Why Do Workers Take Safety Risks?—A Conceptual Model for the Motivation Underpinning Perverse Agency

Cross-Regional Research in Demographic Impact on Safety Consciousness and Safety Citizenship Behavior of Construction Workers: A Comparative Study between Mainland China and Hong Kong

The construction industry has rapidly developed with continuous prosperity in Hong Kong and Mainland China, although accidents still occur with unacceptable frequency and severity. For promoting the safety issue of workers in construction industry, safety citizenship behavior (SCB) and safety consciousness (SC) were considered two influential constructs and further studied with integration of sociodemographic theories by scholars. However, no study has compared the SC and SCB of construction workers in terms of the demographic influence between Mainland China and Hong Kong. To fill this research gap, this study investigated the territorial difference between these two regions by conducting a cross-sectional questionnaire survey with recruitment of 253 Mainland construction workers and 256 Hong Kong construction workers. Significant similarities and differences of SC and SCB performance were revealed in terms of the workers with different genders, education levels, weekly working hours, and ages. This study provides insights into the comparison of demographic influence on SC and SCB of construction workers between Hong Kong and Mainland China, which is unique as it can yield useful managerial knowledge relevant to the personal safety of targeted groups of construction workers with particular demographic characteristics in both regions and contribute the implementation of safety interventions in line with the specific distinction in the territorial aspect.

Assessing the Risk of Hazards with Multidimensional Consequences for Industrial Processes

Risk assessment plays an important role in process safety. The result of the assessment is used to determine risk priorities and then develop preventions to reduce risks. A hazard may have multidimensional consequences, including loss of health and safety, asset loss, and environmental damage. Traditionally, these multidimensional consequences are often measured disjointedly. A comprehensive risk assessment would be conducted by many professionals from multiple areas. Each of these professionals uses different indicators to evaluate risks. The poor integration among risk indicators further confuses managers in the risk resilience and prevention development. In addition, this lacks a solid method for assessing the risk of hazards that with multidimensional consequences. The aim of the work is to develop a risk-measuring instrument using a newly proposed approach, the Risk Assessment for Hazards with Multidimensional Consequences (RAMC), which is developed based on the theory of quality of life (QOL), a theory from health management. RAMC uses the ‘diminished quality of life in organization safety’ (DQLOS) as a risk indicator to represent the level of risk exposure. The main results of the work show that the method of RAMC and the indicator ‘DQLOS’ are able to support practitioners to assess the risk of a hazard with multidimensional consequences and could be used to deliver reasonable risk control priorities. A case study associated with the coal-to-methanol gasification process is discussed for RAMC’s application and validation. The case study result also indicates that the DQLOS has the potential to assist the industry to design safe process systems and develop ongoing improvements in safety.

Evaluation of Influence Factors on the Visual Inspection Performance of Aircraft Engine Blades

Background—There are various influence factors that affect visual inspection of aircraft engine blades including type of inspection, defect type, severity level, blade perspective and background colour. The effect of those factors on the inspection performance was assessed. Method—The inspection accuracy of fifty industry practitioners was measured for 137 blade images, leading to N = 6850 observations. The data were statistically analysed to identify the significant factors. Subsequent evaluation of the eye tracking data provided additional insights into the inspection process. Results—Inspection accuracies in borescope inspections were significantly lower compared to piece-part inspection at 63.8% and 82.6%, respectively. Airfoil dents (19.0%), cracks (11.0%), and blockage (8.0%) were the most difficult defects to detect, while nicks (100.0%), tears (95.5%), and tip curls (89.0%) had the highest detection rates. The classification accuracy was lowest for airfoil dents (5.3%), burns (38.4%), and tears (44.9%), while coating loss (98.1%), nicks (90.0%), and blockage (87.5%) were most accurately classified. Defects of severity level S1 (72.0%) were more difficult to detect than increased severity levels S2 (92.8%) and S3 (99.0%). Moreover, visual perspectives perpendicular to the airfoil led to better inspection rates (up to 87.5%) than edge perspectives (51.0% to 66.5%). Background colour was not a significant factor. The eye tracking results of novices showed an unstructured search path, characterised by numerous fixations, leading to longer inspection times. Experts in contrast applied a systematic search strategy with focus on the edges, and showed a better defect discrimination ability. This observation was consistent across all stimuli, thus independent of the influence factors. Conclusions—Eye tracking identified the challenges of the inspection process and errors made. A revised inspection framework was proposed based on insights gained, and support the idea of an underlying mental model.

Family-to-Work Interface and Workplace Injuries: The Mediating Roles of Burnout, Work Engagement, and Safety Violations

Past research has primarily investigated the role of the negative side (family-to-work conflict; FWC) of the family-to-work interface in workplace safety outcomes and neglected the positive side (family-to-work enrichment; FWE). Moreover, the mechanism underlying the relation between the family-to-work interface and workplace safety has not been well studied. From the perspectives of the job demands-resources model as well as conservation of resources theory, this study endeavors to extend the current literature on workplace safety by evaluating the mediating roles of burnout, work engagement, and safety violations in the associations of FWC and FWE with workplace injuries. Two-wave longitudinal survey data were obtained from 233 Chinese employees in two high-risk industries (nursing and railways). The hypothesized longitudinal mediation model was analyzed with the structural equation modeling technique. It was revealed that the association of FWE with workplace injuries was mediated by work engagement and then safety violations. Burnout was found to mediate the association of FWC with workplace injuries. Safety violations were also found to mediate the association of FWC with workplace injuries. The present findings offer insights into the underlying mechanisms by which the family-to-work interface influences workplace injuries.

Motivational profiles and safety-related traits

This article is concerned with the relationship between the job motivational and preference profile of individuals and their engagement in safety behaviours. Studies have investigated personality traits but not motive and value correlates of risk-related behaviour. More than 25,000 Americans completed a questionnaire on safety-related competencies in the workplace that measured six different, but related, safety-related traits. They also completed a motivational measure of preferences and values used extensively in personnel assessment and selection. The six safety dimensions yielded two factors labelled observant and resilient that, along with the total score, were the criterion variables. Step-wise regressions indicated that those with high needs for affiliation, hedonism and recognition tended to be less safety conscious. The two different factors also showed a different pattern of demographic and motivational correlates. Problems of method invariance are discussed, as well the role of job motivation individual differences in safety-related traits and competencies.

NOSACQ-50 for Safety Climate Assessment in Agricultural Activities: A Case Study in Central Italy

Safety climate assessment has been recognized as a powerful tool to bring to light workers' perceptions related to safety practices, attitudes and behaviors at the workplace. Accordingly, its investigation can provide useful information about safety problems within a company before accidents occur. In literature, numerous studies can be found investigating safety climates in different types of industry. However, safety climate assessment in agricultural activities is addressed scarcely, even though agriculture represents a very hazardous sector. To reduce this gap, the present study proposes an investigation of safety climate among farmers by means of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50). The results of the survey brought to light a low level of safety perception of the interviewed sample, especially as concerns safety commitment and risk-taking attitudes. In particular, a different attitude toward safety issues has been registered depending on both the position and gender of the interviewed farmers. Overall, the output of this cross-sectional analysis adds to the current literature by expanding knowledge of safety climate among farmers, representing a baseline for further investigations based on human-centered approaches to enhance safety in agriculture and consequently social and workplace aspects of sustainable agricultural systems.

A Systematic Methodology for Developing Bowtie in Risk Assessment: Application to Borescope Inspection

Background—Bowtie analysis is a broadly used tool in risk management to identify root causes and consequences of hazards and show barriers that can prevent or mitigate the events to happen. Limitations of the method are reliance on judgement and an ad hoc development process. Purpose—Systematic approaches are needed to identify threats and consequences, and to ascertain mitigation and prevention barriers. Results—A new conceptual framework is introduced by combining the Bowtie method with the 6M structure of Ishikawa to categorise the threats, consequences and barriers. The method is developed for visual inspection of gas turbine components, for which an example is provided. Originality—Provision of a more systematic methodology has the potential to result in more comprehensive Bowtie risk assessments, with less chance of serious omissions. The method is expected to find application in the broader industry, and to support operators who are non-risk experts but have application-specific knowledge, when performing Bowtie risk assessment.

Study Regarding the Improvement of Bottling Process for Spring Waters, through the Implementation of the Occupational Health and Food Safety Requirements

The design, development and deployment, alongside with preventive maintenance of equipment helps with controlling safety issues in water bottling processes. However, these aspects are not-enough to prevent accidents; they must be closely related to the implementation of quality, occupational health and safety, and food security standards. The approach presented in this paper was to show a summary of the assessment of the risks of injury and professional illness for all within the organization according to the ISO 45001:2018 standard. Also, a statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the occurrence of defects in different equipment in the technological process. The paper highlights the safety parameters of the spring water “Roua Apusenilor” namely the: organoleptic, physic-chemical and microbiological ones, according to the European legislation. A hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) generic model was developed for this process. In this case study, the analysis and assessment of hazards that may occur during processing was implemented for still water bottling stages, as was an identification of the critical control points, which include filtration and ozone water treatment. The HACCP principles, included in the ISO 22000:2018 standard, were applied in order to improve the food safety and security, to reduce the risks resulting from the consumption of “Roua Apusenilor” spring water and, also, for increasing customer confidence. The obtained results significantly relied upon the situation found in the industrial company used as a benchmark for the research. The analysis revealed that, considered safety standards OHSAS (ISO 45001) and HACCP (ISO 22000) share the same goal of safety production for safe food products.