Increased use of outsourcing strategies is a major trend in modern working life. In some industries, such as building and construction and the petroleum industry, tasks and functions are outsourced to a degree that makes it meaningful to speak of contractor hierarchies.
In a contractor hierarchy work is organized more like a value chain than a single business. This involves a change in the framework conditions affecting the ability to uphold employees’ health, environment and safety, and the ability to prevent sickness absence and exclusion from working life.
In this project we will compare enterprises within health care, cleaning services, building and construction and the petroleum industry. These have a varying degree of outsourcing and a comparative study of these industries will give a robust analysis of the consequences of outsourcing on the ability to prevent and reduce sickness absence and exclusion from working life.
As part of the project’s plan for dissemination of results, an international dissemination group will be established. The aim is to exchange findings and information and thereby strengthen the possibilities of international publication and further research collaboration.