Safety Climate Model Research Articles

Psychosocial workplace safety in mental health services - Commentary and considerations to improve safety.

Psychosocially unsafe workplaces are related to burnout, especially amongst trainees and psychiatrists. Burgeoning research on psychosocial workplace safety indicates the importance of organisational governance to reduce adverse professional, and consequently patient, outcomes in healthcare by balancing job demands and resources. We provide a brief commentary on the relevance of the concept of the Psychosocial Safety Climate model for mental health services and healthcare workers, and considerations for action. Based on the Extended Job Demand-Resource model, the Psychosocial Safety Climate model has been developed and validated in community and healthcare environments. Psychosocial safety is also an Australian workplace safety requirement. An important direction to improve working conditions, reduce adverse outcomes, and improve recruitment and retention of healthcare workers, may be to adopt and formalise psychosocial workplace safety as a key performance indicator of equal importance to productivity for mental healthcare services.

Impact of Safety Management Practices on Safety Performance in Workplace Environment: A Case Study in Iraqi Electricity Production Industry

Organizations are becoming more aware of the need to ensure a safe working environment for their staff. Technological advancements and industrial growth have enhanced efficiency, however, they present new challenges and risks for employees. Accidents remain a concern despite International Labor Organization (ILO) guidelines, governmental bodies, and industry institutions promoting workplace safety. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the determinants of workplace safety performance, particularly in the electrical power industry. This study formulates a theoretical model to assess the predictors of safety practices of managers and staff in the Iraqi electricity sector, extending the safety climate model with four external constructs and a moderating variable. Data were collected from 374 participants using an online questionnaire and the PLS-SEM method for analysis. The factor loadings exceeded the recommended value of 0.7 and internal consistencies were greater than the threshold value of 0.8. The findings showed that the safety performance in the Iraqi electric power sector is influenced by safety communication, safety policy, safety control, prevention planning, and safety commitment. Safety commitment is affected by safety policy, prevention planning, control, and communication, while safety training and safety control were found to be insignificant. Furthermore, safety communication had the most significant effect. The results of this study provide some theoretical and practical implications for employees' safety performance toward their overall safety in the electric power industry.

Workplace Injuries: A Comparative Study of Young and Old Workers in a Construction Site

Abstract: It has been shown by the research that young workers (<25 years old) are more subjected to workplace injuries than old workers. But paradoxically, the injuries that young workers are exposed to are not severe. The study is aimed to find out risk factors for injuries in construction industry focusing on the risk factors associated with young workers. The results show that young workers are more involved in workplace injuries than old workers, irrespective of considering department size and type of discipline. However, when variables are added for physical and psychosocial work environment in the safety climate model, age seems to be of less importance. Physical demands (vibration and heavy lifting) and control over work pace are concerned with an increased risk for injuries. This may indicate that the work task distribution among different age groups has an impact on injury risk. Safety climate is not associated with risk for injuries. The study has an indication that the work task distribution between two groups ought to be further explained in relation with injury risk.

Factors influencing safety compliance behavior among food delivery riders – an application of safety climate model

The increasing of road traffic accidents is threatening the well-being of road users worldwide and a high number of people died or become disabled. Several studies have shown that risky riding is prevalent among motorcyclists, consisting of traditional and new commercial ones, especially in the middle-income–countries (MICs) and low–income–countries (LICs). Griffin and Neal’s [1] safety climate model was used to point out the link between safety climate and safety knowledge and safety compliance; the effect of safety knowledge on safety compliance is also considered as the result of this research. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze these relationships among latent constructs. Data was collected from 433 base-app motorcyclists. The results show that the safety knowledge of motorcyclists plays a mediate role in safety compliance and safety climate. The results are useful for developing measures that aim to reduce risky riding behaviors among food delivery riders.

Mental Health Causation in the Construction Industry: A Systematic Review Employing a Psychological Safety Climate Model

The construction industry has a lamentable reputation for having a high prevalence of suicides and mental health (MH) problems. Several government and academic reports have identified that construction workers are at a far higher risk of MH disorders than workers in other industrial sectors. While studies on construction workers’ MH have significantly increased in recent years, a systematic review of the potential causes of MH problems in the industry has hitherto eluded construction researchers. This study fills this ominous knowledge gap by conducting a realist systematic review of the literature published since 2003. The review conducted adopts the psychological safety climate model of PSC-12 to create a comprehensive list of MH causation (sourced from a rich literature synthesis) as a precursor to developing a theoretical model that identifies MH causations affecting distinct psychological safety climates within the industry. Emergent findings identify 43 MH causation factors with high job demand as the most significant contributor, followed by interpersonal relationships, low job control, low job support and physical status. In addition, it is found that organisation participation factors have been the major areas of focus, while management commitment and management priority are under-researched areas. Moreover, research gaps within the four dimensions of the PCS-12 model were explored to distinguish new potential research areas to address the knowledge gaps observed. In practical terms, the study collates and presents a comprehensive theoretical model of MH causations, providing a concise source of practical knowledge for practitioners.

Emotional dissonance and burnout among child welfare workers: The moderating role of social support from colleagues, supervisors, and organization

Summary Occupational burnout has significant costs for individuals, employers, and the society. Knowledge about risk and protective factors is therefore highly important. This study examined emotional dissonance as a risk factor and colleague, supervisor, and organizational support as protective factors regarding burnout among child welfare workers. It was expected that emotional dissonance would be positively related to burnout, and that social support would attenuate the magnitude of the association. Based on the Psychosocial safety climate model, it was also suggested that organizational support would be negatively associated with levels of emotional dissonance and thereby also burnout. Findings The study was based on a cross-sectional probability sample of employees working in the child welfare service in Oslo municipality, Norway ( N = 678). Emotional dissonance was positively related to burnout. In contrast to expectations, the interaction analyses showed a reverse buffering effect where the examined sources of social support intensified the association between emotional dissonance and burnout. Organizational support had an indirect association with burnout through emotional dissonance. Applications While the cross-sectional nature of the study does not allow for any conclusions about causal effects, the findings indicate that other stress-buffering job resources than social support are more beneficial in efforts focusing on reducing the detrimental impact of emotional demands in child welfare work. However, more knowledge concerning the actual effectiveness of receiving support is necessary to draw more definite conclusions.

The utility of a safety climate scale among workers with a work-related permanent impairment who have returned to work.

Safety climate (SC) is a robust leading indicator of occupational safety outcomes. There is, however, limited research on SC among workers who have returned to work with a work-related permanent impairment. This study examined three propositions: (1) a two-level model of SC (group-level and organization-level SC) will provide the best fit to the data; (2) antecedent factors such as safety training, job demands, supervisor support, coworker support, and decision latitude will predict SC; and (3) previously reported associations between SC and outcomes such as reinjury, work-family conflict, job performance, and job security will be observed. A representative cross-sectional survey gathered information about experiences during the first year of work reintegration. About one year after claim closure, 599 interviews with workers were conducted (53.8% response rate). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the factor structure of the SC construct. Further, researchers used correlation analyses to examine the criterion-related validity. Consistent with general worker populations, our findings suggest the following: (1) the two-factor structure of SC outperformed the single-factor structure in our population of workers with a permanent impairment; (2) correlations demonstrate that workplace safety training, decision latitude, supervisor support, coworker support, and job demands could predict SC; and (3) SC may positively impact reinjury risk, work-family conflict, and may increase job performance and job security. Our study validated a two-factor SC scale among workers with a history of disabling workplace injury or permanent impairment who have returned to work. Practical applications of this scale will equip organizations with the necessary data to improve working conditions for this population.

Psychological distress and post-traumatic growth in France during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mediation model of psychosocial safety climate as a determinant of work performance.

The psychosocial safety climate (PSC) reflects workers' perceptions of senior management's concern for mental health. Because the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated organizational issues, PSC could be a target for interventions attempting to preserve both the psychological health of employees and the economic health of companies. This study examines the direct and indirect relationships between PSC and work performance through two indicators of psychological health, psychological distress and post-traumatic growth, during a health crisis, i.e., prior to the second confinement in France. To this end, 2,004 participants from the French workforce completed a survey in October 2020. The results of mediation analyses indicate that PSC has a direct and positive influence on post-traumatic growth (PTG) and performance, as well as a direct negative influence on psychological distress. PSC also has an indirect positive influence on performance via psychological distress. Organizations that wish to jointly address mental health and performance at work would benefit from optimizing PSC.

Organizational Safety Climate Factor Model in the Urban Rail Transport Industry through CFA Analysis

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) issues in the urban rail transport industry need to be given full attention due to the factors of the instability of declining occupational accident rate, increasing number of passengers each year, and the pressure of technological development; in addition, the day-to-day operations also involve the public and various interested communities. Organization is one of the factors that influence worker safety and health status. This study aimed to propose a factor model of the organizational safety climate towards a better safety and health status for Malaysian urban rail industry. This quantitative study used a questionnaire randomly distributed to Malaysian rail system workers. A total of 441 workers in the operation and maintenance division were involved in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using IBM SEM-AMOS was conducted to determine the reliability and validity of the observed variables and the latent variables. This study proved that all four dimensions identified as safety communication, safety training, safety support system, and safety value represents the organizational safety climate. Following the analysis, an organizational safety climate model is successfully developed. This factor model aims to be used in the context of rail management studies to measure the safety climate of their organization, thereby improving the safety level of the workers within the organization.

Validation of an agent-specific safety climate model for construction

Purpose Safety climate (SC) is considered a leading indicator of safety performance, but scholars suggest that a common SC assessment framework is yet to be developed. Following the debate between the importance of facet analysis and agent analysis, the purpose of this paper is to test a factor structure, developed by the authors in previous work and arising from their systematic literature review, highlighting the role of safety agents in a construction site setting. Design/methodology/approach Multi-level SC surveys were conducted at five construction sites in Sydney, Australia, collecting data from of 352 workers associated with a mega-construction project. While examining the factor analysis of different studies, data reliability and data validity of the survey findings were ensured and a goodness-of-fit of SC model was examined through structural equation modelling. Findings The systematic literature review of Newaz et al. (2018) suggested a five-factor model of: management commitment, safety system, role of the supervisor, workers’ involvement and group SC. However, empirical data indicated that the questionnaire used to measure “safety system” failed to pass scale reliability; thus, a four-factor model was proposed to develop an agent-specific SC factor structure in the construction industry. Originality/value The four-factor model indicates the role and level of influence of different safety agents to improve safety perceptions on construction sites. The findings of this study will encourage researchers in construction safety to use the simplified four-factor SC (agent-specific) model presented and test it to further develop a common factor structure for the construction industry. The fact that the model is comprised of four factors makes further implementation somewhat easier in the development of safety plans, and when considering the role of safety agents, therefore enhancing its potential value.

Ethical Leadership and Knowledge Hiding: A Moderated Mediation Model of Psychological Safety and Mastery Climate

According to social learning theory, we explored the relation between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. We developed a moderated mediation model of the psychological safety linking ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. Surveying 436 employees in 78 teams, we found that ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, and that this relation was mediated by psychological safety. We further found that the effect of ethical leadership on knowledge hiding was contingent on a mastery climate. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed for leadership and knowledge management.

Research on the Relationship of Safety Climate and Safety Performance in Airlines

For the sake of exploring influences of safety climate on safety performance, and improving the level of safety performance, the connotation indicators of safety climate and safety performance in Airlines were set up, and the hypothesis model of safety climate and safety performance was proposed. 200 workers in 10 Airlines in China were enquired by means of questionnaires and the structural equation model (SEM) was used to verify the hypothesis. Results showed that there is a positive correlation of safety climate with safety performance. The manager’s concern on safety is significantly positively related to safety behaviors and safety results, and the risk perception is significantly positively related to safety results. There is a positive correlation of safety attitude and safety perception with safety behaviors. And also the safety promotion is positively related to safety results. In safety management, the Airlines can improve their safety climate, especially manager’s concern on safety and risk perception of employees, to achieve high safety performance.

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.

A resilience safety climate model predicting construction safety performance

Safety climate has the potential to affect construction safety performance. The current focus of construction safety climate research has been on management commitment, safety rules and procedures, housekeeping and safety equipment, supervisor and coworker safety perception. However, other aspects, such as reporting and preparedness, that are also critical to safety performance, are rarely measured. In the meantime, safety plateau in the construction industry has been observed in many countries; and there are less and less injury data, which has made safety performance prediction more and more difficult. All of this has necessitated us looking for a new approach. Resilience, that is a concept under development, has shown its ability to continuously improve safety performance. Thus, to enhance the existing safety climate model, this paper developed a concept called Safety ClimateResilience (SCR) by introducing resilience to safety climate. SCR is measured by seven dimensions including management commitment, supervisor safety perception, coworker safety perception, learning, reporting, anticipation, and awareness. Based on 431 self-administered surveys from 68 construction sites in Ontario, Canada, SCR measure model was validated and the interactions of the seven factors of SCR model were also investigated. This paper leads to several conclusions. First, a resilience safety climate model was built and firstly applied to the construction industry. Second, commitment from all organizational levels, from top management, to site level, and to individual level, is the key to promoting a better safety performance. Third, safety awareness is the most important individual factor affecting the safety performance of construction workers.

Psychosocial safety climate as resource passageways to alleviate work-family conflict

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional mediating model of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and work-family interference. More precisely, it tests the direct and indirect effects of PSC on work-family conflict (WFC)/family-work conflict (FWC)-time and WFC/FWC-strain via family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB).Design/methodology/approachThe structural equation method was used to test the direct effect of PSC on WFC/FWC time and strain. As for the mediation effects, they were tested by the method of indirect effects based on a bootstrap analysis (Preacher and Hayes, 2004) based on 3,000 replications with a 95% confidence interval. The statistical treatments were carried out with the AMOS software V.22.FindingsThe results show that PSC is negatively and directly related to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain. In addition, the bootstrap analyses indicate that PSC is related indirectly to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain via FSSB.Practical implicationsWFC is a workplace issue that warrants intervention in order to reduce organizational costs and increase worker well-being and PSC should be considered as an appropriate target for intervention (Dollard et al., 2012). However, although this management tool can be useful to reduce FWC, it is more appropriate to decrease WFC. Employers and HR managers not only should understand from the findings the importance of PSC, but also that all employees do not have the same problems, depending on the level of responsibilities at home, for example. Hence, they should offer the appropriate resources according to the need of workers. Indeed, the implementation of a unique work-family measure may not be appropriate for all workers, and it is important that employers and HR managers understand the details of WFC and FWC, as well as the possible effects of a series of different variables, in order to design the best work-family programs.Originality/valueThis research examined the effects of two new and specific resources at work, which are PSC and FSSB on WFC and FWC (time and strain), as recommended by Kossek et al. (2011). In addition, this study tested a new multidimensional mediating model which examined the mediation role of FSSB between PSC and time- and strain-based WFC and FWC. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine these relations. Moreover, the test of the concepts of PSC in this study provides a support for the theory of conservation of resources and proposes an extension of this theory.

Relations between Safety Climate, Awareness, and Behavior in the Chinese Construction Industry: A Hierarchical Linear Investigation

The vast majority of accidents in construction are generated by unsafe behaviors. Some researches also find that the behaviors could be influenced by the awareness and safety climate. The safety behavior and awareness belong to individual levels, while the safety climate belongs to the organization level. Previous studies mainly focus on the relationships between safety climate, safety awareness, and safety behavior without considering their different respective levels and the interaction between levels. This study establishes a hierarchical linear model (HLM) of safety climate, individual safety awareness, and safety behavior to examine the multilevel relationships between them. Data were collected using questionnaire from workers in different teams on the construction site in China. The results indicate that organizational safety climates affect individual safety behavior and safety awareness. In addition, there is a positive correlation between individual safety awareness and safety behavior, and the safety climates have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between them. The final conclusion offers a path for the current practice of safety management in the construction industry.

Development and validation of a new safety climate scale for petrochemical industries.

While a considerable body of research has studied safety climate and its role as a leading indicator of organizational safety, much of this work has been conducted with Western manufacturing samples. The current study puts emphasis on the cross-validation of a safety climate model in the non-Western industrial context of Iranian petrochemical industries. The current study was performed in one petrochemical company in Iran. The scale was developed through conducting a literature review followed by a qualitative study with expert participation. After performing a screening process, the initial number of items on the scale was reduced to 68. Ten dimensions (including management commitment, workers' empowerment, communication, blame culture, safety training, job satisfaction, interpersonal relationship, supervision, continuous improvement, and reward system) together with 37 items were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to measure safety climate. Acceptable ranges of internal consistency statistics for the sub-scales were observed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the construct validity of the developed safety climate scale for the petrochemical industry workers. The results of reliability showed that the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the designed scale was 0.94. The ICC was obtained 0.92. This study created a valid and reliable scale for measuring safety climate in petrochemical industries.

A Structural Model of Safety Climate and Safety Compliance of Hospital Organization Employees

A Structural Model of Safety Climate and Safety Compliance of Hospital Organization Employees

Safety climate and firefighting: Focus group results

BackgroundFirefighting is a hazardous occupation and there have been numerous calls for fundamental changes in how fire service organizations approach safety and balance safety with other operational priorities. These calls, however, have yielded little systematic research. MethodsAs part of a larger project to develop and test a model of safety climate for the fire service, focus groups were used to identify potentially important dimensions of safety climate pertinent to firefighting. ResultsAnalyses revealed nine overarching themes. Competency/professionalism, physical/psychological readiness, and that positive traits sometimes produce negative consequences were themes at the individual level; cohesion and supervisor leadership/support at the workgroup level; and politics/bureaucracy, resources, leadership, and hiring/promotion at the organizational level. A multi-level perspective seems appropriate for examining safety climate in firefighting. ConclusionsSafety climate in firefighting appears to be multi-dimensional and some dimensions prominent in the general safety climate literature also seem relevant to firefighting. These results also suggest that the fire service may be undergoing transitions encompassing mission, personnel, and its fundamental approach to safety and risk. Practical applicationsThese results help point the way to the development of safety climate measures specific to firefighting and to interventions for improving safety performance.

Safety compliance and safety climate: A repeated cross-sectional study in the oil and gas industry

IntroductionViolations of safety rules and procedures are commonly identified as a causal factor in accidents in the oil and gas industry. Extensive knowledge on effective management practices related to improved compliance with safety procedures is therefore needed. Previous studies of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance demonstrate that the propensity to act in accordance with prevailing rules and procedures is influenced to a large degree by workers' safety climate. Commonly, the climate measures employed differ from one study to another and identical measures of safety climate are seldom tested repeatedly over extended periods of time. This research gap is addressed in the present study. MethodThe study is based on a survey conducted four times among sharp-end workers of the Norwegian oil and gas industry (N=31,350). This is done by performing multiple tests (regression analysis) over a period of 7years of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance. The safety climate measure employed is identical across the 7-year period. ConclusionsTaking all periods together, the employed safety climate model explained roughly 27% of the variance in safety compliance. The causal relationship was found to be stable across the period, thereby increasing the reliability and the predictive validity of the factor structure. The safety climate factor that had the most powerful effect on safety compliance was work pressure. Practical applicationsThe factor structure employed shows high predictive validity and should therefore be relevant to organizations seeking to improve safety in the petroleum sector. The findings should also be relevant to other high-hazard industries where safety rules and procedures constitute a central part of the approach to managing safety.