Barriers to the implementation of management systems: lessons from the past

There is a substantial body of evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, concerning factors associated with the success and failure of management systems. Given the increasing interest in management systems for occupational health and safety, quality, and the environment, it is worth looking at some of these factors in order to learn from them and plan for the future. One of the most comprehensive sources of information about factors that can make a management system succeed or fail lies in the material written about systems that improve the quality of products and services. Such systems were extremely widespread during the 1970s and 1980s but are now much less often cited or studied by Australian organisations. One of the reasons underlying the present relative lack of emphasis is that such programs, both here and overseas, experienced a failure rate of between 85% and 95%. While it may seem unlikely that occupational health and safety (OHS) and environmental management systems will experience similar failure rates, it is still worthwhile to look at what went wrong with other systems and to learn from these experiences.