Linking safety knowledge to safety behaviours: a moderated mediation of supervisor and worker safety attitudes

Workplace safety, Employee safety attitudes and employee productivity of manufacturing firms

Orientation: The manufacturing sector in Kenya has been experiencing employee safety and productivity issues despite adopting safety programmes and laws regulating employee safety. Employee safety attitudes significantly worsen workplace safety and productivity problems.Research purpose: The study determined the intervening effect of workplace safety attitudes on the relationship between workplace safety and employee productivity in manufacturing firms in Kenya.Motivation for the study: Manufacturing firms adopt new technologies that expose employees to new safety risks, while globalisation has led to a diverse workforce with diverse safety attitudes.Research approach/design and method: This study is grounded on the risk homeostasis theory; it adopted a cross-sectional survey research design guided by a positivist research philosophy. The target population comprised 853 manufacturing firms registered with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. A sample of 124 firms distributed across the 14 sub-sectors in the manufacturing sector was obtained using a statistical formula to ensure all sectors were represented. Regression analysis was carried out in four steps to assess the intervening effect of workplace safety attitude on the relationship between workplace safety attitude and employee productivity.Main findings: The coefficients were significant in each step, therefore leading to the conclusion that employee safety attitude significantly intervened in the relationship between workplace safety and employee productivity.Practical/managerial implications: The study offers managerial insights into the situational position of workplace safety, employee safety attitudes and employee productivity.Contribution/value-add: The study provides epistemological insights on the impact of employee safety attitudes on workplace safety and employee productivity.

Psychosocial safety behavior: A scoping review of behavior-based approaches to workplace psychosocial safety

INTRODUCTION

In an era of workplace safety where psychosocial risks are widely recognized as occupational hazards, emerging research has sought to clarify the impact of these risks and the requisite interventions for improving psychosocial safety climate and reducing psychological injury risk.

METHOD

The construct of psychosocial safety behavior (PSB) provides a novel framework for emerging research that seeks to apply a behavior-based safety approach to workplace psychosocial risks across several high-risk industries. This scoping review aims to provide a synthesis of existing literature on PSB, including its development as a construct and application in workplace safety interventions to date.

RESULTS

Although a limited number of studies of PSB were identified, the findings of this review provide evidence for growing cross-sector applications of behaviorally-focused approaches to improving workplace psychosocial safety. In addition, the identification of a broad spectrum of terminology surrounding the construct of PSB provides evidence of key theoretical and empirical gaps, with implications for future intervention-based research to address emerging areas of focus.

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.

Attitudes Toward Safety and Teamwork: Benchmarking Australian Surgeons and Nurses

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to investigate the safety attitudes of surgeons and nurses working in Australian operating rooms and establish a baseline of their general safety attitudes, as well as to compare the safety attitudes of surgeons and nurses working in operating room settings.

METHODS

A modified version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (Operating Room version) was distributed to operating room personnel across Australia via their relative colleges and unions. A total of 261 surgeons and registered nurses completed the online survey.

RESULTS

An above-average safety focus was reported, with participants tending to be more positive on all subscales of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (Operating Room version) than reported by previous studies, which measured those working in intensive care units, ambulatory settings, and operating rooms. Participants had the most positive attitudes toward Teamwork Climate and Job Satisfaction, and the least positive attitudes toward Perceptions of Management and Work Conditions. There were some occupational differences in attitudes toward the various aspects of safety, with surgeons having more positive attitudes toward all aspects of safety except in relation to stress recognition, compared with nurses.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides a baseline of general safety attitudes for Australian surgeons and nurses against which the effectiveness of future interventions can be interpreted. The occupational differences found in this study support the notion that safety interventions should be occupationally tailored. Interventions should target individual professional groups, taking into account the specific differences within each occupation to maximize their impact and effectiveness.

Live-Action Role Playing for Safety Training: Effectiveness Evaluation in two Italian Companies

Researchers, corporate decision-makers, government agencies, and international bodies want to know how to improve safety and limit the serious social and economic consequences of occupational injuries. Understanding how to deliver effective training is important to achieving this aim. Gamification is considered a new frontier in effective safety training. This study tested the use of gamification in safety training, considering two Italian companies that used a live-action role-play methodology called "PratiCARE la Sicurezza." Workers who were required by Italian law to receive safety training or retraining participated in a pre-post study. Collection of measures relating to knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and perception of the health and safety climate took place at baseline and immediately after the intervention. Participants' average safety knowledge at the end of the training was significantly better than the initial level, indicating that the training improved workers' knowledge level.

Safety Engagement in the Workplace: Text Mining Analysis

In order to derive safety engagement factors in the workplace and analyze the characteristics of the factors, we collected literature data to be analyzed by a systematic literature review and text mining analysis. We used safety, industrial, occupational, corporate, commitment, engagement, interaction, and participation as key search terms for literature selection and used 143 literature datasets for analysis. We divided the factors of workplace safety engagement into the organizational level and the individual level. In studies after 2005, texts at the individual psychological level appeared in large numbers. Although individual factors have been studied as subfactors at the organizational level, we confirmed that the two types of factors must interact for safety engagement in the workplace. We classified safety engagement factors into cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and relational factors. In particular, relational factors were mainly composed of factors that negatively affected engagement. In the follow-up study, we identified the maturity level among safety engagement factors as divided into four dimensions needed to create a safe workplace environment and to suggest a direction for employees to engage themselves in safety.

How Does Metro Maintenance Staff's Risk Perception Influence Safety Citizenship Behavior-The Mediating Role of Safety Attitude

The accident rate is high in subway maintenance work, and most of the accidents are caused by human factors, especially the lack of sensitivity to risk perception, the lack of rigorous attitude towards safety and the lack of safe citizenship behavior (SCB). Therefore, it is very important to study the risk perception (RP), safety attitude (SA) and SCB of metro maintenance staff in order to reduce the accident rate. In order to reduce human errors and accidents, this study analyzed the influence of metro maintenance staff’s RP on their SCB and the mediating role of SA. Based on previous studies, this paper uses the risk perception scale, safety attitude scale and safety citizenship behavior scale as research tools. A survey was administered at the Subway Company, and altogether 268 valid questionnaires were used, and the data were analyzed by SPSS19.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) and AMOS 24.0 (IBM, Armonk, New York, NY, USA). The result reveals that SA plays a complete mediating role between metro maintenance staff’s RP and their SCB; and SA has a positive influence on SCB; RP has a positive influence on SA; and SA positively predicts SCB.

Safety Leadership, Safety Attitudes, Safety Knowledge and Motivation toward Safety-Related Behaviors in Electrical Substation Construction Projects

Poor safety conditions and performance are consequences of individual factors as well as organizational and group factors. However, little attention has been afforded to the sequential impact of these factors on safety-related behaviors (compliance and participation) in the Saudi Arabian electrical construction industry. This study examines the causal effects of leadership and attitudes on safety compliance and participation mediated by motivation and knowledge. The research collected 636 surveys in electrical construction projects for nine large contractors between November 2018 and July 2019 in Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to determine the mechanism by which leadership and attitudes affected safety compliance and participation through motivation and knowledge. The results indicate that safety leadership and attitude factors as well as their interactions predicted safety motivation and knowledge. Additionally, these factors affected safety participation and compliance via workers' motivation and knowledge. Safety motivation and safety knowledge positively affected workers' participation and compliance. Management should encourage and regularly assess effective leadership and attitudes and developing motivation and knowledge among employees can improve organizations' safety-related behavior performance.

Antecedents of safety behavior in construction: A literature review and an integrated conceptual framework

There has been no scarcity in the literature of suggested antecedents of employee safety behavior, and this paper brings together the disaggregated antecedents of safety behavior in the construction field. In total, 101 eligible empirical articles are obtained. Bibliometric and context analyses are combined to identify the influential journals, scholars, keywords, use of theory, research methods, and countries or regions of the empirical samples. The 83 factors that are identified are divided into five groups, namely (a) individual characteristics, (b) workgroup interactions, (c) work and workplace design, (d) project management and organization, and (e) family, industry, and society. This indicates that the causes of safety behavior are manifold. Various factors from different systems likely work in concert to create situations in which an individual chooses to comply with safety rules and participate voluntarily in safety activities. Given this, we propose that safety behavior is only an ostensible symptom of more complex "The Self-Work-Home-Industry/Society" systems and establish a safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model. Based on this model, we develop a resource flow model, illustrating why, how, and when the flow of resources between the five systems-namely the self system, work system, home system, work-home interface system, and industry/society system-either promotes or inhibits safety behavior. The safety behavior antecedent analysis and classification model and resource flow model are based mainly on bioecological system theory and resources theories. Avenues for future theoretical development and method designs are suggested based on the reviewed findings and the two conceptual models. The intention with this systematic review together with the two integrated conceptual models is to advance theoretical thinking on how safety behavior can be promoted, or instead, inhibited.

Influencing Mechanism of Job Satisfaction on Safety Behavior of New Generation of Construction Workers Based on Chinese Context: The Mediating Roles of Work Engagement and Safety Knowledge Sharing

China's construction industry developed rapidly and safety production has become a vital issue. Improving the safety behavior of construction workers is an important measure to effectively decrease construction safety accidents. At present, a New Generation of Construction Workers (NGCWs) born after 1980 has gradually become the main force of construction companies in China and the special group characteristics coming from the intergenerational difference may make them behave differently in safety-related activities, therefore, it is very important to study how to promote their safety behavior. This paper aimed to explore the influencing mechanism of job satisfaction on the safety behavior of NGCWs and examine the mediating role of safety knowledge sharing and work engagement. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis were applied to test the theoretical model. Empirical research results indicated that job satisfaction can effectively promote safety behavior through safety knowledge sharing and work engagement. Safety knowledge sharing plays a complete mediating role between job satisfaction and safety compliance behavior, as well as between job satisfaction and safety participation behavior. Moreover, work engagement plays a complete mediating role between job satisfaction and safety participation behavior, which can provide valuable management references for China's construction companies to strengthen their safety behavior.

Research on the Relationship Between Safety Leadership, Safety Attitude and Safety Citizenship Behavior of Railway Employees

The daily operation and maintenance work of railways are very dangerous. Railway employees often have safety accidents while working, and the safety citizenship behavior (SCB) of railway employees can effectively reduce the accident rate. Therefore, it is of great significance to identify the main safety constructs affecting the SCB of railway employees to minimize accidents. This paper puts forward a supposed model of the influence mechanism of safety leadership (SL) on employee SCB through the mediation of safety attitude (SA). A questionnaire was used with railway employees, and 238 valid responses were finally collected. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to explore the relationship between SL, SA and SCB. The results showed the SL is positively related to the SA, and it can further promote the SCB of railway employees. In addition, SA has a positive impact on employee SCB.