The effects of organizational and individual factors on occupational accidents

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between individual psychological, work environment and organizational variables and occupational accidents using structural equation modelling with latent variables. A series of nested explicative models of the relationships between these variables was derived. Data were collected from a wide range of industrial sectors in the Valencia region of Spain using structured interviews. In total, 525 valid questionnaires were completed and these formed the basis for the subsequent analyses. Analysis showed that the model in the series that proposed relationships between all the latent variables provided the best representation of the data. This supported the broad hypothesis that each of the variables has an effect on accidents and also showed that the individual level variables, including safe behaviour and general heath, mediate the indirect effects from the organizational variables. The final model showed that individual safe behaviour is strongly predicted within the model, although it is mainly related to organizational involvement in safety and not directly to perceptions of the physical work environment. An important role is played in the final model by participants' evaluations of organizational involvement in safety and this is consistent with earlier work highlighting the importance of management commitment to, and action on, safety issues. Finally, the model supported the proposal that stress processes mediate the effects of both organizational and environmental variables.