Occupational safety and health practices, government policy and performance of small and medium- size enterprises in Kenya

Abstract

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are critical to any national economic development, yet workplace accidents and occupational diseases remain a major challenge. This study explored the moderating effect of government policy on the relationship between occupational safety and health practices and performance of small and medium-size enterprises in Kenya. The study was founded on the Classical Deterrence Theory. The study was conducted using an inferential research design and a cross-sectional descriptive survey. The sample size comprised 294 organizations selected from a population of 1,118 SMEs using the stratified random sampling technique. In each SME, the manager or human resource officer was identified as the respondent. A structured questionnaire was employed to collect primary data for the study. Consequently, the data was analyzed using an ordinal logistic regression model. The study’s moderated ordinal regression analysis showed that government policy does not significantly moderate the relationship between occupational safety and health (OSH) practices and SMEs performance (p > 0.05). However, at rating category 4 (agree), government policy had a significant main effect (b = -3.064, p = 0.010), supporting its role in ensuring compliance with OSH requirements. The model accounted for 90.3% of the variance in SMEs' performance (R² = 0.903), exceeding the non-moderated model (R² = 0.828). This indicates that government policies have a significant impact on the effectiveness of OSH practices in improving SME performance. The study findings demonstrated the need for stronger collaborations between government and SME managers to establish effective and sustainable OSH policies. In addition, more studies should be conducted to compare OSH adoption between SMEs and large enterprises and to evaluate the role of government policy across different national contexts.