The Impacts of Safety on Sustainable Production Performance in the Chemical Industry

Abstract

Sustainability has become an essential objective for many organisations. As an industrial sector closely related to sustainability issues, the chemical industry has been striving to achieve sustainable production. The chemical industry is crucial and very strategic in many countries, including Indonesia. In Indonesia, the chemical industry was the third-largest contributor to the GDP, which was a major contributor to pushing them to become one of the 20 countries with the largest economies in the world. This industry is a fundamental component of how countries function and, as such, can be both an enabler and inhibitor of sustainability. Given its importance, it is unsurprising that the sector has recently received increasing attention in the extant literature base. However, less consideration has been given to the importance of safety in sustainable production and how this may challenge performance in the sector. This research investigates how safety performance has impacted sustainable production performance and how other factors influence their relationship.

At the beginning of the research, 62 peer-reviewed articles were carefully selected, mapped, and assessed using the systematic literature review methodology. Thematic analysis was performed to unravel the relationship mechanisms between safety performance and sustainable production performance and synthesised them into five propositions. One of the important contributions of this work is the development of a conceptual framework that formalises the relationships between safety and sustainable production performance in the chemical industry.

After the initial framework was formed, 14 case studies were collected from various types of chemical industries. Qualitative data were collected and analysed from the 19 informants involved in this study. The cases reveal how safety performance positively impacts sustainable production performance in the chemical industry. Strong indications suggest a safety culture and the so-called Collective Mindfulness are the antecedents for safety performance, but the impacts of chemical industry characteristics remain unclear.
Following the results of the qualitative phase of this study, a series of testable hypotheses were formulated based on the empirical and theoretical evidence presented thus far to investigate the aforementioned relationships. Quantitative data was collected through an online survey to verify these hypotheses. The survey collected 221 responses and structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilised to analyse the quantitative data. The results from the quantitative phase confirm and strengthen the findings from the previous phase. Safety performance influenced sustainable production performance positively and both safety culture and collective mindfulness are confirmed to be the antecedents of safety performance. Furthermore, the quantitative phase clarifies the role of industrial characteristics: it influences the relationship between safety performance and sustainable production performance.

The outcomes of this research have made significant contributions to various areas of knowledge, particularly those aligned with current discussions on sustainability, safety, and Collective Mindfulness (CM). First, this study has investigated the extent of safety impacts on the performance of sustainable production in the chemical industry. Furthermore, this study also explores the underlaying mechanisms of the relationship between safety performance and sustainability performance. Second, this study analyses the extent of industrial characteristics affecting the relationship between safety performance and sustainability performance. Finally, this study is the first to propose a framework that explains the relationship mechanism between safety and sustainability.

Date of Award	May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Coventry University
Supervisor	Benny Tjahjono (Supervisor), David McIlhatton (Supervisor) & Yuri Zagloel (Supervisor)