ABSTRACT
Occupational safety and health regulators and practitioners have traditionally tended to assume that they were dealing with strongly integrated organisations with clear, and relatively simple, lines of management and accountability. However, many modern workplaces and supply chains are actually networks, where groups of contractors and subcontractors are brought together to perform specific tasks within an overall plan. In such contexts, responsibility for health and safety, and the role of health and safety professionals, may be obscure and uncertain, given that this is often shared among multiple organisations and individuals. On the other hand, networks also create new opportunities to spread best practice as groups of workers come together, acquire knowledge and skills and then move on to take their places in new networks.
