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Labor inspectorates’ efficiency and effectiveness assessment as a learning path to improve work-related accident prevention

  • S.I.: Data Envelopment Analysis: Four Decades On
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Abstract

Labor inspectorates, by monitoring and enforcing labor legislation, giving information and technical advice to employers and employees, promoting awareness-raising campaigns and implementing occupational risk prevention policies, play a fundamental role in promoting safer and healthier working conditions and, ultimately, in reducing the number of work-related accidents. Even so, every year, hundreds of thousands of people die from accidents at work and around 2 million die from occupational diseases, highlighting that considerable room for improvement remains. The identification and sharing of best practices in labor inspection can be a useful first step in this direction. The main purpose of this research is to propose Data Envelopment Analysis as a suitable technique for assessing the performance of labor inspectorates and identifying best practices. The potential of the proposed methodology is tested by using it to assess the efficiency and the effectiveness of the 32 local branches of the Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions, a key player of the Portuguese system of occupational risk prevention, and by exploring its value in identifying best practices and possible paths for performance improvement.

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Fig. 1

Source: Adapted from Tõsine and Wedege (2013:25)

Fig. 2

Source: Own elaboration, adapted from Tõsine and Wedege (2013:25)

Fig. 3

Source: Own elaboration, based on EMS outputs

Fig. 4

Source: Own elaboration, based on the ACT data, as well as on GEP (2015), INE (2013) and Eurostat (2016)

Fig. 5

Source: Own elaboration. The names of the cities highlighted in red and yellow indicate the geographic location of the delegations operating under sub-optimal scale sizes as reflected by the results in Table 5. Highlighted in red are the branches that are scale resource inefficient and in yellow those that are also scale cost inefficient

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank to the ACT, in the person of its previous Inspector General, Pedro Braz, for the provision of the data used in this research. They also acknowledge the important support of Maria José Tiago, Carlos Pereira, Helena Martins, Rui Santos, Sandra Santos, Alexandre Marques and Paulo Simões of the ACT. A word of gratitude is also due to Inês Gonçalves, from GEP/MTSSS, for the provision of data on work-related accidents and days of absence from work in Portugal, by municipality and economic activity sector. The second and third authors are pleased to acknowledge financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Grant UID/ECO/04007/2019).

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  1. Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve and Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions (ACT), Faro, Portugal

    António J. R. Santos

  2. Faculty of Economics and Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics (CEFAGE), University of Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139, Faro, Portugal

    Sérgio P. Santos & Carla A. F. Amado

  3. Faculty of Economics and Centre for Spatial and Organizational Dynamics (CIEO), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal

    Efigénio L. Rebelo & Júlio C. Mendes

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Santos, A.J.R., Santos, S.P., Amado, C.A.F. et al. Labor inspectorates’ efficiency and effectiveness assessment as a learning path to improve work-related accident prevention. Ann Oper Res 288, 609–651 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03287-y

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