My wife is my risk manager: the role of the wife of the entrepreneur in occupational health and safety management
Résumé
This article reports on a qualitative monographic study that looked at the role of the spouse of a small business owner in occupational health and safety risk management. In this specific context, characterised by weakly polarised social relations, the owner often finds it difficult to create a profile for themselves in order to deploy a risk prevention plan. This study was carried out in a French company with fewer than 50 employees and aimed to follow the progress of a process that began with the company owner becoming aware of his statutory obligations and ended with the operationalization of risk prevention in the field. Although programmes designed to raise the awareness of business owners of their regulatory obligations have been well documented, little is known about their sustainability. The study was carried out in the construction sector, which is known to be particularly accident-prone and highlights the means deployed by the spouse of the owner to carry out her mission, and the organisational and symbolic difficulties that she came up against. Through an intervention approach, where the researcher implements management tools and co-produces knowledge with the company's actors during the intervention, this study throws new light on the change resistance mechanisms at work and the spouse's limited ability to take action in dealing with these issues.