Perception of just culture and its association with work-related psychosocial factors in an Iranian industrial setting: Implications for prevention of errors

BACKGROUND

A just culture is one in which the reporting of errors and near misses is supported without fear of retribution. The relationship of just culture and psychosocial factors at work has not been explored sufficiently in the literature.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the perception of just culture and its association with socio-demographic and work-related psychosocial factors among 302 employees in an industrial setting in Iran.

METHODS

Just culture was assessed using the Just Culture Assessment Tool, and the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire was used for evaluation of psychosocial work factors (including influence at work, meaning of work, commitment to the workplace, predictability, rewards, quality of leadership, social support from supervisors, trust, and justice and respect). Data were analysed using t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and general linear regression analysis.

RESULTS

The results indicated that the employees had a fairly positive view on their organisation's just culture, though there were some areas such as trust and balance that needed further attention. The psychosocial issues (particularly commitment to the workplace, meaning of work, social support from supervisors, and rewards) were not adequate from the employees' perspective. Predictability, rewards, and quality of leadership, were the significant psychosocial predictors of just culture in a multivariate regression model.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight the areas that need to be considered to improve the experience of organisational just culture, which is important from the point of view of prevention of safety errors and incidents.

Long-term effect of arsenic exposure: Results from an occupational cohort study

BACKGROUND

In 1976 in Manfredonia (Italy), arsenic was released into the atmosphere due to an accident in a petrochemical plant. We aimed to analyze the mortality of workers involved in the factory for the site cleaning activities.

METHODS

The cohort consisted of 1467 workers grouped into contract, fertilizer, and plastic workers. The outcome of interest was mortality for specific causes. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were computed.

RESULTS

For all workers and all causes of death combined, the SMR was less than 1.0. Mortality ratios were increased for malignant neoplasms of the pleura, bone and melanoma of the skin. Contract workers, the group mostly exposed to arsenic, showed statistically significant SMRs for several malignancies, in particular for lung cancer (SMR = 1.26; 95%CI: 1.05-1.54).

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the results reported here on mortality among persons occupationally exposed to arsenic are consistent with the literature and biologically plausible.

The Impact of Redundancy and Teamwork on Resilience Engineering Factors by Fuzzy Mathematical Programming and Analysis of Variance in a Large Petrochemical Plant

Background

Resilience engineering (RE) is a new paradigm that can control incidents and reduce their consequences. Integrated RE includes four new factors—self-organization, teamwork, redundancy, and fault-tolerance—in addition to conventional RE factors. This study aimed to evaluate the impacts of these four factors on RE and determine the most efficient factor in an uncertain environment.

Methods

The required data were collected through a questionnaire in a petrochemical plant in June 2013. The questionnaire was completed by 115 respondents including 37 managers and 78 operators. Fuzzy data envelopment analysis was used in different α-cuts in order to calculate the impact of each factor. Analysis of variance was employed to compare the efficiency score means of the four above-mentioned factors.

Results

The results showed that as α approached 0 and the system became fuzzier (α = 0.3 and α = 0.1), teamwork played a significant role and had the highest impact on the resilient system. In contrast, as α approached 1 and the fuzzy system went toward a certain mode (α = 0.9 and α = 1), redundancy had a vital role in the selected resilient system. Therefore, redundancy and teamwork were the most efficient factors.

Conclusion

The approach developed in this study could be used for identifying the most important factors in such environments. The results of this study may help managers to have better understanding of weak and strong points in such industries.