negatively affected willingness to buy animal welfare products. Perceived responsibility of marketers' change positively relates to people's willingness to avoid game meat and to buy animal welfare products, while the latter is also positively related to perceived governmental responsibility.

Consumers demand marketers to improve safety and hygiene standards as it is a necessary condition for adopting sustainable consumption behaviors. Animal welfare products have the potential to pronounce the demanded level of product safety, while the game meat market needs to be prepared for necessary adaptations for coping with the adverse effects of COVID-19.

This article adds knowledge to the behavioral consequences of a viral hazard in the context of sustainable food choices while relating those to attribution theories and food safety concerns.

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

The purposes of this study were (1) to explore empirical challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and their implications and (2) to organise those challenges into a framework.

In a multiple-case study following an exploratory, qualitative and empirical approach, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted in six cases. Representatives of all cases subsequently participated in an interactive workshop, after which a questionnaire was used to assess the impact and presence of each challenge. A cross-case analysis was performed to situate empirical findings within the literature.

Ten challenges were identified in four areas of dimensioning safety buffers: decision management, responsibilities, methods for dimensioning safety buffers and input data. All challenges had both direct and indirect negative implications for dimensioning safety buffers and were synthesised into a framework.

This study complements the literature on dimensioning safety buffers with qualitative insights into challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and implications in practice.

Practitioners can use the framework to understand and overcome challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and their negative implications.

This study responds to the scarcity of qualitative and empirical studies on dimensioning safety buffers and the absence of any overview of the challenges therein.

The question of health and safety at work is a central issue for trade unions. In Britain it is an area of concern where there were important legislative initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, although surprisingly this has received relatively little attention in the debates about trade unionism. This neglect results in an aspect of union activity about which little is known. Explores through a detailed longitudinal study of a middle‐range engineering firm, from the late 1970s into the 1990s, the ways in which trade unions organize and act on health and safety questions. Argues that it is almost “routine” that workers face dangers and hazards at work, a central feature of the work and employment experience of most workers. However, this is often difficult to deal with as individual issues, or as matters which are subject to collective consideration. On the one hand, workers often appear to accept the dangers and hazards they face. On the other hand, managements are preoccupied with questions relating to production and finance, rather than the day‐to‐day problems faced by workers. This tension suggests that the future wellbeing of workers in unionized workplaces lies not so much with legislative provisions and rights at work, but in education and the organizing ability of workplace unions, raising and addressing what often seem like individualistic problems in collective ways.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into various food safety aspects of future professional food handlers, representing different professions in the food supply chain (FSC), close to the end of their formal education.

A total of 15 focus group discussions including 94 participants were conducted. A semi-structured approach was applied to discussions about the comprehension of food safety, the responsibility for food safety, the barriers hindering food safety practices, and the food safety influence of other people.

Differences related to the field of study and level of education were identified. The results demonstrate the diversity of interpretations of food safety with control of biological hazards strongly emphasized. The responsibility for food safety is perceived differently by position in the FSC. Different barriers related to the working environment and personal factors were identified. Parental influence on the target population is decreased as focus is shifted to the teachers of practical classes and especially to the instructors in food enterprises.

Considering the response rate and the small number of schools offering a specific study programme not all the study fields and educational levels were equally represented.

The findings could assist educators, policy makers, and food business operators in their efforts to develop educational programmes that will more effectively contribute to the safety of food.

No research thus far has focussed on students being educated as future professional food handlers.

Safety management system (SMS) has been widely adopted to explore its influence on safety performance (SP). However, most existing researches recognized SMS as a one-dimension structure and neglected the influences of its subdimensions. Similarly, the impact of safety responsibility (SR) on SP received little attention. This study aims to explore the relationship between subdimensions of SMS and SP, while incorporating the mediating effect of SR.

The research data were gathered from safety management evaluation report of a large real estate enterprise in China during 2010–2017. This paper carries out a series of data analyses to explore the impact of SMS and SR on SP. In order to analyze the synergistic impacts of SMS and SR on SP, path analysis, correlation analysis and mediation analysis were conducted using hypotheses concerning with the main subdimensions.

The results indicated SMS and SR decreased the project risk level and improved SP of real estate projects. Furthermore, the effect of SR partially mediated the relationship between the SMS and SP.

Findings in this research contribute to improve SP in real estate industry as well as other industries by the active assumption of SR and the successful implementation of SMS.

This research shows the relationship between subdimensions of SMS and SP and the mediating role of SR on SMS–SP relationship to improve SP in real estate industry.

Without doubt office work is becoming more hazardous. Much health and safety literature deals with risks that are always with us — like falling off ladders, tripping over cables, toppling file cabinets and blocked fire exits. But there is increasing worldwide concern now over the health hazards of toxic materials in the office, viral and bacterial infection from air conditioning systems, radiation hazards from VDUs, and the danger of strain injuries from repetitive use of badly designed equipment.