Safety climate profiles in remote workers: Association with key predictors and outcomes at the team level

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that the safety climate is a robust predictor of safety behaviors and workplace incidents. However, previous studies primarily focused on safety climate as a whole and overlooked distinct configurations of safety climate dimensions as well as their antecedents and outcomes. The present research examined safety climate profiles with 2421 remote workers on 183 teams. In addition, this study investigated the roles of leader–member exchange and psychological ownership as antecedents of safety climate profiles and whether safety climate profiles were associated with work engagement and safety behaviors. Latent profile analysis revealed five safety climate profiles: group-focused, conflicted, organization-focused, comprehensive, and outstanding. Results also showed that low leader–member exchange was associated with membership in group-focused and organization-focused profiles rather than comprehensive profiles, while low ownership was associated with an increased likelihood of membership in the group-focused profile compared to the comprehensive profile. Furthermore, only the organization-focused profile was associated with undesirable levels of engagement and safety behaviors, in contrast to a comprehensive profile. This study contributes to the safety climate literature by identifying safety climate profiles and their implications in remote worker teams. The findings call for the fine-tuned assessment and analysis of safety climate for effective workplace safety promotion.