Temporal leadership, attentiveness, and safety behaviors: The moderating roles of abusive supervision and safety consciousness

Abstract

Construction safety has drawn increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners. The relationships between safety-specific leadership behaviors and safety behaviors are well-documented. However, less is known about whether and how other leadership behaviors such as temporal leadership, which focuses on managing time-related resources for task achievement, might impact construction workers’ safety-specific attitudes and behaviors. In this study, social information processing theory is applied to examine how and when temporal leadership influences individual safety behaviors. Specifically, attentiveness is considered to be a mediator in the relationship between temporal leadership and individual safety behaviors, and the moderating roles of team abusive supervision and individual safety consciousness are examined. Using a sample of 535 workers nested in 120 teams engaged in construction projects in China, the hypothesized moderated mediation model was examined using multilevel modeling analysis and bootstrapping methods. The results identify a positive effect of temporal leadership on safety compliance and safety participation mediated through attentiveness. This indirect effect is weaker when there is more team-level abusive supervision, and stronger when there is a higher individual safety consciousness. This study contributes to emerging research on safety management and temporal management by showing how the affective mechanism of temporal leadership influences individual safety behaviors. Moreover, the boundary conditions under which temporal leadership influences safety behaviors are also identified.