A study of regulatory inspection of occupational health and safety (OHS) and its management in five countries - Australia, Canada (Quebec), France, Sweden and the UK - during a time of major change. It examines the implications of the shift from specification to process based regulation, in which attention has been increasingly directed to the means of managing OHS more systematically at a time in which a major restructuring of work has occurred in response to the globalised economy. These changes provide both the context and material for a wider discussion of the nature of regulation and regulatory inspection and their role in protecting the health, safety and well-being of workers in advanced market economies.

Content includes: 1. Introduction : inspecting health and safety management and the consequences of restructuring in the modern world of work 2. Regulation of health and safety management : a developmental perspective 3. The development of regulatory inspection of health and safety at work 4. The shift to occupational health and safety process standards in Australia 5. Inspecting occupational health and safety process standards in Australia 6. The regulation of systematic work environment management in Sweden : higher ambitions in a weaker Swedish work environment system 7. Implementing systematic work environment management in Sweden : interpretation by SWEA and supervision by its labour inspectors 8. Regulating health and safety management, the changing world of work and public policy in the UK 9. Inspection of health and safety management in the UK : current realities 10. The Que´bec mandatory OHS 'Prevention Programme' 11. Occupational cancer in France : a challenge for OHS management 12. Regulatory inspection and the impact of requirements for systematic OHS management in five countries 13. Conclusions : ways of understanding regulatory inspection of OHS management in the modern world of work.