Group Safety Climate Research Articles

Safety climate and seat belt use in the fire service

Objective Motor vehicle incidents or apparatus crashes are a leading cause of firefighter fatalities in the United States. Nonuse of seat belts has been linked to some of these fatalities. This research seeks to understand the relationship between safety climate and seat belt use among firefighters, as findings will provide insights into factors that may bolster seat belt use and protect firefighters. Methods Data were collected from 208 career firefighters working for a city fire department in the southeastern United States. Structural equation modeling was used to test a hypothesized model and to assess the relationships between organizational safety climate, work group safety climate and seat belt use. Results It was determined that positive perceptions of workgroup safety climate, as a higher order factor, comprised of supervisor support, horizontal cohesion, and vertical cohesion, was positively associated with seat belt use within a sample of firefighters. Organizational level safety climate did not have a significant relationship with seat belt use but did positively influence workgroup safety climate perceptions. Conclusions Safety climate has been associated with safety compliance and participation behaviors, but more research was needed to specifically examine the impact of safety climate on seat belt use in firefighters. The findings point to the importance of safety climate as a leading indicator and predictor of seat belt use. Bolstering safety climate through safety programs, commitment to safety, effective communication, supportive supervisors and cohesion should ultimately aid in bolstering seat belt use among firefighters, which is important to curtailing firefighter injuries and fatalities.

Mindful organizing mediates the relations between group safety climate and safety-related behaviors among operating room team members

IntroductionMindful organizing as a team-level capability can help team members anticipate what can go wrong and recover quickly to maintain adequate team function and safe performance. This study aims to assess the mediating role of mindful organizing in the relationship between group safety climate and in-role and extra-role safety-related behaviors among 15 work teams in 15 operating rooms of a general hospital. MethodSelf-reported questionnaires were used to collect data concerning group safety climate, mindful organizing, and safety-related behaviors from a number of the operating room staff. In addition, behavioral markers were used to assess team functions regarding safety issues based on the assessment of the observer. ResultsThe effects of group safety climate on mindful organizing (b = 0.44, p < 0.001) and mindful organizing on safety behavior (b = 0.69, p < 0.001) and safety citizenship behavior (b = 0.51, p < 0.001) were positive and statistically significant. Furthermore, the mediation effect of group safety climate through mindful organizing on safety-related behaviors was statistically significant. The results of assessing behavioral markers before, during, and after surgical operations showed that plastic surgery, obstetric and gynecologic surgery, orthopedic surgery, vascular surgery, and ear, nose, and throat surgery obtained lower ranks in effective team functioning concerning safety issues in the study hospital. ConclusionThis study extends the research on how mindful organizing can affect the relationship between group safety climate and employees’ in-role and extra-role safety-related behaviors. These results can help increase our understanding of how mindful organizing might influence team-level reliability in surgical operations.

Key drivers of trucking safety climate from the perspective of leader-member exchange: Bayesian network predictive modeling approach

PurposeSafety climate, which is defined as workers’ shared perceptions of organizational policies, procedures, and practices as they relate to the true or relative value and importance of safety within an organization, is one of the best indicators of organizational safety outcomes. This study identifies key drivers of safety climate from the perspective of leader-member exchange (LMX). LMX is a theory describing the nature and processes of social interactions between a supervisor and a subordinate. This study examines the impact of individual drivers and combinations of drivers on safety climate through Bayesian Network simulations to predict practices which most effectively improve safety climate in the trucking industry. MethodSurvey data were collected from 5083 truck drivers in a large U.S. trucking company. Bayesian Network analysis was used to identify key drivers (factors) of safety climate and the best joint strategies for improvement. The impact of the drivers on safety climate was assessed and the simulation identified their potential impact independently and in concert with other drivers. ResultsThe results from Bayesian Network analyses showed that the effects of LMX on organization- and group-level safety climate were conditionally dependent on four other drivers including psychological ownership, supervisory integrity, situation awareness, and safety communication. Among the five contributing factors, supervisory integrity and LMX had the strongest independent effects on organization- and group-level safety climate. Moreover, the results indicated that the best two joint strategies for promoting organizational (company/top management level) safety climate were LMX and psychological ownership as well as LMX and situation awareness, whereas the best two joint strategies for improving group (workgroup/supervisor level) safety climate were joint optimization of LMX and safety communication as well as LMX and psychological ownership. ImplicationsBased on the study results, the strategies that may have the most potential to improve trucking safety climate are: enhancing leaders' ability to engage in high-quality exchanges (e.g., caring about employees), developing training to encourage employees/leaders to deliver on promises, and providing employees with more autonomy to enhance their ownership.

Impact of Supervisory Safety Communication on Safety Climate and Behavior in Construction Workgroups

In industries in which organizations work in decentralized and distributed structures such as construction, workers are more likely to be influenced by their workgroup supervisors than upper-level management. A study was conducted to quantitatively examine the relationships among supervisory safety communication, group safety climate, and safety behaviors, as well as to qualitatively explore effective ways for supervisors to communicate safety expectations and information to workers. A survey was conducted among workers engaged in rail construction work in Melbourne, Australia. Survey data were collected from 20 workgroups across 11 different worksites. Participant observation was also performed on these worksites to observe safety-related interactions and communication between supervisors and workers. The quantitative research results show that supervisory safety communication practices play a critical role in shaping safety climate within workgroups, which subsequently affects workers’ self-reported safety compliance and safety participation behaviors. The on-site participant observations identified various characteristics of effective safety communication between supervisors and coworkers, including regular engagement, consistent messages and actions, active listening, approachability, personal messages, and respectful delivery. The research results provide important practical implications for construction organizations to dedicate resources to developing supervisors’ leadership capabilities and personal skills, which could contribute to improved safety communication and safety performance in the workplace.

Trickling down: The impact of leaders on individual role clarity through safety climate strength across time

Safety researchers and practitioners seeking to have a long lasting impact on important variables such as safety climate typically investigate constructs operating within the immediate organisational environment such as leader support. These frequently have an impact on individual level perceptions. This paper contributes to theoretical development in this area by examining the impact of positive forms of leader support and negative forms such as passive management by exception on safety climate and safety climate strength (i.e. consistency in safety climate perceptions within a group). Results provide strong evidence for the negative influence of passive management by exception on safety climate strength across time and concur and support previous research demonstrating significant positive relationships between safety climate perceptions across time. Importantly, the impact of passive management by exception on safety climate strength flowed through to a cross-level moderation of the relationship between individual conscientiousness and role clarity suggesting that both leaders and safety climate strength fundamentally change individual behaviour. The results suggest an important potential for intervention work specifically correcting leadership styles which are passive to instead encourage proactivity in order to improve group safety climate strength and individual role clarity. In addition, the results indicate that safety climate constructs are highly related across time and efforts to change perceptions may lie earlier in the nomological network.

Developing a safety climate factor model in construction research and practice

PurposeSafety climate and its impact on safety performance is well established; however, researchers in this field suggest that the absence of a common assessment framework is a reflection of the state of development of this concept. The purpose of this paper is to propose a five-factor model that can be used to diagnose and measure safety climate in construction safety research and practice.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review was adopted, and following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, 574 articles were selected at the start of the study based on a developed review protocol for investigating safety climate factors. While examining the factor analysis of different studies, data reliability and data validity of the individual research findings were considered and frequency of factors uploaded was used to determine the significance as a quantitative measure to develop the ranking of safety climate factors.FindingsThe review identified that, from the established measures of safety climate in construction, there is little uniformity on factor importance. However, management commitment safety system role of the supervisor; workers’ involvement and group safety climate were found to be the most common across the studies reviewed. It is proposed these factors are used to inform a five-factor model for investigating safety climate in the construction industry.Originality/valueThe findings of this study will motivate researchers and practitioners in safety to use the five-factor safety climate model presented in this paper and test it to develop a common factor structure for the construction industry. The fact that the model is comprised of five factors makes it easier to be used and implemented by small-to medium-sized construction companies, therefore enhancing its potential use.

Is there agreement between worker self and supervisor assessment of worker safety performance? An examination in the construction industry

Introduction: Individual safety performance (behavior) critically influences safety outcomes in high-risk workplaces. Compared to the study of generic work performance on different measurements, few studies have investigated different measurements of safety performance, typically relying on employees' self-reflection of their safety behavior. This research aims to address this limitation by including worker self-reflection and other (i.e., supervisor) assessment of two worker safety performance dimensions, safety compliance and safety participation. Method: A sample of 105 workers and 17 supervisors in 17 groups in the Chinese construction industry participated in this study. Comparisons were made between worker compliance and participation in each measurement, and between workers' and supervisors' assessment of workers' compliance and participation. Multilevel modeling was adopted to test the moderating effects on the worker self-reflection and supervisor-assessment relationship by group safety climate and the work experience of supervisors. Results: Higher levels of safety compliance than participation were found for self-reflection and supervisor assessment. The discrepancy between the two measurements in each safety performance dimension was significant. The work experience of supervisors attenuated the discrepancy between self- and supervisor-assessment of compliance. Contrary to our expectations, the moderating effect of group safety climate was not supported. Conclusions: The discrepancy between worker self- and supervisor-assessment of worker safety performance, thus, suggests the importance of including alternative measurements of safety performance in addition to self-reflection. Lower levels of participation behavior in both raters suggest more research on the motivators of participatory behavior. Practical applications The discrepancy between different raters can lead to negative reactions of ratees, suggesting that managers should be aware of that difference. Assigning experienced supervisors as raters can be effective at mitigating interrater discrepancy and conflicts in the assessment of compliance behavior.

Hospital unit safety climate: Relationship with nurses' adherence to recommended use of facial protective equipment

BackgroundDespite the existence of formal guidelines for the acute health care sector, nurses' adherence to recommended use of facial protective equipment (FPE) to prevent occupational transmission of communicable respiratory disease remains suboptimal. In addition to individual factors such as knowledge and education, group factors such as shared perceptions of organizational support for safety may influence adherence. These group safety climate perceptions can differ depending on the pace and type of work, local leadership, and organizational structure of each unit.MethodsAn analysis of a data set from a cross-sectional survey of 1,074 nurses in 45 units of 6 acute care hospitals was conducted. Variance components analysis was performed to examine the variance in perceptions of safety climate and adherence between units. Hierarchical linear modeling using unit-level safety climate dimensions was conducted to determine if unit-level safety climate dimensions were predictors of nurses' adherence to FPE.ResultsFindings revealed statistically significant unit variances in adherence and 5 of the 6 unit-level safety climate dimensions (P < .05). Furthermore, a hierarchical model suggested that tenure and unit-level communication were significantly associated with increased adherence to FPE (P < .05).ConclusionUnit-level safety climate measures varied significantly between units. Strategies to improve unit-level communication regarding safety should assist in improving adherence to FPE.

Australian construction supervisors’ response to occupational health and safety

A survey of Australian construction workers was conducted within three different organisations. The purpose of the survey was to determine whether members of workgroups within the construction industry develop unique and group-specific safety climates. The existence of group safety climate was ascertained by the degree of consensus between members of the same workgroup about their supervisors’ response to safety within the organisation and the extent to which these perceptions varied between different workgroups within the same organisation. The research also evaluated the extent to which group-level safety climates were statistically linked to the injury/incident performance of workgroups in the three organisations. Although limited by the reliance on macro-incident data as the measure of workgroup safety performance, workers’ perceptions of supervisors’ safety expectations were inversely correlated with injury/incident rate in one organisation. The results provide much needed empirical evidence revealing the important role played by supervisors in defining the workgroup safety climates. Given that supervisors are a critical conduit through which organisational safety goals are articulated and achieved, the results indicate that the safety responses of first-level supervisors are likely to be just as important as, if not more so, than the actions of top management in construction organisations.

Validation of the group nuclear safety climate questionnaire

IntroductionGroup safety climate is a leading indicator of safety performance in high reliability organizations. Zohar and Luria (2005) developed a Group Safety Climate scale (ZGSC) and found it to have a single factor. MethodThe ZGSC scale was used as a basis in this study with the researchers rewording almost half of the items on this scale, changing the referents from the leader to the group, and trying to validate a two-factor scale. The sample was composed of 566 employees in 50 groups from a Spanish nuclear power plant. Item analysis, reliability, correlations, aggregation indexes and CFA were performed. ResultsResults revealed that the construct was shared by each unit, and our reworded Group Safety Climate (GSC) scale showed a one-factor structure and correlated to organizational safety climate, formalized procedures, safety behavior, and time pressure. “Impact on IndustryThis validation of the one-factor structure of the Zohar and Luria (2005) scale could strengthen and spread this scale and measure group safety climate more effectively.

Multilevel approach to organizational and group safety climate and safety performance: Co-workers as the missing link

The aim of this study is to test a model on the relationships between organizational and group safety climate and safety performance, that highlights the importance of co-workers as a safety climate agent side by side supervisors at group level. The idea is to consider the co-workers’ safety climate as a necessary part of a multilevel model of safety climates’ framework associated to safety performance. Firstly, the assessment of the safety climates’ framework which consider organizational safety climate and at group level supervisor’s and co-workers’ safety climate was performed. Then, the mediating role of co-workers’ safety climate between organizational and supervisor’s safety climate, and worker’s safety behaviours was explored. From the literature, the importance to study safety climate in a multilevel perspective by a theoretical and methodological point of view is known. For these reasons the proposed models were tested with multilevel structural equation modelling. We used a two-level design which considered the individual level and the work-group level. Data collection involved 991 blue-collars, belonging to 91 work groups, from five Italian manufacturing companies. The research highlighted the importance of considering at group level not only climate referred to supervisor, but also climate referred to co-workers. Furthermore, results confirmed the mediating role of co-workers’ safety climate and revealed that co-workers’ safety climate had a stronger influence on safety behaviours, and in particular on safety participation, than supervisor’s safety climate, at individual level as well at group level.

The influence of supervisor leadership practices and perceived group safety climate on employee safety performance

The current study investigates the influence of the leadership practices of first-line supervisors on the safety compliance and safety participation of the employees who work for them. Contingent reward and transformational leadership are examined under conditions of positive and non-positive group safety climate in both the manufacturing and constructions sectors. Using moderated regression models (Aguinis, 2004) results indicate that greater levels of transformational and contingent reward leadership are both associated with greater levels of safety compliance and safety participation behavior, however group safety climate moderates the leadership-safety compliance relationships. Under positive group safety climate conditions employee safety compliance behavior improves as supervisor’s leadership practices increase; under non-positive group safety compliance conditions there is no improvement in safety compliance with improvements in supervisor’s leadership practices. The results provide further support to the growing literature on the value of strong group safety climates for improving safety compliance behavior, as well as the value in improving the leadership practices of first-line supervisors.

Coworkers' response to occupational health and safety

PurposeThe paper's aim is to document a survey of Australian construction workers that was conducted to examine whether conditions of within‐group homogeneity and between‐group heterogeneity in perceptions of coworkers' safety response were satisfied. The factor structure of coworkers' safety response is to be explored and the relationship between workgroup members' perceptions of their coworkers' safety response and the workgroups' injury rate is to be examined in three organizations.Design/methodology/approachA safety climate survey was conducted within three organizations. Retrospective and prospective workgroup injury data were collected from company records. The factor structure of coworkers' safety response was analysed using principal components analysis (PCA). Within‐group homogeneity and between‐group heterogeneity were examined using inter‐rater agreement and analyses of variance respectively. Bivariate correlations were used to explore linkages between perceptions of coworkers' safety response and workgroup injury rates.FindingsTwo distinct factors were indicated by the PCA were labeled “Coworkers' actual safety response” and “Coworkers' ideal safety response”. “Coworkers' actual safety response” demonstrated significant between‐group variance and within‐group consensus in two of the three organizations. No significant between‐group variation was found for ‘Coworkers' ideal safety response'. Neither aspect of coworkers' safety response was consistently significantly correlated with workgroup injury rate.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research should examine the relationship between coworkers' safety response and workgroup safety performance using measures other than reportable injury rates.Practical implicationsThe confirmation that “Coworkers' actual safety response” is a facet of group safety climate suggests that interventions to develop coworkers' support for safety within workgroups may be helpful. In particular, strategies to speed up the process of assimilation into workgroups through induction and teambuilding exercises should be evaluated.Originality/valueThe study builds on previous research examining group safety climate in construction, providing further evidence that coworkers' safety response items should be included along with supervisors' safety response items in the measurement of group safety climate. The findings suggest important directions for future empirical evaluation of the impact of coworkers' response on workgroup safety climate and performance in the construction industry.

Properties of group safety climate in construction: the development and evaluation of a typology

A safety climate survey was conducted in three Australian construction industry organizations. Workers’ perceptions of their supervisors’ safety response (SSR) and co‐workers’ safety response (CSR) were measured as facets of group safety climate. A two‐dimensional schema was developed based upon the strength and the level of group safety climate. The resulting framework was used to position the 40 workgroups included in the sample within one of four group safety climate types. A non‐parametric Kruskal Wallis test revealed that workgroups in which members share a strong consensus that co‐workers should treat safety as a priority had a significantly lower injury frequency rate than other workgroups in the sample. While no significant differences between the injury frequency rates of workgroups positioned in the four safety climate types were found for the other facets of group safety climate, workgroups with strong and high (i.e. strongly supportive) safety climates related to supervisors’ safety expectations and co‐workers’ actual safety behaviour reported injury frequency rates on average two‐thirds the magnitude of the remaining workgroups in the sample. Although limited by the reliance on retrospective and insensitive measurement for the dependent variable (i.e. injury frequency rates), the research provides preliminary evidence for the importance of considering both the strength and level of group safety climates in the construction industry. Future research should seek to replicate and extend this research by examining the antecedents of group safety climate strength and level in the construction context.

Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors.

Recent conceptual and methodological advances in behavioral safety research afford an opportunity to integrate past and recent research findings. Building on theoretical models of worker performance and work climate, this study quantitatively integrates the safety literature by meta-analytically examining person- and situation-based antecedents of safety performance behaviors and safety outcomes (i.e., accidents and injuries). As anticipated, safety knowledge and safety motivation were most strongly related to safety performance behaviors, closely followed by psychological safety climate and group safety climate. With regard to accidents and injuries, however, group safety climate had the strongest association. In addition, tests of a meta-analytic path model provided support for the theoretical model that guided this overall investigation. The implications of these findings for advancing the study and management of workplace safety are discussed.

A MULTILEVEL INTEGRATION OF PERSONALITY, CLIMATE, SELF‐REGULATION, AND PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this multilevel study was to test whether regulatory focus mechanisms (promotion focus and prevention focus; Higgins, 1997, American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300; Higgins, 2000, American Psychologist, 55, 1217–1230) can help explain how group safety climate and individual differences in Conscientiousness relate to individual productivity and safety performance. Results, based on a sample of 254 employees from 50 work groups, showed that safety climate and conscientiousness predicted promotion and prevention regulatory focus, which in turn mediated the relationships of safety climate and Conscientiousness with supervisor ratings of productivity and safety performance. Implications for theory and research on climate, motivation, and performance and avenues for future research are discussed.