The Perspective of Safety Engineers on Safety Climate

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate safety climate and how it relates to the safety performance of employees from the perspective of safety engineers. Using Griffin and Neal's (2000) safety climate model as a theoretical basis, we hypothesized that the organizational safety climate is a higher‐order construct that relates to the safety compliance of employees and their safety participation via the mediating roles of safety knowledge and safety motivation. Hypotheses were tested among 236 safety engineers working in the wood and metal‐processing industries in Austria. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that safety climate is a higher‐order construct comprising manager values, safety communication, safety practices, safety training, and safety equipment. Moreover, from the perspective of safety engineers, the safety climate of the organizations was related to employee safety motivation, which in turn related to their safety compliance and safety participation. In contrast to our assumptions, the safety knowledge of employees was, in the view of safety engineers, neither related to employee safety compliance nor to their safety participation. Multigroup analysis revealed no differences between internally and externally employed safety engineers for these relations. Thus, although the safety climate model was generally confirmed from an engineer's perspective, engineers rated motivational aspects of safety climate is more important compared to knowledge aspects.