Social representations of Ergonomics in management personnel: Case study

Abstract

Ergonomics focuses on the study of human interactions, with the purpose of optimizing human and general well-being. The concept of ergonomics has evolved to systemic approaches that favor the proper balance between the economy, society and the environment. However, this conceptual advance does not always reflect business actions, so this research seeks to know what is the social representation that business managers have of ergonomics, to try to understand if this is one of the factors that affect the limited scope of ergonomics in countries like Colombia. To this aim, a qualitative research with a structural approach of the social representations of the term ergonomics was carried out in 21 company managers. In the results, it was determined that the central nucleus of social representation was constituted by the terms “health, comfort, posture”, being the categories “Relationship and benefits” the most referred to. This research allows to conclude that, in the study participants, the vision of ergonomics is more oriented towards microergonomics in the domain of physical ergonomics, evidencing a limited knowledge of the scope of current ergonomics.