Safety stressors, safety-specific trust, and safety citizenship behavior: A contingency perspective

Enhancing work safety behavior through supply chain safety management in small and medium sized manufacturing suppliers

Enhancing work safety behaviors among Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Suppliers (SMMs) is crucial for establishing a more secure and efficient supply chain. Since the foundation of safety lies in positive prevention, it is crucial that SMMs adopt proactive and pro-social work safety behaviors that transcend mere compliance with standard regulations. Present-day diversified supply chain safety management apply varying degrees of pressures on SMMs. The effectiveness of such pressures, as well as their potential to spawn advanced safety behaviors in SMMs, is a matter of investigation. This research investigates the impact of Supply Chain Safety Management Pressure(SCSMP) on the SMMs' Work Safety Behaviors(WSB). A theoretical framework is constructed, grounded in institutional theory and theory of planned behavior, which earmarks three distinct dimensions of SCSMP: Coercive Pressure(CP), Mimetic Pressure(MP), and Normative Pressure(NP). The survey of 265 SMMs facilitated an assessment of the SMMs' Willingness for Responses(WR), which includes their Willingness for Adaptive Responses(WAR) and Willingness for Co-creative Responses(WCR). Subsequently, the resulting WSB entail Safety Compliance Behavior(SCB), Proactive Safety Behavior(PSB), and Pro-social Safety Behavior(PsSB). Among these, SCB is categorized as a basic safety behavior, while PSB and PsSB which emphasize voluntary, active, and cooperative actions, are classified as advanced safety behaviors. Our research findings underscore the substantial influence of the SCSMP in shaping WSB. WR serves as a critical intermediary, connecting external pressures with internal organizational practices. In particular, WCR is instrumental in the formation of advanced safety behavior. The theoretical contribution of this research is manifested in its enhancement of our comprehension regarding the determinants of WSB among SMMs. Furthermore, it addresses the literature gap in elucidating the effectiveness of supply chain safety management and the mechanisms behind the formation of WSB. The practical significance lies in elevating the overall safety standards throughout the supply chain and minimizing safety-related hazards among SMMs.

Psychometric properties of the Persian version of Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire (PRO-SAFE)

BACKGROUND

Participation and initiative of workers are effective in promoting safety in the workplace. Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire (PRO-SAFE) is a proper tool to evaluate the psychological drivers that support the proactive orientation of individuals toward workplace safety. This study was conducted to translate and measure the psychometric properties of the Persian version of PRO-SAFE.

METHODS

The PRO-SAFE was translated into Persian using procedures for translation and cross-cultural adaptation. To collect data, 252 employees of a steel complex were selected. To measure the validity of the questionnaire, face, content, convergent, and construct validity was utilized. The questionnaire's reliability was evaluated by assessing its internal consistency.

RESULTS

The mean of the content validity index and content validity ratio was equal to 0.83 and 0.85, respectively. We found a positive correlation between PRO-SAFE and safety behavior dimensions (r = 0.372 to 0.792, P < 0.001). Confirmatory factor analysis showed the Persian version of the PRO-SAFE questionnaire had an excellent six-factor model consistent with the original questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha of the Persian version of the PRO-SAFE questionnaire was obtained between 0.717 to 0.880.

CONCLUSIONS

The Persian version of the PRO-SAFE questionnaire was found to have appropriate psychometric properties, indicating that it can be confidently used as a valid tool for assessing proactive role orientation toward safety management among Iranian employees.

Work-family conflict, work engagement and unsafe behavior among miners in China

The present study aims to explore the relationship between work-family conflict and unsafe behavior among underground coal miners, testing the mediating role of work engagement in this relationship. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Shanxi Province, China from June to August 2020. A total of 580 front-line miners were recruited for this study. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the mechanisms of work-family conflict on unsafe behavior. Findings revealed that time-based conflict, strain-based conflict and behavior-based conflict were positively related to unsafe behavior, and work engagement mediated the relationships between work-family conflict and unsafe behavior. Managers should alleviate miners' work-family conflict, providing effective organizational support to improve the miner's work engagement, and thus reduce their unsafe behavior.

Research on the influence of role stressors on unsafe behavior among construction workers in China

Individuals' unsafe behavior is identified as one of the important reasons leading to construction industry accidents. The purpose of the present study is to explore the mechanism of role stressors' impact on unsafe behavior, the mediating role of psychological strain and the moderating role of empowering leadership among construction workers. The sample used for the analyses in this study includes 600 employees from 10 different construction companies in China. Bootstrap analysis was performed to explore the mediating role of psychology strain, and hierarchical linear regression analysis was performed to explore the moderating role of empowering leadership. The results showed that role stressors were positively related to unsafe behavior; psychology strain mediates the relationship between role stressors and unsafe behavior; and empowering leadership moderates the relationship between psychological strain and unsafe behavior. The findings indicate that empowering leadership can decrease unsafe behavior.

The Influence Mechanism of Owners' Safety Management Behavior on Construction Workers' Safety Citizenship Behavior

The safety citizenship behavior (SCB) of construction workers can improve project safety performance. This study explored how construction company owners' safety management behavior contributes to the development and encouragement of SCB. It combined the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) and Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theories to propose relevant hypotheses and develop a theoretical model to examine the effect of owners' safety management behavior on construction workers' SCB. Data from 534 construction workers were collected through questionnaires. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the Structural Equation Model (SEM) were used for empirical analysis. It was found that the owner's safety management behavior positively affected the construction workers' SCB. In particular, work engagement played an intermediary role, while power distance exhibited a moderating effect. A few noteworthy findings are that proactive safety behavior is significantly positively influenced by organization and coordination, prosocial safety behavior is significantly positively influenced by safety funding investment, and high power distance is not always bad for construction workers' safety citizenship behavior. By determining the connection between owners' safety management behavior and construction workers' SCB, this study offered a fresh perspective on promoting construction workers' proactive behavior and put forward suggestions for owners to improve project safety management.

Reducing workplace unsafe behaviour using risk classification, profiling, risk tolerance approach

Individuals' risk tolerance capacity is one of the primary reasons for their unsafe behaviour at the workplace and is commonly identified as an important causal factor for the majority of workplace accidents. Research has exhibited the significance of individuals' risk tolerance while dealing with risk at workplace. However, limited research is done to explore the influence of various factors on individuals' risk tolerance. In this paper, questionnaire survey (42 questions based on the 36 factors) data were gathered from 606 miners (various category) belonging from three major coal producing subsidiary of northern India. Based on the responses received on the questionnaire survey, (1) Statistical method is used to identify the critical factors (10 critical factors) among all; (2) risk classification (Personal Protective Equipment, operational and others-3 way) system was introduced based on the nature of risk being taken; and (3) organisational risk profiling was done. The methodology of risk profiling and risk classification introduced in this paper will help the organisation identify the critical groups and the nature of the risks being taken, respectively. Further, by considering the combined effect of all three outcomes, necessary compliances can be carried out like design of training module, framing of safety policies and deployment of suitable manpower.

Linking Safety Climate and Safety Citizenship Behaviour in the Bangladeshi Garment Industry: Role of Employees’ Prosocial Motivation

Drawing on the self-determination theory, this study aimed to examine whether perceived safety climate influenced prosocial motivation, consequently affecting two types of safety citizenship behaviours: prosocial and proactive. Two-wave time-lagged data were collected from 334 readymade garment employees in Bangladesh. Hypothesised relationships were examined using analysis of moment structures (AMOS) and statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). This study revealed that the perceived safety climate positively influenced prosocial motivation among garment employees. In addition, perceived safety climate is related to both types of safety citizenship behaviours. Moreover, this study found that the relationship between perceived safety climate and safety citizenship behaviours was mediated by prosocial motivation. This study is a pioneer in investigating the motivating mechanism of perceived safety climate to stimulate garment employees’ citizenship behaviours. These findings provide significant evidence and guidance for garment manufacturers and managers to bolster garment employees’ prosocial and proactive safety behaviours.

Measuring Safety Culture Using an Integrative Approach: The Development of a Comprehensive Conceptual Framework and an Applied Safety Culture Assessment Instrument

An exponential amount of academic research has been dedicated to the safety culture concept, but still, no consensus has been reached on its definition and content. In general, safety culture research lacks an interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, although the concept of safety culture is characterised by complexity and multifacetedness, the safety culture concept has been characterised by reductionism, where models and theories simplify the concept in order to better grasp it, leading to confined approaches. In this article, the multifacetedness of safety culture is acknowledged, and the topic is addressed from a safety science perspective, combining insights from multiple academic disciplines. An integrative and comprehensive conceptual framework to assess safety culture in organisations is developed, taking into account the limitations of existing models, as well as the needs of the work field. This conceptual framework is called the 'Integrated Safety Culture Assessment' (ISCA), where the 'assessment' refers to its practical usability. The practical rendition of ISCA can be used to map the safety culture of an organisation and to formulate recommendations in this regard, with the ultimate goal of bringing about a change towards a positive safety culture. The comprehensiveness of ISCA lies in the inclusion of technological factors, organisational or contextual factors and human factors interacting and interrelating with each other, and in considering both observable or objective safety-related aspects in an organisation, and non-observable or subjective safety-related aspects. When using ISCA, organisational safety culture is assessed in an integrative way by using a variety of research methods involving the entire organisation, and by taking into account the specific context of the organisation.

How Safety Climate Impacts Safety Voice-Investigating the Mediating Role of Psychological Safety from a Social Cognitive Perspective

Safety voice has become a popular research topic in the organizational safety field because it helps to prevent accidents. A good safety climate and psychological safety can motivate employees to actively express their ideas about safety, but the specific mechanisms of safety climate and psychological safety, on safety voice, are not yet clear. Based on the "environment-subject cognition-behavior" triadic interaction model of social cognitive theory, this paper explores the relationship between safety climate and safety voice, and the mediating role of psychological safety. We collected questionnaires and conducted data analysis of the valid questionnaires using analytical methods such as hierarchical regression, stepwise regression, and the bootstrap sampling method. We found that safety climate significantly and positively influenced safety voice, and psychological safety played a mediating role between safety climate and safety voice, which strengthened the positive relationship between them. From the research results, it was clear that to stimulate employees to express safety voice behavior, organizations should strive to create a good safety climate and pay attention to building employees' psychological safety. The findings of this paper provide useful insights for the management of employee safety voice behavior in enterprises.

The psychological mechanism of construction workers' safety participation: The social identity theory perspective

INTRODUCTION

Safety participation has gained increasing attention as an important dimension of workers' safety behaviors. Although previous studies attempted to identify factors affecting workers' safety participation, only a few studies paid attention to the psychological mechanisms behind it. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and test a research model that explains how management factors are implicated in workers' safety participation. Specifically, this study focused on project-based organizations (e.g., construction projects) because employee psychological mechanisms may have a unique nature in such transient employment.

METHOD

The hypotheses in the research model of the psychological mechanism of construction workers' safety participation are tested using survey data from 261 construction workers.

RESULTS

The results indicated that construction workers' safety participation is influenced by project identification after controlling the shared variance of safety compliance. Project identification also mediates the effects of transformational leadership and communication climate on safety participation.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

This study offers researchers and practitioners an explanation of how management factors influence construction workers' safety behaviors and clarifies the role of project identification play in explaining the effects of management factors on safety compliance and safety participation.

Linking Safety-Specific Leader Reward and Punishment Omission to Safety Compliance Behavior: The Role of Distributive Justice and Role Ambiguity

Background

Although positive safety leadership has attracted increasingly academic and practical attention due to its critical effects on followers' safety compliance behavior, far fewer steps have been taken to study the safety impact of laissez-faire leadership.

Objective

This study examines the relationships between safety-specific leader reward and punishment omission (laissez-faire leadership) and followers' safety compliance, and the mediations of safety-specific distributive justice and role ambiguity.

Methods

On a two-wave online survey of 307 workers from high-risk enterprises in China, these relationships were tested by structural equations modeling and bootstrapping procedures.

Results

Findings show that safety-specific leader reward omission was negatively associated with followers' safety compliance through the mediating effects of safety-specific distributive justice and role ambiguity. Safety-specific leader punishment omission was also negatively associated with followers' safety compliance through the mediating effect of safety-specific role ambiguity, while safety-specific distributive justice was an insignificant mediator.

Originality

The study addresses and closes more gaps by explaining how two contextualized laissez-faire leadership measures relate to followers' safety behaviors, following the contextualization and matching principles between predictors, mediators and criteria, and by revealing two mechanisms behind the detrimental effects of laissez-faire leadership on safety outcomes.

The Impact of Job Burnout on Employees' Safety Behavior Against the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Psychological Contract

Employee safety behavior is critical for occupational health in work environments threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the widespread and increasingly serious job burnout of employees is a complex and difficult problem for enterprises to handle during any epidemic. Therefore, it is helpful to identify and discuss job burnout and other main psychological factors that affect safety behavior to find appropriate solutions. Using the PLS-SEM method, the study explored the relationship between job burnout and safety behavior against the epidemic, as well as the mediating role of psychological contract. According to the local guidelines for controlling COVID-19, this study revised the safety behavior scale. Data were collected by structured questionnaires in May to July 2020 from Chinese employees (N = 353) who resumed their work after the outbreak of the pandemic. The findings confirmed that job burnout has a negative impact on safety behavior, and psychological contract play a partial mediating role in mitigating the negative impact. Specifically, the transaction dimension and relationship dimension of psychological contract negatively affected safety behavior while the development dimension of the psychological contract was not directly related to safety behavior. It is suggested that enterprises should take effective measures to reduce employees' job burnout and implement flexible psychological contract management and intervention, so as to effectively improve the performance of work safety behavior. Based on the multidimensional model, the findings of this study shed light on promoting safety behavior to prevent the spread of epidemics.

Safety Stressors and Construction Workers' Safety Performance: The Mediating Role of Ego Depletion and Self-Efficacy

As an important influencing factor of construction workers' safety performance, safety stressor has received increasing attention. However, no consensus has been reached on the relationship between different types of safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance, and the mechanism by which safety stressors influence safety performance remains unclear. This study proposed a multiple mediation model with ego depletion and self-efficacy as mediators between safety stressors and workers' safety performance. Data were collected from 335 construction workers in China. Results demonstrated that: (1) the three types of safety stressors (i.e., safety role ambiguity, safety role conflict, and interpersonal safety conflict) all had negative effects on workers' safety performance (i.e., safety compliance and safety participation); (2) self-efficacy mediated all the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; (3) ego depletion only mediated part of the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; and (4) only part of the multiple-step mediating effects through ego depletion and self-efficacy were supported. This study made contributions by shedding light on the mechanism by which safety stressors influence workers' safety performance and providing more empirical evidence for the relationship between various safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance. Additionally, targeted strategies for improving workers' safety performance were proposed according to the findings.

How Just Culture and Personal Goals Moderate the Positive Relation between Commercial Pilots’ Safety Citizenship Behavior and Voluntary Incident Reporting

Flight safety is consistently influenced by pilots’ self-inflicted incidents in routine flight operations. For airlines, pilots’ reports on these incidents are essential input to learn from incidents (LFI) and for various safety management processes. This paper aims to explain the voluntary reporting behavior of pilots’ self-inflicted incidents from an occupational safety perspective. We investigate how the relation between pilots’ safety citizenship behavior (SCB) and reporting behavior is moderated by pilots’ fear, shame, goals, and goal-striving when reporting, as well as the influence of a just culture on the decision to report incidents. In total, 202 German commercial pilots participated in an online survey. The results showed that reporting behavior can be considered a specific form of self-intentional SCB, but should be differentiated into subtypes depending on a pilot’s unsafe acts (errors or violations) that caused the incident. Reporting behavior-specific motivational factors influenced different subtypes of reporting behavior: Just culture moderated a positive relation between SCB and reported incidents caused by violations. Moreover, depending on the subtype of reporting behavior, the relation was moderated by different types of goals in relation to the pilots. No moderating effects of fear or shame could be demonstrated. Our findings highlight the value of a just culture for encouraging goal-oriented reporting behavior in the context of LFI and safety management.