Ricerc@Sapienza

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the extent to which health and safety action controls, results controls
and informal controls affect the integration of health and safety issues into management actions, which in turn
leads to improve health and safety performance. It also investigates the extent to which those health and safety
control mechanisms contribute complementarily to the integration of health and safety issues.
Design/methodology/approach –Asurvey of 108 Italian non-listed firms tests a set of hypotheses based on
complementarity theory and object of control framework.
Findings – Not all the health and safety control mechanisms positively influence the integration of health and
safety issues into business practices and external stakeholder relations. Complementarity between health and
safety control mechanisms is significant only for higher health and safety performance companies, indicating
that the health and safety control mechanisms operate as a package.
Research limitations/implications – The health and safety performance measure could be replaced in
future research by improved inter-subjectively testable information, although collecting health and safety
quantitative data is difficult. An additional limitation is the response rate.
Practical implications – The findings encourage companies to design and use a comprehensive set of health
and safety control mechanisms to promote a healthy workplace.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the management control, sustainability management control
and health and safety accounting literature. The paper provides an in-depth interdisciplinary analysis of the
effectiveness of different control mechanisms in the context of health and safety that hitherto has rarely been
investigated despite the multiple importance of the topic