Towards the definition of an OHS management maturity model and assessment tool

This thesis presents a research work about safety culture maturity and OHS management maturity in different types of organizations in East China, based on the project OHS IN CHINA, conducted in collaboration with Gi Group. We developed two questionnaires to respectively evaluate the safety culture maturity and OHS management for 33 Chinese manufacturing companies. Following a review of safety culture literature, the questionnaire on Safety Culture was developed based on the maturity model proposed by Hudson (2001) and validated by Goncalves Filho et al (2010). This questionnaire was completed by the 115 employees of 31 companies in Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. The questionnaire on the OHS management system was developed based on the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Standard Series (OHSAS) 18001:2007. Globally, 26 safety managers of 22 different companies in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu province completed this second questionnaire. In addition, 20 companies completed both questionnaires. The research findings demonstrate that the 31 companies showed characteristics of different stages of safety culture maturity, and most of them are in proactive and sustainable stages. While the 22 companies also showed characteristics of different levels of OHS management, and most of them are in good level. Based on the 20 complete cases, the results demonstrated that Chinese manufacturing companies have a relatively higher safety culture maturity compared to the level of development of the internal OHS management system. Considering that has been already demonstrated in literature that companies showing more mature safety culture also have more possibility to perform better in OSH management, our results indicate that existing safety culture can contribute to the evolution of OSH management in Chinese companies, towards better OHS performance and further safety culture promotion.