Abstract

This section will present the executive summary and conclusion of the research. The first paragraph introduces the topic and provides relevance of the research in view of the settled objectives. The other sections entail the procedures, findings, and the conclusion of the research. The summary provides an outline of the whole research process.

The list of other introductory sections in the beginning of the report are:

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of tables

Chapter I- Introduction

Recently, sharp rise in the trends of industrialization and globalization in third world countries raised new challenges to the safety and security of workplaces. According to Duijm et al (2008), both developed and underdeveloped regions are facing the consequences to the massive workforce. The establishment of safety culture is one of the major challenges due to the complexity and influence of multiple environmental factors. However, a secure and healthy environment is one of the prime needs of the workforce in large and small industries, as only healthy individuals can serve the larger purpose to the industry and society. In this context, Zohar and Luria, (2005) argued that the rapid increase on the hazards and accidents at the occupation sites raise a serious concern to the authorities to establish and monitor the safety of environment and monitoring  of standard working practices.  

In theory, the definition of occupational accidents is considered as the occurrence of fatal or non-fatal injury during the course of work at a certain organization (ILO, 1997). The lack of attention to this important issue can have multiple reasons such as multinationals exploitation of labour rights, local governments’ insensitivity, safety measures insufficiency, lack of workforce awareness and proper educational contribution (Powell, 2007). Also, occupational accidents occurrence is also high in workplaces due to lack of   training, knowledge, supervision, and rules implementation. In addition, Tharaldsen et al (2010) pointed out that variety of human errors due to negligence, carelessness, and lack of monitoring creates more occupational accidents. Hence, the impact of these factors is significant in establishment of safety culture to reduce occupational hazards.

Moreover, it is important to evaluate the significance of imperative factors’ contribution the occupational hazards in various industries. Oil and gas industry is one of the largest and important industries globally. The industry caters large number of workers and complex working and operating conditions. In oil rich countries, this industry is not only important to bring in foreign exchange but also a provider of major source of employment and necessary infrastructure to the country. As a major oil producing country, Iraq has a large oil and gas industry. Blanchard (2009) stated that oil and gas industry economic performance is very prominent in Iraq but also a large contributor of occupational accidents. In Iraq, oil and gas sector contribution is 90% in state revenues and 74% in GDP, along with the status of largest employment provider of the country (Blanchard 2009; Khdair et al 2011). Further, Mearns and Yule (2009) and Kane (2010) argued that this sector possesses high risk in workplace safety and important parameters to establish safety culture is required severely.

Therefore Iraq can be considered as an important case study for evaluating occupational/industrial accidents selected in this research. The motivation of this research comes from the fact that since Oil and Gas industry is the source of the major revenue for the residents of this community, how can the health and safety concerns of this industry could be enhanced, especially given the troubles this part of the world has been going through for the last many years. Review of current conditions, analyzing the details, comparing with safety standards accomplished across the globe, and providing key factual based recommendation is the focus of this research

Research Aim and Objectives

The aim of this study is to evaluate the safety measure taken by the oil and gas industry in Iraq to assure safety culture in organizations in Iraq and how these occupational health and safety systems can be improved. The aim also includes the consideration of workers safety outside the company premises due to vulnerable law and order conditions of Iraq.

The primary objectives of the proposed study include:

• To review of the literature related to the safety concerns and the major factors affected the control of occupational health issues.
• To describe some significant implications of the safety culture of the Oil and Gas sector, with focus on Iraq.
• Another noteworthy viewpoint is to understand the fundamentals of management towards establishment and monitoring of health and safety measures for the workers.
• Also, the impacts of war and terrorism has a vital impact of oil and gas sector, so the impact in these macro issues on safety culture in organizations are aimed to be evaluated.
• In addition, the research will be focused on initiatives organizations’ leadership and consequences of occupational hazards on employees’ practices.
• To recommend further improvements with respect to the effectiveness of establishing a positive occupational health and safety culture in Iraq, where low priority of workplace safety is presumed

Research Question

Following research question provide summary of above aim and objectives:

What are the safety measures taken by the oil and gas industry to assure safety culture in organizations in Iraq, and how these occupational health and safety systems can be improved?

The answer to the above research question will be explained through recommendations in the form of strategies found relevant and important in this research data analysis.  

Chapter II- Literature Review

The occupational safety issues are found to be crtical in recent western literature for the workers in countries such as UK (Tharaldsen et al 2010; Kane 2010), US, and other European countries (Mearns and Yule 2009). On the other hand, the literature is scarce about workers safety issues in third world Asian countries (Ali et al 2009; Khdair et al 2011). The literature found is based on the analysis of various internal and external factors responsible for the establishment of safety culture at workplace.  :

The major identified factors in previous studies are human, behavioral, and organizational factors. According to Bellamy et al (2008), the ‘human factor’ impact is considered as versatile and complex that can influence the safety measures, organizational discipline, working environments and many different characteristics of safety culture. In oil and gas sector, management and staff reliance for workers safety is still not achieved professional advancement with time and showed behavioral differences in crisis situations (Subramaniam 2004). Behavior factors can have an influential effect on safety, especially with respect to involvement of workers in form of groups for complex and regular tasks. Cox et al, (2004) discussed that safety oriented programs encourage workers in changing their behavior and attitude in pursuit of safe actions (Sawacha et al 1999). Another important contribution was of psychological factor, which showed a major relationship with safety performance of employees (Cigularov et al 2010). The other important factors are organizational and economic factors that are responsible for the designing and implementation of employment and hiring policies.

In review of previous studies, Boardbent (2004); Jiang et al 2010); Lu and Yang, (2010); Vinodkumar and Bhasi (2010), it is discovered that safety participation and safety behavior compliance are two important dimensions in measuring safety performance at workplace. Also, the study of Griffin and Neal (2000) already explained these two factors in Australian industrial sector research. The result s of these studies confirmed that positive safety compliance and safety participation of both workers and management play a vital role in establishing a safety culture and influencing the safety performance with moderator as safety knowledge. Furthermore, the studies of Cabrera et al (2007) and Ali et al (2009) elaborated that management practices are important to prevent occupational accidents, as a useful element in control and taking precautionary measures to avoid workplace accidents. Additionally, study of Geldart et al, (2010), on workplace safety measures and role of management practices in various industries, and suggested that administrative policies; management practices and employees’ attitudes impact positively on workplace safety.

In this section of the paper, literature related to occupational health and safety of oil and gas industry will be critically reviewed, with the primary focus on the developing countries such as Iraq. This method will develop an extensive understanding of the safety systems, best practices and the related legislations, which will then be utilized to complete the later sections of this paper.

Chapter III-Methodology

The research methodology is based on the positivist philosophy and descriptive methods. The secondary data will be collected to understand the health and safety concerns oil and gas industry, with the focus on Iraq, from relevant and credible resources such journal articles, industry reports, labour legislations and online database. Primary research activity is the second phase of data collection.  The primary data collection model includes qualitative and quantitative data in the form of survey and interviews.  An e-mail based and personally administered survey from 50 random employees will be conducted, from up to 5 leading oil and gas companies in Iraq. The main elements to be considered in survey questionnaire and interviews from managers are as follows (these key factor will be considered for drafting the questionnaire)

1. The demographics sample such as age, position, gender, experience etc.
2. The working conditions and attitudes of oil and gas workers in Iraq, recent accidents, major H&S concerns in their opinion and lack of experience or expertise etc.
3. Health and safety provisions and obligations of management towards establishment of safety culture and its implications
4. Proactive policies of top management in resolving health and safety issues, barriers, success and practical issues
5. Environment factors contribution including natural disasters, war, and terrorism  
6. The employees’ and/or employers opinions about occupational health and security conditions and suggestions for improvements

(More point will be added after undertaking a comprehensive review of literature in this area of research)

The analysis tools for quantitative data collected from survey will be regression and correlation and the findings will further discussed in line with the reviewed literature. The interviews will be analyzed with the help of thematic analysis to portray the important themes for further discussion. The issues of reliability and validity will also be discussed along with ethical considerations.

Chapter IV- Research Findings and Discussion

This chapter comprises the detailed quantitative survey data and interviews analyses with the help of selected statistical tools and thematic analysis techniques. Also, the results of the survey and interviews will be discussed in comparison with the reviewed literature.

Chapter V- Conclusions

This chapter contains the conclusion and recommendations in order to answer the research questions in view of the analysed data.  The future implications and limitations of this study will also be a component of this chapter.  

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