Analyse d’implantation d’un système de gestion intégrée en environnement et en santé et sécurité du travail

Integrated environmental, health and safety management systems (IMS) are a new management paradigm of modern organizations.  These systems are built mainly from the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 norms, which are based on risk prevention and the precautionary principles.  For the past ten years, the literature on IMS has been governed by a conceptual stagnation, which is now begging for a taxonomic consensus in order to define IMS, clarify both integration and implementation processes, and to move beyond structures to address processes.  As a result, the knowledge about IMS has been embroiled in an epistemological ditch, thus delaying debates in this emerging field of study.  Scarce publications about IMS come from a few theoretical papers and six empirical investigations, all preoccupied by systems compatibility and the economic advantages of management systems integration.  Evidence generated by these studies is not sufficient to apprehend the dynamics of the new paradigm, whose effects remain little known about until now.  This situation is becoming alarming in a context where the use of integrated environmental health and safety management systems is increasing and where these IMS are raising concerns about their capacity to minimize risk in one domain or another.  So far, no study has investigated the implementation of integrated environmental health and safety management systems built from ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 norms.  Such knowledge is cardinal to help explain the effects of such IMS.  It is in this perspective that we have undertaken this first empirical study of an IMS built from ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001.  Our research questions address the mode of implementation, the degree of implementation and the effects of the IMS, as well as the contextual factors whose influence on the implementation help explain the variations in the degree of implementation and the effects of the IMS.  This qualitative inquiry uses a single case study with multiple levels of analysis.  Our purposeful sample of thirty five participants was drawn from different levels of hierarchy, including union executives and representatives.  Our purposeful sample of plants consisted of seven ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified plants located in different cities in Quebec, Canada.  These plants differed by their technology, their age, their size and their types of production.  Our data were collected in 2004 from semi-directed interviews, direct observation during site visits, and consultation of documentation and assessment of functionalities of implemented management tools.  Interviews were transcribed verbatim and their content was categorized based on the five dimensions of the IMS: commitment policy, planning, deployment, control and management review.  Horizontal condensation preceded within case and transversal analysis, using both inductive and deductive approaches.  Our results indicate two implementation modes: the enrichment mode and the fusion mode, both related to the functional structures in place.  Despite its aim of continuous improvement, the IMS was unable to reconcile the two traditional approaches of top down and bottom up, which have dominated this implementation which was supported by four strategies: economy of resources, control of influence, low hanging fruits and the small steps strategy.  In order to analyze the degree of the IMS implementation, we have taken into consideration two aspects of the process: The effort of structuring the IMS and the scope of utilization of the implemented processes.  Our results showed evidence of variation in the degree of IMS implementation; this variation was observed among the plants as well as among the processes implemented at each one of the five IMS steps.  The analysis of discourses has allowed the production of five hypotheses that support IMS structuring and utilization (i) Cohesion forces hypothesis (ii) Process specificity hypothesis (iii) Scope of process hypothesis (iv) Organizational readiness hypothesis (v) Acceptance of change hypothesis.  IMS implementation was influenced by political, structural and organizational factors.  These factors have played their influence by catalyzing non -linear interactions, during which their influence could be neutralized, added or reinforced, hence generating variations in the degree of implementation.  Facilitating factors have affected the effort of IMS structuring and included:  experience working with management system, upper management commitment, implication of union or of health and safety committee representatives, organizational structure, level of education, plant age and plant size.   Inhibiting factors have affected mainly the utilization of implemented processes. These factors included: procedural heaviness, lack of time, lack of training, lack of resource, organizational culture, organizational structure, intergeneration gap and lack of union implication.  Three proximal effects anticipated by the organization under study were observed.  (i) Increase in the rigor of management is an effect which was associated with the application of IMS requirements.  It implied EHS governance, integrated management mechanisms and production processes (ii) Standardization is an effect which was associated rather with the implementation mode.  It implied EHS practices, tools, work methods and organization of resources. (iii) Rupture of departmental silo is an effect associated with the mode of implementation.  It involved organizational structures, professional boundaries and the working relations and climate.  These proximal effects have induced several emerging effects, which were more distal.  These were: increased control power of the union; increased legitimacy of recommendations by EHS professionals; creation of inter-organizational network and knowledge transfer.   The implementation of an integrated management system in environment, occupational health and safety has transformed EHS governance and practice in all seven plants.  However, this was not sufficient to grant immunity to EHS risk management processes.  The potential of IMS to dilute risks should be of concern to public health policies, as well as to risk prevention programs on environment and on occupational health and safety.  Improvement of EHS risk management was an expected effect but was not observed at the moment of our study.  Several contextual factors may have intervened to alter its occurrence.  To this regard, knowledge transfer, reinforced by the emergence of intra-organizational networks, seem to offer a very promising and affordable alternative.  This is one of the contributions of our study research, which, in addition has (i) proposed a nomenclature to classify the modes of implementation and effects of IMS (ii) proposed a detailed method to appreciate the degree of implementation (iii) stated the roles played by contextual factors in explaining variations in the degree of IMS implementation and in the production of effects (iv) proposed a hypothesis on IMS structuring and utilization (v) through the diversity of our sample, offered a plural and sound perspective on the dynamics of IMS implementation.  This is the first field study of this new paradigm.  To our knowledge, no other study has produced such results.  Keywords : ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, integrated management system, IMS, environment, Occupational Health and Safety, environmental risks, occupational health and safety risks, implementation analysis, implementation level, knowledge transfer.

Keyphrases: ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, Environmental management, Occupational Health and safety management, Integrated management systems, IMS, Environmental risks, Occupational Health and safety risks, Implementation analysis, Implementation level, Knowledge transfer