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Psychosocial risk management in more and less favourable workplace conditions

Hanna Janetzke (Department of Work and Health, Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Berlin, Germany)
Michael Ertel (Department of Work and Health, Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Berlin, Germany)

International Journal of Workplace Health Management

ISSN: 1753-8351

Article publication date: 7 August 2017

743

Abstract

Purpose

Although efforts have been made to specify the concept and the process of psychosocial risk management (PSRM), there is still a lack of knowledge on overcoming initiation and implementation barriers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how PSRM was implemented in different work contexts (under difficult and favourable conditions concerning the extent of management’s commitment and participative practices). Success factors are derived from the different work contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

This study compares PSRM approaches across organizations in four European countries. A total of 41 interviews with 60 organizational stakeholders were carried out and supplemented with a corporate documents analysis. Commonalities and differences within and between ten organizational case studies were analysed from which good practice and lessons learnt could be extracted.

Findings

The authors found different approaches based on the extent to which organizational capacity (management commitment and participative practices to prevent psychosocial risks) was taken into account. Where capacity was restricted, external support was necessary to initiate and to implement the process. Where capacity was high, integration of PSRM into routine processes and connection with already existing processes was a dominating topic.

Originality/value

Currently, enabling and hindering factors are not systematically prioritized according to the specific context in which PSRM takes place and often they are not differentiated according to the level (e.g. personal, processual, structural and cultural) where they are situated. This study identifies PSRM versions at those different levels which can help in tailoring specific measures to the workplace conditions.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study was financed by Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and conducted at the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA). The authors would like to thank Katja Schuller, Martina Morschhaeuser and Nadine Mellor for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Citation

Janetzke, H. and Ertel, M. (2017), "Psychosocial risk management in more and less favourable workplace conditions", International Journal of Workplace Health Management, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 300-317. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-09-2016-0063

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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