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- March 2024
- Article
Do Safety Management System Standards Indicate Safer Operations? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard
By: Kala Viswanathan, Matthew S. Johnson and Michael W. Toffel
Problem definition: Given the enormous disruptions and costs of occupational injuries, companies and buyers are increasingly looking to voluntary occupational health and safety standards to improve worker safety. Yet because these standards only require... View Details
Keywords: Occupational Health; Occupational Safety; Program Evaluation; Safety Performance; Injuries; OHSAS 18001; ISO 45001; Working Conditions; Safety; Standards
Viswanathan, Kala, Matthew S. Johnson, and Michael W. Toffel. "Do Safety Management System Standards Indicate Safer Operations? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard." Art. 106383. Safety Science 171 (March 2024).
- February 2025
- Supplement
Intenseye: Powering Workplace Health and Safety with AI (B)
By: Michael W. Toffel, Shane Greenstein and Sadika El Hariri
Intenseye used its $25 million series A funds to refine and expand its digital safety platform while refining its target markets and ideal customer profile. As the company implemented new approaches to create value for its clients, such as developing an AI-powered... View Details
Keywords: Safety Performance; Occupational Safety; Innovation; Safety; Operations; Health; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Supply Chain Management; Performance Improvement; Entrepreneurship; Product Development; Customer Relationship Management; Value Creation; Venture Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United States; Europe; Middle East; Turkey
Toffel, Michael W., Shane Greenstein, and Sadika El Hariri. "Intenseye: Powering Workplace Health and Safety with AI (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 625-025, February 2025.
- October 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Improving Worker Safety in the Era of Machine Learning (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel, Dan Levy, Jose Ramon Morales Arilla and Matthew S. Johnson
Managers make predictions all the time: How fast will my markets grow? How much inventory do I need? How intensively should I monitor my suppliers? Which potential customers will be most responsive to a particular marketing campaign? Which job candidates should I... View Details
Keywords: Machine Learning; Policy Implementation; Empirical Research; Inspection; Occupational Safety; Occupational Health; Regulation; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Safety; Manufacturing Industry; Construction Industry; United States
Toffel, Michael W., Dan Levy, Jose Ramon Morales Arilla, and Matthew S. Johnson. "Improving Worker Safety in the Era of Machine Learning (A)." Harvard Business School Case 618-019, October 2017. (Revised April 2018.)
- May 18, 2012
- Article
Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss
By: David I Levine, Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson
Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We... View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Occupational Safety; Evaluation; Regression; Matching; Difference In Differences; Safety; Health; Working Conditions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Advantage; Performance; Manufacturing Industry; California
Levine, David I., Michael W. Toffel, and Matthew S. Johnson. "Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss." Science 336, no. 6083 (May 18, 2012): 907–911. (Online supplement (appendix). Featured in an article by the head of US OSHA, and in U.S. News & World Report and many other news outlets. Basis of U.S. Congressional testimony on promoting safe workplaces.)
- July 2002
- Article
Estimating and Controlling Workplace Risk: An Approach for Occupational Hygiene and Safety Professionals
By: Michael W. Toffel and Lawrence Birkner
Toffel, Michael W., and Lawrence Birkner. "Estimating and Controlling Workplace Risk: An Approach for Occupational Hygiene and Safety Professionals." Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene 17, no. 7 (July 2002): 477–485.
- 25 May 2020
- Research & Ideas
Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?
Informing consumers and restricting bad apples: that’s the dual role that occupational licensing is supposed to play. If a plumber, painting contractor, or HVAC repairer has a license it should matter to consumers wanting their services,... View Details
- Article
A Career Life-Cycle Perspective on Women's Health and Safety
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Chizoba L. Chukwura, Gregory H. Gorman, Vivian S. Lee, Chester B. Good, Kathleen L. Martin, Gregory A. Ator and Michael D. Parkinson
Women's health has demanded more attention from employers as women integrated into the workforce. Traditionally male-dominant fields and occupations require special attention to workplace design, physical standards for entry, employment practices, equipment, and health... View Details
Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare Access; Workplace Design; Military Health System; Occupational Health; Medical Equipment ＆ Devices; Employees; Gender; Personal Development and Career
Kaplan, Robert S., Chizoba L. Chukwura, Gregory H. Gorman, Vivian S. Lee, Chester B. Good, Kathleen L. Martin, Gregory A. Ator, and Michael D. Parkinson. "A Career Life-Cycle Perspective on Women's Health and Safety." Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 64, no. 4 (April 2022): 267–270.
- 17 May 2012
- News
OSHA's Safety Tests Protect Workers at Little Cost: Study
- April 8, 2025
- Article
Creating Workplaces Free of Forever Chemicals
By: Joseph G. Allen, Heather A. Henrikson and Michael W. Toffel
Forever chemicals are toxic and widely used in buildings and yet they remain on the rise globally with little regulation to control them. In the United States, for example, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations currently cover only forever chemicals in... View Details
Keywords: Occupational Health; Safety Regulations; Regulation; Working Conditions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Safety; Health
Allen, Joseph G., Heather A. Henrikson, and Michael W. Toffel. "Creating Workplaces Free of Forever Chemicals." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (April 8, 2025).
- June 2020
- Article
How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections
By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel
Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes... View Details
Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms
Ibanez, Maria, and Michael W. Toffel. "How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections." Management Science 66, no. 6 (June 2020): 2396–2416. (Revised February 2019. Featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Food Safety Magazine, Food Safety News, and KelloggInsight. (2020 MSOM Responsible Research Finalist.))
- 2018
- Working Paper
How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections
By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel
Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details
Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry
Ibanez, Maria, and Michael W. Toffel. "How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-090, April 2017. (Revised October 2018. Formerly titled "Assessing the Quality of Quality Assessment: The Role of Scheduling". Featured in Forbes, Food Safety Magazine, and Food Safety News.)
- May–June 2013
- Article
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly. View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Auditing; Labor Relations; Occupational Safety; Environmental Operations; Environmental Regulation; Employees; Labor; Labor and Management Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; China; Bangladesh; India; Honduras; Nicaragua; Pakistan; Guatemala; Malaysia; Viet Nam
Short, Jodi L., and Michael W. Toffel. "Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization." Boston Review 38, no. 3 (May–June 2013).
- October 2023
- Article
Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
We study how a regulator can best target inspections. Our case study is a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program that randomly allocated some inspections. On average, each inspection averted 2.4 serious injuries (9%) over the next five years.... View Details
Keywords: Safety Regulations; Regulations; Regulatory Enforcement; Machine Learning Models; Safety; Operations; Service Operations; Production; Forecasting and Prediction; Decisions; United States
Johnson, Matthew S., David I. Levine, and Michael W. Toffel. "Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15, no. 4 (October 2023): 30–67. (Profiled in the Regulatory Review.)
- 30 May 2012
- News
Government Regulation That Actually Works
- February 26, 2024
- Article
Making Workplaces Safer Through Machine Learning
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
Machine learning algorithms can dramatically improve regulatory effectiveness. This short article describes the authors' scholarly work that shows how the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could have reduced nearly twice as many occupational... View Details
Keywords: Government Experimentation; Auditing; Inspection; Evaluation; Process Improvement; Government Administration; AI and Machine Learning; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms
Johnson, Matthew S., David I. Levine, and Michael W. Toffel. "Making Workplaces Safer Through Machine Learning." Regulatory Review (February 26, 2024).
- September 2014
- Article
OSHA Inspections Should Be Welcome: Results from a Natural Field Experiment in California
By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
For companies with strong internal occupational safety and health auditing programs, OSHA inspections might seem a formality that risk uncovering, at most, nitpicky deviations from the thousands of pages of safety regulations. For those with poor safety practices, OSHA... View Details
Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Operations; Safety; Governance Compliance; United States; California
Levine, David I., and Michael W. Toffel. "OSHA Inspections Should Be Welcome: Results from a Natural Field Experiment in California." The Compass (Newsletter of the American Society of Safety Engineers) 14, no. 1 (September 2014): 4.
- 10 Feb 2016
- News
Can OSHA Inspections Be Made More Effective?
- 21 May 2012
- Research & Ideas
OSHA Inspections: Protecting Employees or Killing Jobs?
killing jobs at a time when the United States can ill afford to lose them. Few regulatory agencies have a more direct effect on businesses than the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the... View Details
Keywords: by Michael Blanding
- 21 May 2012
- News
OSHA Saves Lives and Jobs
- 2020
- Working Paper
Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
We study how a regulator can best target inspections. Our case study is a US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program that randomly allocated some inspections. On average, each inspection averted 2.4 serious injuries (9%) over the next five years.... View Details
Keywords: Government Administration; Working Conditions; Safety; Quality; Production; Analysis; Resource Allocation; Manufacturing Industry; United States
Johnson, Matthew S., David I. Levine, and Michael W. Toffel. "Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-019, August 2019. (Revised February 2020.)