Routines and the sustainable lock-out of Moroccan oil refineries

For many years, researchers have tried to shed light into the black box of economic agents to investigate the mechanisms that guide their actions. Evolutionary economists have used the concept of ‘routines’ to explain why some firms are more innovative than others. The case study on French and Moroccan oil refineries presented in this paper suggests that this concept can also be used to explore differences in the way these firms manage health, safety, and environmental (HSE) issues. An improved understanding of firms' HSE behaviour allows policy-makers to design policies that can foster the emergence of strong HSE routines and substantially improve firms' HSE performance. Results show that, in spite of low HSE regulatory pressures in Morocco, Samir oil refineries operating in the Kingdom have developed an HSE management routine. A tabled presentation of the HSE management routine of Samir and of the French group Total allows us to compare the HSE behaviour of these firms, and to suggest how new routines could trigger a lock-out from the low HSE performance of Samir.