The influence of organizational tenure on safety climate strength: A first look

This study examined the relationship between the organizational tenure of employees at a given worksite and safety climate strength (i.e., the variability of employees’ perceptions of the policies, procedures, and practices regarding workplace safety). Results revealed that average worksite tenure was related to safety climate strength such that higher average tenure was associated with stronger safety climates. The moderating effect of tenure level on the relationship between tenure and climate strength was also examined. Results revealed a curvilinear relationship between mean worksite tenure and safety climate strength, such that at higher levels of worksite tenure, smaller increases in the group's average tenure improved climate strength to a greater extent than at lower levels of worksite tenure.     

Accident under-reporting among employees: Testing the moderating influence of psychological safety climate and supervisor enforcement of safety practices

We examined accident under-reporting with data from 425 employees employed in 5 industries with above average risk for employee injuries. We expected that rates for unreported accidents would be higher than rates for reported accidents; and that organizational safety climate and perceptions of supervisor enforcement of safety policies would moderate the relationship between unreported accidents and reported accidents. Results showed that the number of unreported accidents was significantly higher than the number of reported accidents. There was an average of 2.48 unreported accidents for every accident reported to the organization. Further, under-reporting was higher in working environments with poorer organizational safety climate or where supervisor safety enforcement was inconsistent. We discuss the implications of these findings for improving accident under-reporting and occupational safety in the workplace.     

Investment in workforce health: Exploring the implications for workforce safety climate and commitment

The relationship between investment in employee health and non-health outcomes has received little research attention. Drawing from social exchange and climate theory, the current study uses a multilevel approach to examine the implications of worksite health investment for worksite safety and health climate and employee safety compliance and commitment to the worksite. Data were collected from 1932 personnel working on 31 offshore installations operating in UK waters. Installation medics provided corporate workforce health investment details for 20 of these installations. The findings provide support for a strong link between health investment practices and worksite safety and health climate. The results also found a relationship between health investment practices and organizational commitment among employees. These results suggest that health investment practices are associated with committed workforces and climates that reflect a priority on health and safety.     

Safety climate and self-reported injury: assessing the mediating role of employee safety control

To further reduce injuries in the workplace, companies have begun focusing on organizational factors which may contribute to workplace safety. Safety climate is an organizational factor commonly cited as a predictor of injury occurrence. Characterized by the shared perceptions of employees, safety climate can be viewed as a snapshot of the prevailing state of safety in the organization at a discrete point in time. However, few studies have elaborated plausible mechanisms through which safety climate likely influences injury occurrence. A mediating model is proposed to link safety climate (i.e., management commitment to safety, return-to-work policies, post-injury administration, and safety training) with self-reported injury through employees' perceived control on safety. Factorial evidence substantiated that management commitment to safety, return-to-work policies, post-injury administration, and safety training are important dimensions of safety climate. In addition, the data support that safety climate is a critical factor predicting the history of a self-reported occupational injury, and that employee safety control mediates the relationship between safety climate and occupational injury. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating organizational factors and workers' characteristics in efforts to improve organizational safety performance.     

Staying silent about safety issues: Conceptualizing and measuring safety silence motives

Communication between employees and supervisors about safety-related issues is an important component of a safe workplace. When supervisors receive information from employees about safety issues, they may gain otherwise-missed opportunities to correct these issues and/or prevent negative safety outcomes. A series of three studies were conducted to identify various safety silence motives, which describe the reasons that employees do not speak up to supervisors about safety-related issues witnessed in the workplace, and to develop a tool to assess these motives. Results suggest that employees stay silent about safety issues based on perceptions of altering relationships with others (relationship-based), perceptions of the organizational climate (climate-based), the assessment of the safety issue (issue-based), or characteristics of the job (job-based). We developed a 17-item measure to assess these four motives, and initial evidence was found for the construct and incremental validity of the safety silence motives measure in a sample of nurses.     

After-action reviews: A venue for the promotion of safety climate

This study investigated the role of after-action reviews on perceptions of safety climate at the group and organizational levels. Moderated and mediated regression analyses of data from 67 firefighting crews suggest that after-action review frequency positively influenced both levels of safety climate. Safety-oriented group norms fully mediated the relationship between after-action review frequency and group-level safety climate. Fire-station busyness moderated the relationship between after-action review frequency and organizational-level safety climate, such that the relationship was non-existent for highly busy stations. These findings suggest that after-action reviews constitute a specific venue through which managers can promote safety climate in high-risk environments.     

Safety climate and safety performance among construction workers in Hong Kong. The role of psychological strains as mediators

This paper examines relations among safety climate (safety attitudes and communication), psychological strains (psychological distress and job satisfaction), and safety performance (self-reported accident rates and occupational injuries). A questionnaire was administered to construction workers from 27 construction sites in Hong Kong (N = 374, M = 366, F = 8, mean age =36.68 years). Data were collected by in-depth interviews and a survey from February to May 2000. A path analysis using the EQS-5 was employed to test the hypothesized model relating safety climate, safety performance, and psychological strains. The results provide partial support for the model, in that safety attitudes predict occupational injuries, and psychological distress predicts accident rates. Furthermore, psychological distress was found to be a mediator of the relationship between safety attitudes and accident rates. The implications of these results for psychological interventions in the construction industry are discussed.     

Human and organizational biases affecting the management of safety

Management of safety is always based on underlying models or theories of organization, human behavior and system safety. The aim of the article is to review and describe a set of potential biases in these models and theories. We will outline human and organizational biases that have an effect on the management of safety in four thematic areas: beliefs about human behavior, beliefs about organizations, beliefs about information and safety models. At worst, biases in these areas can lead to an approach where people are treated as isolated and independent actors who make (bad) decisions in a social vacuum and who pose a threat to safety. Such an approach aims at building barriers and constraints to human behavior and neglects the measures aiming at providing prerequisites and organizational conditions for people to work effectively. This reductionist view of safety management can also lead to too drastic a strong separation of so-called human factors from technical issues, undermining the holistic view of system safety. Human behavior needs to be understood in the context of people attempting (together) to make sense of themselves and their environment, and act based on perpetually incomplete information while relying on social conventions, affordances provided by the environment and the available cognitive heuristics. In addition, a move toward a positive view of the human contribution to safety is needed. Systemic safety management requires an increased understanding of various normal organizational phenomena - in this paper discussed from the point of view of biases - coupled with a systemic safety culture that encourages and endorses a holistic view of the workings and challenges of the socio-technical system in question.     

A cross-cultural study of organizational factors on safety: Japanese vs. Taiwanese oil refinery plants

This study attempts to identify idiosyncrasies of organizational factors on safety and their influence mechanisms in Taiwan and Japan. Data were collected from employees of Taiwanese and Japanese oil refinery plants. Results show that organizational factors on safety differ in the two countries. Organizational characteristics in Taiwanese plants are highlighted as: higher level of management commitment to safety, harmonious interpersonal relationship, more emphasis on safety activities, higher devotion to supervision, and higher safety self-efficacy, as well as high quality of safety performance. Organizational characteristics in Japanese plants are highlighted as: higher level of employee empowerment and attitude towards continuous improvement, more emphasis on systematic safety management approach, efficient reporting system and teamwork, and high quality of safety performance. The casual relationships between organizational factors and workers' safety performance were investigated using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results indicate that the influence mechanisms of organizational factors in Taiwan and Japan are different. These findings provide insights into areas of safety improvement in emerging countries and developed countries respectively.     

The next generation of macroergonomics: Integrating safety climate

To date little research has examined safety climate in relation to macroergonomics and how the two distinct sub-disciplines can be integrated to affect safety outcomes. The purpose of macroergonomics is to design a fully “harmonized” work system that improves numerous aspects of organizational performance and effectiveness, and this is accomplished by incorporating the foundational theoretical framework of sociotechnical systems theory (STS). Two broad subsystems within such a system are the personnel subsystem, the ways individuals perform tasks, and the technological subsystem, the tasks to be performed. Management is an important aspect of the personnel subsystem, and there is a growing body of research regarding supervisors’ influence over employee safety. One such area of research is safety climate, which is based on the perception of workers regarding safety and organizational practices. Two major factors of safety climate are management commitment to safety and communication pertaining to safety as a true priority from both top management and direct supervisors. This article describes the conceptual overlaps of macroergonomics and safety climate in order to present a conceptual model that integrates these domains using the framework of mesoergonomics. In conclusion, we discuss how this model can serve as a framework to guide the analysis and design of work systems and subsequent organizational interventions.     

Job demands,job resources and safety outcomes: The roles of emotional exhaustion and safety compliance

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the job demands–resources (JD–R) model in explaining the relationship of job demands and resources with safety outcomes (i.e., workplace injuries and near-misses). We collected self-reported data from 670 crude oil production workers from three sub-companies of a major oilfield company in China. The results of a structural equation analysis indicated that job demands (psychological and physical demands) and job resources (decision latitude, supervisor support and coworker support) could affect emotional exhaustion and safety compliance, and thus influence the occurrence of injuries and near-misses. The implications of the present findings regarding both the JD–R model and occupational safety research were discussed.     

The effects of error management climate and safety communication on safety: A multi-level study

Work in the construction industry is considered inherently dangerous, despite the technological improvements regarding the safety of work conditions and equipment. To address the urgent need to identify organizational predictors of safety performance and outcomes among construction workers, the present study examined multi-level effects of two important indicators of safety climate, namely contractor error management climate and worker safety communication, on safety behavior, injury, and pain among union construction workers. Data were collected from 235 union construction workers employed by 15 contractors in Midwest and Northwest regions of the United States. Results revealed significant main effects for safety communication and error management climate on safety behaviors and pain, but not on injuries. Our findings suggest that positive safety communication and error management climate are important contributors to improving workplace safety. Specific implications of these results for organizational safety research and practice are discussed.     

Safety culture and accident analysis--a socio-management approach based on organizational safety social capital

One of the biggest challenges for organizations in today's competitive business environment is to create and preserve a self-sustaining safety culture. Typically, the key drivers of safety culture in many organizations are regulation, audits, safety training, various types of employee exhortations to comply with safety norms, etc. However, less evident factors like networking relationships and social trust amongst employees, as also extended networking relationships and social trust of organizations with external stakeholders like government, suppliers, regulators, etc., which constitute the safety social capital in the Organization—seem to also influence the sustenance of organizational safety culture. Can erosion in safety social capital cause deterioration in safety culture and contribute to accidents? If so, how does it contribute? As existing accident analysis models do not provide answers to these questions, CAMSoC (Curtailing Accidents by Managing Social Capital), an accident analysis model, is proposed. As an illustration, five accidents: Bhopal (India), Hyatt Regency (USA), Tenerife (Canary Islands), Westray (Canada) and Exxon Valdez (USA) have been analyzed using CAMSoC. This limited cross-industry analysis provides two key socio-management insights: the biggest source of motivation that causes deviant behavior leading to accidents is ‘Faulty Value Systems’. The second biggest source is ‘Enforceable Trust’. From a management control perspective, deterioration in safety culture and resultant accidents is more due to the ‘action controls’ rather than explicit ‘cultural controls’. Future research directions to enhance the model's utility through layering are addressed briefly.     

组织创新气氛与中小企业员工创新行为:工作投人的中介作用

本文以240名企业员工为被试,运用问卷调查法和层级回归分析的统计方法,考察了工作投入在组织创新气氛与员工创新行为的中介作用.结果表明:组织创新气氛对员工的创新行为具有显著的正向预测作用,但工作投入在组织创新气氛和员工创新行为中存在中介的作用.     

Job Demands–Control–Support model and employee safety performance

The aim of this study was to explore whether work characteristics (job demands, job control, social support) comprising Karasek and Theorell's (1990) Job Demands–Control–Support framework predict employee safety performance (safety compliance and safety participation; Neal and Griffin, 2006). We used cross-sectional data of self-reported work characteristics and employee safety performance from 280 healthcare staff (doctors, nurses, and administrative staff) from Emergency Departments of seven hospitals in the United Kingdom. We analyzed these data using a structural equation model that simultaneously regressed safety compliance and safety participation on the main effects of each of the aforementioned work characteristics, their two-way interactions, and the three-way interaction among them, while controlling for demographic, occupational, and organizational characteristics. Social support was positively related to safety compliance, and both job control and the two-way interaction between job control and social support were positively related to safety participation. How work design is related to employee safety performance remains an important area for research and provides insight into how organizations can improve workplace safety. The current findings emphasize the importance of the co-worker in promoting both safety compliance and safety participation.     

Preventing construction worker injury incidents through the management of personal stress and organizational stressors

Construction workers (CWs) are positioned at the lowest level of an organization and thus have limited control over their work. For this reason, they are often deprived of their due rewards and training or sometimes are even compelled to focus on production at the expense of their own safety. These organizational stressors not only cause the CWs stress but also impair their safety behaviors. The impairment of safety behaviors is the major cause of CW injury incidents. Hence, to prevent injury incidents and enhance safety behaviors of CWs, the current study aimed to identify the impact of various organizational stressors and stress on CW safety behaviors and injury incidents. To achieve this aim, we surveyed 395 CWs. Using factor analysis, we identified five organizational stressors (unfair reward and treatment, inappropriate safety equipment, provision of training, lack of goal setting, and poor physical environment), two types of stress (emotional and physical), and safety behaviors. The results of correlation and regression analyses revealed the following: (1) injury incidents were minimized by safety behaviors but escalated by a lack of goal setting, (2) safety behaviors were maximized by moderate levels of emotional stress (i.e., an inverted U-shape relationship between these two variables) and increased in line with physical stress and inappropriate safety equipment, (3) emotional stress was positively predicted by the provision of training and inappropriate safety equipment, and (4) physical stress was predicted only by inappropriate safety equipment. Based on these results, we suggest various recommendations to construction stakeholders on how to prevent CW injury incidents.     

民航从业者工作压力研究:基于网络论坛资料的编码研究

本研究以某民航专业网络论坛的发贴信息作为编码材料,采用内容分析法,系统探讨了中国民航业3个有代表性的职业(管制员、飞行员和机务维修人员)知觉到的压力源。结果发现,国内的管制员、飞行员和机务维修人员面临的压力源包括:工作任务、组织限制、职业发展、人际问题、工作-家庭冲突、组织政治,除此以外,工作回报的不公平、角色冲突、宏观的行业和社会环境也给从业者带来了较大的压力,并且引起3类人员产生压力的因素存在一定差异。最后,对未来可能进行的研究进行了展望。     

The social aspects of safety management: Trust and safety climate

This study tested the contribution of trust between leaders and subordinates to safety. It is suggested that leaders who create a relationship of trust with their subordinates are more likely to create a safe working environment, and to achieve higher and stronger safety-climate perceptions among their subordinates. Hence, trust should be negatively related to injuries and positively related to safety climate. Questionnaires distributed among 2524 soldiers in three army brigades tested for trust and safety-climate variables and were then crossed with injury rate according to medical records at the platoon level of analysis (N = 105). Trust was found to be negatively related to injuries and positively related both to level and strength of safety climate. Furthermore, safety-climate level was found to mediate the relationship between trust and injury rates. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Occupational safety: application of the job demand-control-support model

The utility of the job demand-control-support (JDCS) model for explaining psychological and physical well-being has been documented in a variety of settings. The current study's purpose was to assess the effectiveness of the JDCS model for predicting occupational safety well-being criteria (i.e., workplace injuries) based on two studies that employed samples of union blue-collar workers from two different regions of the United States. The JDCS model's buffer hypotheses were evaluated using hierarchical linear modeling. Both studies showed significant interactions between situational constraints and safety control to predict workplace injuries such that safety control buffered the negative effects of situational constraints. No significant three-way interaction between situational constraints, safety control, and safety climate on workplace injuries was found for either study. The implications of the present findings for both the JDCS model and occupational safety research are discussed.     

Conceptualizing and communicating organizational risk dynamics in the thoroughness–efficiency space

Organizations that design and/or operate complex systems have to make trade-offs between multiple, interacting, and sometimes conflicting goals at both the individual and organizational levels. Identifying, communicating, and resolving the conflict or tension between multiple organizational goals is challenging. Furthermore, maintaining an appropriate level of safety in such complex environments is difficult for a number of reasons discussed in this paper. The objective of this paper is to propose a set of related concepts that can help conceptualize organizational risk and help managers to understand the implications of various performance and resource pressures and make appropriate trade-offs between efficiency and thoroughness that maintain system safety. The concepts here introduced include (1) the thoroughness–efficiency space for classifying organizational behavior, and the various resource/performance and regulatory pressures that can displace organizations from one quadrant to another within this space, (2) the thoroughness–efficiency barrier and safety threshold, and (3) the efficiency penalty that organizations should accept, and not trade against organizational thoroughness, in order to maintain safety. Unfortunately, many accidents share a conceptual sameness in the way they occur. That sameness can be related to the dynamics conceptualized in this paper and the violation of the safety threshold. This sameness is the sad story of the Bhopal accident, the Piper Alpha accident, and score of others. Finally, we highlight the importance of a positive safety culture as an essential complement to regulatory pressure in maintaining safety. We illustrate the “slippery slope of thoroughness” along which organizational behavior slides under the influence of performance pressure, and suggest that a positive safety culture can be conceived of as “pulling this slippery slope” up and preventing the violation of the safety threshold.