Responsible entrepreneurship, safety involvement, prohibitive safety voice and employee safety participation in a developing economy: a serial model

Purpose This study aims to examine how owner-managers’ responsible entrepreneurship influences employee safety participation through the serial mediation of safety involvement and prohibitive safety voice. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 417 owner-managers of manufacturing SMEs in Ghana. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings The results show that responsible entrepreneurship positively influences employee safety participation. While safety involvement does not moderate this relationship, it significantly mediates the link between responsible entrepreneurship and both prohibitive safety voice and employee safety participation. The serial mediation analysis further indicates that responsible entrepreneurship enhances safety involvement, which fosters prohibitive safety voice and, in turn, increases employee safety participation. Practical implications Owner-managers should involve employees in identifying workplace hazards, discuss safety concerns during routine meetings and provide simple channels for reporting unsafe practices. Policymakers can support SMEs through practical safety guidelines, short training programmes and advisory services that help businesses implement affordable employee-centred safety practices. Originality/value This study develops a process-oriented framework explaining the employee-level behavioural mechanisms through which responsible entrepreneurship fosters proactive safety practices in SMEs, particularly under the resource and structural constraints common in developing economies.