Psychological Safety and Creativity in Teams: A Mediated Moderation Model of Shared Leadership and Team Diversity

The current study extends the literature on psychological safety and team creativity by exploring the questions of whether, how and when psychological safety influences team creativity positively. Specifically, the current study proposes that psychological safety has a positive impact on team creativity and this impact is mediated by shared leadership. Furthermore, the study introduces team diversity as a potential moderator in the relationships between psychological safety and team creativity through shared leadership. It is found that the direct effect of psychological safety on team creativity is more positive when team members perceive high diversity. Using a sample of 135 members working in teams in R&D departments in the electronics industry, the hypotheses were largely supported. Theoretical contributions, practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

The relationship between safety climate and safety performance: A review

INTRODUCTION

Since its inception more than four decades ago, research on safety climate has been conducted in many industries. Subsequently, a plethora of systematic literature reviews on safety climate in various work environments has focused on research trends and measurement scales. Yet, despite these reviews, the overall picture of how safety climate influences performance is still not well understood. The current study reviews existing literature on safety climate, specifically how it affects safety performance.

METHOD

Literature searches were conducted using EBSCOhost and Web of Science databases in March 2021. We included English-language, peer-reviewed studies that reported the results of research done on safety climate and safety performance. We extracted data (contextual, theoretical, methodological and definition of safety performance) from these studies and were deductively analyzed and categorized into common themes.

RESULTS

One hundred and sixty-two safety climate studies were identified. We found that studies on safety climate-performance were conducted in 16 types of industries while 23 different theories explained the safety climate-performance relationship. The quantity and quality of variables and methods used varied considerably across the surveys. Safety climate is predominantly used as a predictor while safety-related behavior is the most common definition of safety performance among the articles we reviewed. Few papers from the current review were methodologically strong, suggesting that current evidence on the link between safety climate and safety performance still suffers from common method bias.

CONCLUSIONS

Although literature has provided evidence for the positive effect on safety performance via a strong safety climate, strong and convincing methods are still lacking and the causality of an improved safety climate still needs to be demonstrated.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The findings of the current review offer a better understanding of how employers can improve safety climate in the workplace in various settings.

SEIR model and simulation research on unsafe psychological state propagation of construction workers considering safety climate and intimate relationships

The construction industry is a pillar industry of China and occupies an essential position in our economic development. However, in the fast-developing construction industry, the number of its safety accidents is also growing year by year. Safety accidents are often due to unsafe behaviors of construction workers, and unsafe precarious psychological states are important factors for unsafe behaviors. Therefore, this paper, based on a review of existing literature, uses the SEIR model and numerical simulation method to study the spread of unsafe psychological states among construction workers considering safety climate and intimate relationships. It puts forward corresponding countermeasures, which has great practical significance for reducing safety accidents in the construction industry. The results show that: (1) A good safety climate can help alleviate the spread of unsafe psychological states of construction workers. (2) The intimate relationship between construction workers will promote the association between communicable people and susceptible people, which will lead to the spread of an unsafe psychological state. (3) A larger network average degree will increase the spread speed and the density of communicable people, but will not increase the spread range.(4) Forgetting rate has a key role in the propagation of unsafe psychological states. Suggestions are made to hinder the propagation of these states, which will help to reduce the unsafe behavior of construction workers and the accident rate in the construction industry.

Psychological Capital Impacts on Safety Behavior of Contractor Workers using the SEM Method

Introduction: A steam power plant company is an electric energy production company, utilizing main energy sources such as coal, biomass, and other energies that are related to production process. This company is a big industry that operates 24 hours and have many various steps of production process. It is also supported by a variety of high-risk system equipment such as confined spaces, working at height, hot work, ergonomics, mechanics, and others. This type of work can lead to workers’ unsafe conditions and unsafe acts. One of the causes is the psychological aspects of workers, namely the lack of workers’ awareness and understanding in implementing occupational safety aspects. Workers’ psychology in this study is Psychological Capital (PsyCap) with self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience dimensions. This study aims to analyze PsyCap impacts on safety behavior of contractor workers. Methods: this study was an observational analytic research using cross-sectional approach. The population was all workers in a steam power plant company in units 7&8, totalling 400 contractors. This study was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 101 respondents of contractor workers. The questionnaires consisted of items about self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience dimension of PsyCap and safety compliance and safety participation dimension of safety behavior. The analysis used a Structural Equational Modeling (SEM) method and AMOS software. Results: PsyCap dimensions that impacted on safety behavior was optimism. Conclusion: optimism dimension was the factor that had the strongest impact on safety behavior especially workers’ safety compliance. Meanwhile, other PsyCap dimensions which did not have not impact on safety behavior were safety compliance and safety participation dimensions.Keywords: contractor worker, psychological capital, safety behavior, steam power plant company, structural equational modelling

Relationship Between Workplace Ostracism and Unsafe Behaviors: The Mediating Effect of Psychological Detachment and Emotional Exhaustion

This research tests whether the stressor-detachment model can explain the mechanism between workplace ostracism and employees’ unsafe behaviors. We used a self-report questionnaire to assess Chinese construction workers’ workplace ostracism, psychological detachment, emotional exhaustion, and unsafe behaviors. In total, 349 valid questionnaires were collected. We used cross-sectional structural equation modeling to assess our conceptual model. The results indicate that workplace ostracism has a significant effect on psychological detachment and emotional exhaustion and thus affects employees’ unsafe behaviors. In addition, workplace ostracism could influence employees’ unsafe behaviors through the sequential combination of psychological detachment and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, psychological detachment mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and emotional exhaustion. Taken together, our findings extend the application of the stressor-detachment model by revealing how workplace ostracism influences employees’ unsafe behaviors.

How does leadership influence incident reporting intention in healthcare? A dual process model of leader–member exchange

Building on social exchange and social identity theory, we examined how leader–member exchange (LMX) influences intention to report incidents in healthcare organizations through two different mechanisms. Using survey data of 15 hospitals in Germany ( N = 480) and multilevel structural equation modelling, we found as expected that LMX positively related to reporting-specific trust and organizational identification of employees. However, only reporting-specific trust but not organizational identification was directly related to incident reporting intention. Furthermore, top management support for patient safety moderated the link between LMX and reporting-specific trust, indicating a compensatory mechanism of top management support for followers with a low-quality leadership relationship. In addition, codification of patient safety regulations moderated the link between organizational identification and incident reporting intention. As expected, the institutionalization of patient safety norms through a strong follow-through of the organization is related to increased reporting only for employees with high organizational identification. Results are discussed in terms of how safety leadership can be enacted at both the supervisory and top management level in order to promote safety behaviour in healthcare organizations.

Ending on a positive: Examining the role of safety leadership decisions, behaviours and actions in a safety critical situation

Safety leadership is an important factor in supporting safe performance in the workplace. The present case study examined the role of safety leadership during the Bingham Canyon Mine high-wall failure, a significant mining incident in which no fatalities or injuries were incurred. The Critical Decision Method (CDM) was used in conjunction with a self-reporting approach to examine safety leadership in terms of decisions, behaviours and actions that contributed to the incidents' safe outcome. Mapping the analysis onto Rasmussen's Risk Management Framework (Rasmussen, 1997), the findings demonstrate clear links between safety leadership decisions, and emergent behaviours and actions across the work system. Communication and engagement based decisions featured most prominently, and were linked to different leadership practices across the work system. Further, a core sub-set of CDM decision elements were linked to the open flow and exchange of information across the work system, which was critical to supporting the safe outcome. The findings provide practical implications for the development of safety leadership capability to support safety within the mining industry.

Safety leadership and systems thinking: application and evaluation of a Risk Management Framework in the mining industry

Safety leadership is an important factor in supporting safety in high-risk industries. This article contends that applying systems-thinking methods to examine safety leadership can support improved learning from incidents. A case study analysis was undertaken of a large-scale mining landslide incident in which no injuries or fatalities were incurred. A multi-method approach was adopted, in which the Critical Decision Method, Rasmussen's Risk Management Framework and Accimap method were applied to examine the safety leadership decisions and actions which enabled the safe outcome. The approach enabled Rasmussen's predictions regarding safety and performance to be examined in the safety leadership context, with findings demonstrating the distribution of safety leadership across leader and system levels, and the presence of vertical integration as key to supporting the successful safety outcome. In doing so, the findings also demonstrate the usefulness of applying systems-thinking methods to examine and learn from incidents in terms of what 'went right'. The implications, including future research directions, are discussed. Practitioner Summary: This paper presents a case study analysis, in which systems-thinking methods are applied to the examination of safety leadership decisions and actions during a large-scale mining landslide incident. The findings establish safety leadership as a systems phenomenon, and furthermore, demonstrate the usefulness of applying systems-thinking methods to learn from incidents in terms of what 'went right'. Implications, including future research directions, are discussed.

Injunctive safety norms, young worker risk-taking behaviors, and workplace injuries

Injunctive safety norms (ISNs) refer to perceptions of others' expectations of one's safety-related conduct. Drawing on a sample of Canadian young workers (n=11,986;M age=17.90years; 55% males), we study the relationships among four sources of non-work-related (i.e., parents, siblings, friends, teachers), two sources of work-related (i.e., supervisors, co-workers) ISNs, young workers' self-reported work-related risk-taking behaviors, and workplace injuries. Structural equation modeling suggests that ISNs from parents, supervisors, and co-workers were related to less frequent work-related risk-taking behaviors, and with fewer workplace injuries via less frequent work-related risk-taking behaviors. In addition, ISNs from supervisors were directly associated with fewer workplace injuries. In contrast, ISNs from teachers and siblings were not associated with work-related risk-taking behaviors, but ISNs from siblings were associated with fewer work injuries. Finally, ISNs from friends were associated with more frequent work-related risk-taking and more frequent work injuries via more frequent work-related risk-taking. This study draws attention to the relative roles of non-work sources of social influence and provides some evidence of how ISNs might be related to young workers' work-related risk-taking behaviors and their workplace injuries. It also contributes to practice by suggesting specific interventions that parents, supervisors, and co-workers could undertake to reduce young workers' work-related risk-taking and workplace injuries, namely encouraging youth to be safe at work.

Drivers' social-work relationships as antecedents of unsafe driving: A social network perspective

In order to reduce road accidents rates, studies around the globe have attempted to shed light on the antecedents for unsafe road behaviors. The aim of the current research is to contribute to this literature by offering a new organizational antecedent of driver's unsafe behavior: The driver's relationships with his or her peers, as reflected in three types of social networks: negative relationships network, friendship networks and advice networks (safety consulting). We hypothesized that a driver's position in negative relationship networks, friendship networks, and advice networks will predict unsafe driving. Additionally, we hypothesized the existence of mutual influences among the driver's positions in these various networks, and suggested that the driver's positions interact to predict unsafe driving behaviors. The research included 83 professional drivers from four different organizations. Driving behavior data were gathered via the IVDR (In-Vehicle Data Recorder) system, installed in every truck to measure and record the driver's behavior. The findings indicated that the drivers' position in the team networks predicts safe driving behavior: Centrality in negative relationship networks is positively related to unsafe driving, and centrality in friendship networks is negatively related to unsafe driving, while centrality in advice networks is not related to unsafe driving. Furthermore, we found an interaction effect between negative network centrality and centrality in friendship networks. The relation between negative networks and unsafe behavior is weaker when high levels of friendship network centrality exist. The implications will be presented in the Discussion section.

How virtual team leaders cope with creativity challenges

Purpose

As technology-mediated communication improves, many organizations increasingly use new types of collaborative online tools to promote team-based learning and performance. The purpose of this study is to explore how virtual team leaders cope with process challenges in developing a context for team creativity.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors interviewed nine leaders who have worked for more than five years and managed virtual teams in different fields.

Findings

This research uncovered distrust, personality differences, generational differences in views, scheduling issues and technology difficulties as the top five inhibitors for virtual team creativity and success. The authors identified seven main strategies for developing virtual team creativity and success. The authors found that building “team norms” and guidelines to encourage positive interactions between team members can facilitate team creativity. In addition, a concept of trust-based open communication was identified as one of the important strategies when teams actively use technology-mediated communication tools.

Practical implications

Organizational practitioners can use the results of this study when developing knowledge to establish assessments regarding which employees possess the appropriate characteristics to lead virtual teams and implement virtual team training.

Originality/value

This study emphasizes the importance of technology in professional lives by showing how technology-mediated work leads to success in learning and producing creative ideas and performance in a virtual team environment.

Promoting safety participation through diversity and inclusion climates

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of diversity climate and inclusion climate on safety participation behaviors through the mediating effect of the motivation to actively promote safety at work.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were 491 workers employed in four Italian metal-mechanical companies. They completed a paper questionnaire containing measures of psychological diversity climate, psychological inclusion climate, safety motivation participation and safety participation behaviors. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results showed that safety participation motivation fully mediates the relationship between diversity climate and safety participation behaviors, whereas it partially mediates the relationship between climate for inclusion and safety participation behaviors.

Practical implications

The present findings can help managers to motivate employees in pursuing safety goals independently of compensation or obligation by creating an organization in which the main concern is caring for each other’s well-being.

Originality/value

This is the first study which has empirically tested the relationships between diversity climate, inclusion climate and safety behaviors. It has extended previous research which simply tested the effects of objective types of diversity on safety performance.

Health Care Providers' Spirit at Work Within a Restructured Workplace

Spirit at work (SAW) research emerged as a response to care provider determination to maintain a healthy and productive health care work environment, despite restructuring. The aim of this descriptive mixed-methods research is to present the care provider's perceptions of SAW. SAW is a holistic measure of care provider workplace outcomes, defined as the unique experience of individuals who are passionate about and energized by their work. A mixed group of licensed and unlicensed care providers in a continuing care workplace were surveyed. Eighteen Likert-type scale survey questions were further informed by two open-ended questions. Results indicated that unlicensed continuing care providers' perceptions of SAW are lower than licensed care providers. Responses suggest that open discussion between managers and team members, combined with structured workplace interventions, will lead to enhanced SAW and improved patient care. Further research on SAW within the continuing care workplace is required.

Impact of organizational policies and practices on workplace injuries in a hospital setting

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to assess relationships between perceptions of organizational practices and policies (OPP), social support, and injury rates among workers in hospital units.

METHODS

A total of 1230 hospital workers provided survey data on OPP, job flexibility, and social support. Demographic data and unit injury rates were collected from the hospitals' administrative databases.

RESULTS

Injury rates were lower in units where workers reported higher OPP scores and high social support. These relationships were mainly observed among registered nurses. Registered nurses perceived coworker support and OPP as less satisfactory than patient care associates (PCAs). Nevertheless, because of the low number of PCAs at each unit, results for the PCAs are preliminary and should be further researched in future studies with larger sample sizes.

CONCLUSIONS

Employers aiming to reduce injuries in hospitals could focus on good OPP and supportive work environment.

Workplace model for physical therapists and occupational therapists

PURPOSE

The purpose of this paper is to test a model linking physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) practitioners' perceptions of resonant leadership, structural empowerment and psychological empowerment to their experiences of spirit at work (SAW), job satisfaction and organizational commitment within the Canadian workplace.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The authors tested the model using LISREL 8.80 and survey data from 101 OTs and 169 PTs, randomly selected by the Alberta professional licensing associations. Content analysis of responses to the open-ended comments section provided additional depth and insight.

FINDINGS

Analysis of results culminated in minor modifications to the original theoretical model, creating separate PT and OT models. Both models revealed a good fit with the observed data. Several SAW concepts accounted for moderate to large amounts of variance in both PT and OT models, indicating that SAW is a comprehensive workplace outcome.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

Theory was derived from business and nursing research literature due to limited rehabilitation research literature. Discussion of OT results must consider the small sample size. This study is initial exploratory research.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Each discipline-specific model provides professionals, health care leaders and policy makers with a rich body of information upon which to base beneficial workplace decisions. SAW will guide leaders in the holistic development and enrichment of the work environment.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This research contributes to the substantive knowledge of the OT and PT disciplines, particularly in the areas of leadership, workplace structural organization and indicators of healthy work environments such as SAW, empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Spirit at Work (SAW): fostering a healthy RN workplace

A cross-sectional mixed-method survey explored and measured relationships between spirit at work (SAW) concepts, experience, education, practice context, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment using LISREL 8.80 and 2012 survey data from a random sample of 217 surgical and 158 home care registered nurses (RNs) in western Canada. Qualitative data underwent content analysis using a priori coding categories based on established theory. Final model indices fit the observed data. SAW concepts of engaging work and mystical experience accounted for moderate to large amounts of model variance for both home care and surgical nurses, while significant positive relationships between SAW concepts, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment were also reported. Researchers concluded that SAW contributes to improved job satisfaction and organizational commitment while being sensitive to RN experiences across clinical contexts. As an holistic measure of RN workplace perceptions, SAW contributes essential information directed at creating optimal environments for both health care providers and recipients.

Job demands, job resources and safety outcomes: The roles of emotional exhaustion and safety compliance

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the job demands-resources (JD-R) model in explaining the relationship of job demands and resources with safety outcomes (i.e., workplace injuries and near-misses). We collected self-reported data from 670 crude oil production workers from three sub-companies of a major oilfield company in China. The results of a structural equation analysis indicated that job demands (psychological and physical demands) and job resources (decision latitude, supervisor support and coworker support) could affect emotional exhaustion and safety compliance, and thus influence the occurrence of injuries and near-misses. The implications of the present findings regarding both the JD-R model and occupational safety research were discussed.

Transformational leadership as a moderator of the relationship between psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams in Ghana

Orientation: Transformational team leadership is an important variable that influences team members’ perception of the team as psychologically safe enough to engage in learning behaviours.Research purpose: The study was aimed at investigating the relationship between psychological safety and learning behaviour in teams, as well as the moderating role of transformational team leadership in this relationship.Motivation for the study: For a team to be effective, adaptive and innovative and engage in learning behaviours, the transformational team leader must set the right climate in the team, where he or she welcomes the team members’ opinions, questions and feedback at no risk to their image. An understanding of this will be important in team leader selection and training.Research design, approach and method: Using a cross-sectional survey design, 57 work teams comprising 456 respondents in teams of 7–9 members were purposively sampled from five financial institutions in Accra, Ghana. Hierarchical regression and moderation analyses were run on the data at the team level.Main findings: Results indicated a positive relationship between team psychological safety and team learning behaviour, with transformational team leadership moderating this relationship.Practical/managerial implication: Transformational team leadership is important in creating a climate of psychological safety that will enable team members to engage in learning behaviours.Contribution/value-add: The study provided theoretical and empirical evidence that, in organisational contexts, transformational team leadership is an important variable that can facilitate psychological safety and learning behaviour in teams.

Safety management by walking around (SMBWA): a safety intervention program based on both peer and manager participation

"Management by walking around" (MBWA) is a practice that has aroused much interest in management science and practice. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate adaptation of this practice to safety management. We describe a three-year long case study that collected empirical data in which a modified MBWA was practiced in order to improve safety in a semiconductor fabrication facility. The main modification involved integrating an information system with the MBWA in order to create a practice that would generate safety leadership development and an organizational safety learning mechanism, while promoting employee safety participation. The results of the case study demonstrate that the SMBWA practice facilitated thousands of tours in which safety leadership behaviors were practiced by managers and by employees (employees performed five times as many tours as managers). The information system collected information about safety behaviors and safety conditions that could not otherwise be obtained. Thus, this study presents a new organizational safety practice SMBWA, and demonstrates the ways in which SMBWA may improve safety in organizations.

Team Exploratory and Exploitative Learning: Psychological Safety, Task Conflict, and Team Performance

This study conceptualized exploratory and exploitative learning as distinct team-level activities, constructed measures of them, and examined their relationships with psychological safety, task conflict, and team performance. Structural equation analysis in a sample of 142 innovation project teams indicated that psychological safety was linearly and nonlinearly related to team exploitative and exploratory learning, respectively; whereas task conflict positively moderated the relationship between psychological safety and exploitative learning. Furthermore, exploratory and exploitative learning were additively related to team performance, as rated by team managers, and mediated its relationship with psychological safety. The findings contribute to understanding how and under what conditions organizational teams engage in exploratory and exploitative learning to maximize their performance.