Nine Swedish small business owners in the cleaning sector were interviewed regarding their personal views and experiences concerning employer responsibilities in relation to occupational safety and health management for this study. The analysis is guided by a qualitative content analysis exploring strategies applied to responsible leadership. We found that there was one specific behavioural pattern that stood out above all others. Small business owners regularly implemented a form of responsible leadership we call management by values. Management by values was applied using three strategies building employee relationships, rational management and transferring responsibility. This managing style can be both a strength and a weakness for the employees working conditions. The strengths are that the owners are supporting, guiding, and communicating in their leadership with their employees while the weaknesses can be that they, the owners, base their occupational safety and health management on values rather than knowledge. As a result, there is a transference in responsibilities from the small business owners to their employees for measures related to the working environment. The conclusions of the study are that by applying management by values, the small business owners seem to promote good psychosocial working conditions in their enterprises while showing a lack of knowledge about occupational safety and health management. This might mean a risk that systematic approaches will not be applied to physical working environment conditions regarding safety issues.

本研究采访了九名瑞典清洁行业的小企业主，了解他们对雇主在职业安全和健康管理方面的责任的个人看法和经验。该分析以定性内容分析为指导，探索适用于负责任领导的策略。我们发现有一种特定的行为模式比其他所有行为模式都突出。小企业主定期实施一种我们称之为价值观管理的负责任的领导形式。通过建立员工关系、合理管理和转移责任三种策略，应用价值管理. 这种管理风格对员工的工作条件来说既是优势又是劣势。优点是业主在领导中支持、指导和与员工沟通，而弱点可能是业主，他们的职业安全和健康管理基于价值观而不是知识。结果，与工作环境相关的措施的责任从小企业主转移到了他们的雇员。该研究的结论是，通过应用价值管理，小企业主似乎在他们的企业中促进良好的心理社会工作条件，同时表现出缺乏职业安全和健康管理知识。这可能意味着系统方法将不会应用于有关安全问题的物理工作环境条件的风险。