abstract
Occupational accidents severely deteriorate human capital, and hence negatively affect the productivity
and competitiveness of countries. But despite this, we still observe a scarcity of preventive practices, an
unsatisfactory management commitment and an absence of safety culture among Spanish firms. The
result is evident in firms’ high accident rates. This situation is a consequence of the general belief among
firms that investing in safety is a cost, and hence has negative repercussions for their competitiveness.
The current work aims to identify good practices in safety management, and analyse the effect of these
practices on a set of indicators of organisational performance. For this, we first carry out an exhaustive
literature review, and then formulate a series of hypotheses. We then test the proposed model on a sample
of 455 Spanish firms. Our findings show that safety management has a positive influence on safety
performance, competitiveness performance, and economic-financial performance. Hence they provide
evidence of the compatibility between worker protection and corporate competitiveness.