Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Agricultural & Extension Education

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected organizational, demographic, and safety practice factors on the number and types of injuries within the industrial manufacturing plants in eight parishes in southern Louisiana. The target population was industrial organizational facilities. The accessible population was industrial manufacturing plants in the eight parishes surrounding Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who are members of a trade association comprised of industrial manufacturers. The sample was 100% of the defined as the accessible population. The researcher contacted a trade organization to identify the data source, requested and was granted permission to both access and use the data, which was transferred from the databases of the trade organization onto a researcher-designed, computerized recording form.

The number of safety events reported was skewed toward the smaller numbers for the most part, with most responses indicating none or very few incidents. When a comparison of the means was analyzed, companies that were categorized as an “Other” type were significantly different than those that were categorized as Chemical or “Energy”. In a regression model for direct hire employees the variable “Other – Company” explained 46.0% of the variance in the safety events of direct hire employees.

Based on the results of the study, the researcher concluded that the industrial organizational facilities in eight parishes in southern Louisiana had attained a good safety record. This is based on 112 recordables reported from 769 responses from safety offices based on records that encompassed larger numbers of workers. The potential implication of this conclusion is there is still room for improvement in the area of preventing safety events. The researcher recommends that organizations still make efforts toward ensuring the workplace is safe for all employees. The mean number of safety events for companies in the category Chemical and “Energy” were lower than those of the companies categorized as Other; therefore, it appears the industries do well at managing and mitigating many of the potential risks. “Other” company types may find mirroring some of the practices utilized within the chemical and energy sectors to be beneficial.

Date

6-4-2019

Committee Chair

Burnett, Michael F.

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4956

Download

Share

COinS