The French Connection: A Multi-Lingual Literature Review of OHS in the Small Business Sector

Abstract

There is the growing recognition that Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) regulations and initiatives applied in the small business sector are frequently ineffectual. However, most of the discourse on OHS in the small business sector is ethnocentric with little or no insight into the relationship between the Anglo and French literature. This has meant that models of OHS intervention and prevention adopted by and/or adapted to the New Zealand small business sector

are those that have been, by and large, written up in English. By excluding OHS intervention and prevention models or research on the basis that they are reported in a language other than English means that there is a potential of a myopic view on the subject. Moreover, given that workplaces are becoming more ethnically diverse, it is imperative that OHS models and research located in non-English speaking discourses are given due consideration. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to provide a multilingual bridge between the English-speaking and the French-speaking research. In particular, the OHS literature written French, English and other languages will be reviewed in order to identify the major determinants of OHS risks in small businesses, thus providing a starting point for more comprehensive, preventative programmes aimed at all small businesses