Summary

The Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST) is responsible for managing Québec’s occupational health and safety (OHS) system. Its duties include developing, proposing and implementing OHS policies in order to protect workers and to ensure better quality workplaces. As such, the CNESST systematically investigates any fatal or severe workplace accident, with the exception of road accidents and those involving workers in organizations under federal jurisdiction.

The knowledge generated by investigations is transferred to the organizations concerned so that they can correct the hazardous situations that led to the accidents recorded. This process has the characteristics of an interorganizational transfer of knowledge, in other words, a dyadic exchange process in which one source (the CNESST) transmits knowledge available to be learned and applied by a receiver (the organizations that were the subject of an investigation). This interorganizational transfer of knowledge takes place through reports that are divided into four parts: a presentation of the facts surrounding the accident, a description of the consequences, an analysis of the causes of the accident, and the formulation of a certain number of requirements to correct hazardous situations.

The interorganizational transfer of knowledge resulting from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents is part of a problem-solving process. Its purpose is to help receiving companies make their work environments safe and compliant with OHS legislation. Conversely, the usual models of interorganizational knowledge transfer have the objective of bringing new knowledge to receiving organizations to help them increase their capacities for innovation and, subsequently, their competitiveness. The interorganizational transfer of knowledge gleaned from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents differs from the usual models of interorganizational knowledge transfer in another respect: the decision to participate in the transfer process. In fact, in the case of the usual models of interorganizational knowledge transfer, receiving organizations decide whether or not they wish to take advantage of knowledge that would be useful to them (free choice), and the transfer mechanisms take place in an interactive and collaborative framework with the transmitting organizations (free involvement). In contrast, in the case of interorganizational transfer of knowledge resulting from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents, the receiving organizations are subject to a double legal constraint: (a) the obligation to cooperate with the investigation, i.e., to build on the knowledge to be transferred; (b) the obligation to apply the knowledge received in such a way as to ensure that work organization, equipment, methods and techniques used are safe.

Despite their importance, there is a lack of data on the mechanisms through which the interorganizational transfer of knowledge from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents takes place. The same is true of the internal processes by which receiving organizations apply the knowledge received, given the legal constraints on them (obligation to cooperate and obligation to apply). In addition, we do not know what influence the application of the transferred knowledge might have on the management of health and safety at work, which is why it is necessary to generate new knowledge to try to shed light on these points, which have so far received little or no attention in the literature.

A descriptive correlational research design was used to explore and describe the potential associations among the various elements that characterize this transfer process, and to explain these possible relationships. This exploratory study targeted all the organizations that were investigated by the CNESST following a severe or fatal workplace accident between 2013 and 2017. Ultimately, 97 organizations agreed to receive the online questionnaire, without any commitment to follow up on it. The data collection instrument used was an online questionnaire supported by LimeSurvey software. The data gathered were then downloaded and exported for processing. For the analysis of the results obtained, in addition to descriptive statistics, Goodman et Kruskal’s (1954) Gamma coefficient (γ) was used to identify possible relationships of association among the various elements characterizing the transfer process.

The results obtained made it possible to describe the practical arrangements and processes by which the interorganizational transfer of knowledge from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents take place. They showed that some receiving organizations were very involved in the process of building on the knowledge to be transferred and that the transferred knowledge was widely applied. The analyses revealed an unexpected result: that the legal constraints weighing on the receiving organizations do not fully explain the high degree of involvement in the process and the application of transferred knowledge. In fact, the results showed that this degree of involvement stems from several other factors. Some of these factors are external (openness of investigators, confidence in their expertise, relevance of the knowledge transferred, etc.), while others come from within the receiving organizations (existence of absorptive capacities that enable them to assess external knowledge, to appropriate it, and to adapt it to their context before applying it). Furthermore, the results showed that the application of transferred knowledge and engagement in OHS are positively and strongly associated: when organizations increase their application of transferred knowledge, it is likely that they will take more responsibility for OHS.

In conclusion, this exploratory study shed light on how knowledge from investigations into fatal or severe workplace accidents is developed and then transferred to the organizations concerned. It also provides information on how this transferred knowledge is received, adopted, appropriated and applied by certain organizations. The results obtained are useful to institutional bodies researching OHS and to various actors involved in prevention. They provide them with valuable feedback that can improve practices.