Managerial ownership, board gender diversity, occupational health, and safety risk management in an emerging economy

Abstract

The prevalence of occupational health and safety (OHS) risks among mining firms points to inadequate corporate governance (CG) mechanisms (Baxter, 2016). The purpose of this study is to bridge the existing research gap by examining the impact of women on corporate boards and managerial ownership (MO) on occupational health safety risk management performance incorporating firm size moderating variables panel data from the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) of thirty (30) purposively sampled mining firms for the period 2002–2018. To the best of our knowledge, the study is one of the first pragmatic investigations of the impact of women on corporate boards, and managerial ownership on OHS risk management performance in the South African mining sector. A multivariate regression analysis based on quantitative secondary panel data confirmed a positive impact of managerial ownership, and board gender diversity on the OHS risk management performance of mining firms in South Africa. The study has practical implications for the existing body of knowledge, academics, regulators as well as mining firms’ corporate governance bodies in South Africa, which recommend that current regulatory bodies need to implement effective and sound strategies that may considerably improve the mitigation of OHS risks to attain the “zero harm” milestone by December 2024.