The impact of operational risk management on reducing accidents in Saudi petrochemical companies: A field study

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the impact of operational risks, with their dimensions (process and procedure risks, human resource risks, systems and technology risks, and external event risks), on the reduction of industrial accidents in Saudi petrochemical companies. The study adopted the descriptive-analytical method, whereby a questionnaire consisting of twenty-eight items distributed across the study variables was developed and administered to a stratified random sample of (340) respondents working in the departments of safety, risk management, operations, maintenance, and quality in a number of Saudi petrochemical companies. The validity and reliability of the instrument were verified with high coefficients, as the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the questionnaire as a whole reached (0.928). The data were then analyzed using the SPSS software through descriptive analysis, simple linear regression, and multiple linear regression techniques. The study concluded that there is a statistically significant impact at the significance level (α ≤ 0.05) of operational risks with their combined dimensions on the reduction of industrial accidents, as these dimensions explained (71.7%) of the variance in the dependent variable. Human resource risks ranked first among the influential dimensions, followed by systems and technology risks, then process and procedure risks, and finally external event risks. The study recommended enhancing investment in human resource development, consolidating the safety culture, linking the safety system to performance indicators, developing the technical infrastructure of early warning systems, adopting internationally recognized standards in occupational safety management, and developing emergency plans to accommodate low-probability, high-impact scenarios.