Blood on the coal: The effect of organizational size and differentiation on mine accidents from 1983--1999.

摘要

The annual cost of occupational accidents to American industry and taxpayers is at least {dollar}170 billion. As the repercussions of organizational accidents reverberate through organizations and are felt from human resources to accounting, firms are beginning to incorporate messages of safety in their missions and strategies. As firms organize to achieve safer work environments, they are faced with decisions on how to structure their activities in terms of, among other things, size, and differentiation. This dissertation explores the impact on accident rates of size and differentiation at the corporate and subunit levels of mining companies. It was hypothesized that there is a U-shaped relationship between a firm's accident rate and its size and differentiation. It was further hypothesized that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between a geographically distinct subunit's accident rate and its size and differentiation.; The results are mixed. A negative binomial regression supports the hypothesis with respect to the effect of subunit size and differentiation on accidents rates. The results, however, support a negative linear relationship between corporate size and accident rates (mines owned by larger firms are safer), and corporate differentiation and accident rates (mines owned by firms using more different coal mining methods and owning more different types of mines are safer). Unrelated corporate diversification, however, appears to increase accident rates compared to related diversification. The contributions and implications of these findings are discussed.