Organisational safety climate and occupational accidents and injuries: an epidemiology-based systematic review

It is widely accepted among practitioners and researchers that a good safety climate results in improved safety. However, there is a lack of systematic and detailed reviews summarising and evaluating the scientific evidence underpinning the relationship between safety climate and injuries and accidents in a company. The current research addresses this gap and studies the association of safety climate with accidents and injuries at work. Nine databases were searched for quantitative studies. After eligibility and quality selection, 17 peer-reviewed papers were analysed. Quality assessment was developed applying the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies (STROBE) guidelines, together with 9 appraisal criteria from Berra and colleagues (2008), Downs and Black (1998) and the appraisal tool from the University of Cardiff Weightman, Mann, Sander, & Turley, (2004). An evaluation summary statement was then constructed analysing the strength of the evidence provided by each study. Although 15 of the 17 studies included in this review provided full or partial support for the association of safety culture with accidents/injuries at work, scientific evidence is still unclear on the causal relationship between these two variables. Research is needed, especially longitudinal and intervention studies, to demonstrate in detail this association, which has been widely accepted in the area of occupational health and safety.     

Benchmarking Safety Climate in Hazardous Environments: A Longitudinal, Interorganizational Approach

Safety climate is an important element of organizational reliability. This study applied benchmarking strategies for monitoring safety climate across nine North Sea oil and gas installations that were surveyed in consecutive years. Examination of absolute changes in safety climate complemented the benchmarking approach. Discriminant function analyses (DFA) identified the elements of safety climate predictive of self-reported accidents; correlational analyses were applied to the scale scores and accident proportions across the year period. Absolute improvements were substantial, with safety climate profiles converging in the second year. Large relative improvements were also observed. DFA highlighted perceived management commitment to safety and willingness to report accidents as significant predictors of personal accident involvement. Changes in perceived management commitment to safety were closely associated with changes in safety behavior.     

Leadership behaviour and leader self-reported well-being: A review,integration and meta-analytic examination

ABSTRACT

While the link between leadership and follower well-being is well established, less is known about the relation between leaders’ leadership behaviour and their own well-being. Particularly, a systematic integration of existing studies is missing. Based on an integrated framework summarising major theories on the leader well-being–leadership link, we quantitatively synthesised findings on the relations between different leadership behaviours and leader well-being indicators. The meta-analytical results (95 effect sizes; N?=?12,617) confirmed significant relationships of constructive and destructive leadership with leader well-being in the expected directions. Relative weight analyses on the constructive leadership behaviours showed that change-oriented and relational-oriented leadership (e.g. transformational, participative) accounted for more variance in leader well-being than task-oriented leadership (e.g. transactional). Regarding destructive leadership, active destructive leadership (e.g. abusive supervision) showed stronger negative associations with leader well-being than passive leadership (e.g. laissez-faire). Based on our integrated framework, we proposed and found support for divergent patterns of associations for different forms of well-being (positive vs. negative, short-term vs. long-term, job-related vs. general). Our study demonstrates a considerable linkage between leader well-being and leadership, supporting the adoption of leadership development programmes and organisational health interventions for leaders given their impact on employees, teams and organisations.     

Psychosocial factors and safety behaviour as predictors of accidental work injuries in farming

Abstract

Farming is one of the most hazardous occupations in terms of the incidence and seriousness of accidental injuries. Research with other occupational groups has drawn attention to the role of psychosocial factors and stress. Such research needs to be extended to agriculture. Since stress may be a problem faced by farmers, there is a particular need to investigate the associations between farm accidents and work stressors and stress reactions. Using multivariate logistic regression analyses, this study aimed to uncover the best psychosocial predictors of injury, while controlling for exposure-related confounders. From a randomly selected sample of 794 farms, 10% of all farms in Ringkoebing County, Denmark, 393 farmers completed completed weekly accident registration over 12 months. The study sample consisted of 310 farmers who also completed questionnaires on psychosocial factors. Results indicated that farm stressors (including perceived economic problems), stress symptoms, and safety behaviour were predictors of occupational farm accidents. Higher levels of stressors and stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour were all associated with an elevated risk of injury. In the case of stress symptoms, the relation with accidents occurred via an interaction with safety behaviour. The combination of high levels of stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour was associated with a particularly high accident risk.     

Psychosocial factors and safety behaviour as predictors of accidental work injuries in farming

Farming is one of the most hazardous occupations in terms of the incidence and seriousness of accidental injuries. Research with other occupational groups has drawn attention to the role of psychosocial factors and stress. Such research needs to be extended to agriculture. Since stress may be a problem faced by farmers, there is a particular need to investigate the associations between farm accidents and work stressors and stress reactions. Using multivariate logistic regression analyses, this study aimed to uncover the best psychosocial predictors of injury, while controlling for exposure-related confounders. From a randomly selected sample of 794 farms, 10% of all farms in Ringkoebing County, Denmark, 393 farmers completed completed weekly accident registration over 12 months. The study sample consisted of 310 farmers who also completed questionnaires on psychosocial factors. Results indicated that farm stressors (including perceived economic problems), stress symptoms, and safety behaviour were predictors of occupational farm accidents. Higher levels of stressors and stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour were all associated with an elevated risk of injury. In the case of stress symptoms, the relation with accidents occurred via an interaction with safety behaviour. The combination of high levels of stress symptoms and poor safety behaviour was associated with a particularly high accident risk.     

Psychosocial safety climate as an antecedent of work characteristics and psychological strain: A multilevel model

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to a specific organizational climate for the psychological health of workers. It is largely determined by management and at low levels is proposed as a latent pathogen for psychosocial risk factors and psychological strain. Using an extended Job Demands-Control-Support framework, we predicted the (24 month) cross-level effects of PSC on psychological strain via work conditions. We used a novel design whereby data from two unrelated samples of nurses working in remote areas were used across time (N=202, Time 1; N=163, Time 2), matched at the work unit level (N= 48). Using hierarchical linear modelling we found that unit PSC assessed by nurses predicted work conditions (workload, control, supervisor support) and psychological strain in different nurses in the same work unit 24 months later. There was evidence that the between-group relationship between unit PSC and psychological strain was mediated via Time 2 work conditions (workload, job control) as well as Time 1 emotional demands. The results support a multilevel work stress model with PSC as a plausible primary cause, or “cause of the causes”, of work-related strain. The study adds to the literature that identifies organizational contextual factors as origins of the work stress process.     

The structure of employee attitudes to safety: A European example

This paper concerns organizational safety culture and the structure or architecture of employee attitudes to safety as part of that culture. It begins by reviewing the somewhat scant literature relevant to this area, and then reports a study, conducted in a European company, which collected and factor analysed data on employee attitudes to safety. The framework provided for the study was that offered by Purdham (1984), and the results suggested that employees' attitudes to safety, within this company (across occupation/occupational level and country), could be mapped By five orthogonal factors: personal scepticism, individual responsibility, the safeness of the work environment, the effectiveness of arrangements for safety, and personal immunity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and attention is drawn to their subsequent use in an intervention to enhance safety culture within the organization by attacking supervisors' attitudes to safety.     

A meta-analytic examination of the potential correlates and consequences of workload

Over the last four decades, occupational stress researchers have given considerable attention to the potential correlates and consequences of workload. In the current study, we use meta-analysis (overall k = 336) to quantitatively review the workload literature. In analyses of hypothesized correlates, we found that social support was negatively associated (ρ = ?.20 for supervisor support; ρ = –.11 for co-worker support) and that trait negative affectivity (ρ = .22), role ambiguity (ρ = .28), role conflict (ρ = .44) and work-family conflict (ρ = .44 for work-to-family conflict; ρ = .20 for family-to-work conflict) were each positively associated with workload. Analyses examining hypothesized outcome variables suggest that workload is negatively associated with several indices of psychological and physical well-being (ρs were generally in the –.20s and –.30s), and affective organizational commitment (ρ = –.11), and is positively associated with turnover intention (ρ = .16) and absenteeism (ρ = .07).     

Emotional strain and organizational citizenship behaviours: A meta-analysis and review

This paper provides a qualitative review and quantitative summary of the relationship between emotional strain and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and discusses five potential moderators of the strain-OCB relationship. OCB refers to discretionary behaviours that benefit organizations and their members. Emotional strain is important to consider because it has a broad impact on employee behaviours and is possibly more fundamental than other forms of strain. However, it has received less attention than aspects of job-related strain, such as job dissatisfaction. Based on the results of 29 empirical studies with 52 unique effect sizes, meta-analytic results revealed a negative relationship between strain and OCB (corrected estimate of the population correlation coefficient, ρ=-.16). Furthermore, this relationship is moderated by the type of OCB (OCB directed at the organization vs. that directed at individuals), type of organization (private vs. public), publication status (published vs. unpublished), OCB rating source (self vs. other), and type of sample (full-time employees vs. employed students). We present theoretical and practical implications of these findings, including steps that could be taken by organizations to increase OCB and to reduce emotional strain, and suggest directions for future research.     

Translating cross-lagged effects into incidence rates and risk ratios: The case of psychosocial safety climate and depression

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard of empirical work and stress research whenever experiments are not plausible. Frequently, scales are used to assess risk factors and their consequences, and cross-lagged effects are estimated to determine possible risks. Methods to translate cross-lagged effects into risk ratios to facilitate risk assessment do not yet exist, which creates a divide between psychological and epidemiological work stress research. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how cross-lagged effects can be used to assess the risk ratio of different levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) in organisations, an important psychosocial risk for the development of depression. We used available longitudinal evidence from the Australian Workplace Barometer (N?=?1905) to estimate cross-lagged effects of PSC on depression. We applied continuous time modelling to obtain time-scalable cross effects. These were further investigated in a 4-year Monte Carlo simulation, which translated them into 4-year incident rates. Incident rates were determined by relying on clinically relevant 2-year periods of depression. We suggest a critical value of PSC?=?26 (corresponding to ?1.4 SD), which is indicative of more than 100% increased incidents of persistent depressive disorder in 4-year periods compared to average levels of PSC across 4 years.     

Participatory analysis of accidents and incidents as a tool for increasing safety behaviour in fishermen. A pilot intervention study

Although occupational accidents are common in fishery, safety work is often not given priority by the fishermen. The aims of this study were to test a group-based intervention for increased activity in safety work through group discussion of accident/incident experience; to study occurred incidents/accidents and how such events were managed; and to study intervention effects on activity in safety work, risk acceptance and perceived manageability of risks. A sample of men from five crews (11 men) of Swedish fishermen participated. The study had a one group pre-test-post-test design for questionnaire data. The emphasis was on qualitative information collected during the intervention and interviews. The results indicated that accident causes could be appraised as being unmanageable even when technical solutions were possible. Psychological factors may cause incidents not to be documented or discussed. Incident experience seldom leads to preventive measures. Interaction between structural, social and psychological factors seemed to explain this. Questionnaires, observations and interview data suggested that some increase in safety work took place during the intervention. After the discussions the participants perceived risks to be less manageable. The study indicated that, although sensitive to dropout, participative safety interventions in fishery are feasible and may be effective. A longer or more intensive intervention may be necessary in order to progress from problem orientation to action orientation.     

Participatory analysis of accidents and incidents as a tool for increasing safety behaviour in fishermen. A pilot intervention study

Abstract

Although occupational accidents are common in fishery, safety work is often not given priority by the fishermen. The aims of this study were to test a group-based intervention for increased activity in safety work through group discussion of accident/incident experience; to study occurred incidents/accidents and how such events were managed; and to study intervention effects on activity in safety work, risk acceptance and perceived manageability of risks. A sample of men from five crews (11 men) of Swedish fishermen participated. The study had a one group pre-test–post-test design for questionnaire data. The emphasis was on qualitative information collected during the intervention and interviews. The results indicated that accident causes could be appraised as being unmanageable even when technical solutions were possible. Psychological factors may cause incidents not to be documented or discussed. Incident experience seldom leads to preventive measures. Interaction between structural, social and psychological factors seemed to explain this. Questionnaires, observations and interview data suggested that some increase in safety work took place during the intervention. After the discussions the participants perceived risks to be less manageable. The study indicated that, although sensitive to dropout, participative safety interventions in fishery are feasible and may be effective. A longer or more intensive intervention may be necessary in order to progress from problem orientation to action orientation.     

Of Disasters and Dragon Kings: A Statistical Analysis of Nuclear Power Incidents and Accidents

We perform a statistical study of risk in nuclear energy systems. This study provides and analyzes a data set that is twice the size of the previous best data set on nuclear incidents and accidents, comparing three measures of severity: the industry standard International Nuclear Event Scale, the Nuclear Accident Magnitude Scale of radiation release, and cost in U.S. dollars. The rate of nuclear accidents with cost above 20 MM 2013 USD, per reactor per year, has decreased from the 1970s until the present time. Along the way, the rate dropped significantly after Chernobyl (April 1986) and is expected to be roughly stable around a level of 0.003, suggesting an average of just over one event per year across the current global fleet. The distribution of costs appears to have changed following the Three Mile Island major accident (March 1979). The median cost became approximately 3.5 times smaller, but an extremely heavy tail emerged, being well described by a Pareto distribution with parameter α = 0.5–0.6. For instance, the cost of the two largest events, Chernobyl and Fukushima (March 2011), is equal to nearly five times the sum of the 173 other events. We also document a significant runaway disaster regime in both radiation release and cost data, which we associate with the “dragon‐king” phenomenon. Since the major accident at Fukushima (March 2011) occurred recently, we are unable to quantify an impact of the industry response to this disaster. Excluding such improvements, in terms of costs, our range of models suggests that there is presently a 50% chance that (i) a Fukushima event (or larger) occurs every 60–150 years, and (ii) that a Three Mile Island event (or larger) occurs every 10–20 years. Further—even assuming that it is no longer possible to suffer an event more costly than Chernobyl or Fukushima—the expected annual cost and its standard error bracket the cost of a new plant. This highlights the importance of improvements not only immediately following Fukushima, but also deeper improvements to effectively exclude the possibility of “dragon‐king” disasters. Finally, we find that the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) is inconsistent in terms of both cost and radiation released. To be consistent with cost data, the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters would need to have between an INES level of 10 and 11, rather than the maximum of 7.     

Psychosocial safety climate,psychosocial and physical factors in the aetiology of musculoskeletal disorder symptoms and workplace injury compensation claims

Causal agents for workers' compensation claims and physical injury have largely been identified as physical demands. We proposed an integrated theory of physical injury (i.e. musculoskeletal disorder symptoms [MSDs]) and workers' compensation claims, which combined psychosocial and physical mechanisms. A random, population-based sample of 1095 Australian workers completed a telephone interview on two occasions 12 months apart. As expected, the physical mechanism was confirmed; physical demands were related to MSDs, which in turn predicted workers' compensation claims. Further, a novel psychosocial mechanism was confirmed. Psychosocial safety climate (PSC; perceptions about the organisation's climate for psychological health) was a precursor to psychosocial risks (e.g. harassment, violence, bullying and work pressure). In turn, these psychosocial risks were related to emotional exhaustion, MSDs and then workers' compensation claims. Evidence was therefore provided for psychosocial-physical processes in explaining MSDs and workers' compensation for claims for physical injury. Occupational health and safety legislators and policy makers should be aware that, beyond physical demands, factors usually associated with risk for mental stress claims (e.g. harassment, bullying, and violence) may additionally manifest in physical health problems and workers' compensation injury claims. Focusing on modifying the PSC in an organisation, “the cause of the causes”, may be an effective injury prevention and intervention strategy.     

Making sense of conflicting empirical findings: A meta-analytic review of the relationship between corporate environmental and financial performance

Despite the tremendous number of publications concerned with the relationship between corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP), inconsistent empirical findings persist and the overall picture remains vague. Drawing on a hybrid theoretical framework (combining the theoretical reasoning of the natural-resource-based view (NRBV) with instrumental stakeholder and slack resources arguments), we address the apparent lack of consensus by meta-analytically integrating the findings of 149 studies. We pay particular attention to two highly material issues: the direction of causality and the multidimensionality of the focal constructs. Meta-analytic results indicate that there is a positive and partially bidirectional relationship between CEP and CFP. In addition, our findings suggest that the relationship is stronger when the strategic approach underlying CEP is proactive rather than reactive. Furthermore, we reveal moderation effects of methodological artifacts, which may provide explanations for the inconsistency of the results of previous studies. Based on our findings, we discuss the implications and outline avenues for further research.     

National cultures and safety orientation: A study of seafarers working for Norwegian shipping companies

Up to now, little work has been conducted on safety in relation to national culture. This paper examines the association between national culture and the safety orientation of seafarers on Norwegian-owned vessels. Safety orientation is the result of cultural, organizational, and contextual factors that create attitudes and behaviours that in turn influence safety. In this study a safety culture/orientation questionnaire was designed and used to determine risk and safety characteristics. Survey data was collected from 2,558 seafarers from 27 countries. The sample used consisted of seafarers from the 10 countries for which there were more than 10 respondents. Five national (cultural) characteristics were calculated using Hofstede's Value Survey Model 94. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that (a) the number of nationalities represented on a vessel was related to their attitude towards safety issues, such that two-nation vessels obtain relatively negative scores regarding these issues, and (b) national culture was related to safety culture, such that high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and high individualism were positive for safety. The implications of these findings for practice and future research are discussed.     

A cross-validation of a structural equation model of accidents: organizational and psychological variables as predictors of work safety

A study to establish a structural equation model of accidents is presented. The eight variables included in the model were those associated with accidents in previous research. The reliability of questionnaires to measure those variables and a structural equation model relating them are provided. The model explaining the occurrence of accidents was cross-validated through three Spanish samples (n=123; 182; 124).The model presented a good fit to data in two samples, while a third had unclear fit indices. Therefore, most relationships among variables did not vary among these three samples. The role of the safety variables in the model is discussed. The discussion is also focused on risk measurement difficulties commonly reported in the literature. Finally, some suggestions for future safety research with structural equation modelling techniques are provided.     

Communal values and economic success: A comparison of israeli collective settlements

The association between economic success and adherence to communal values in Israeli kibbutz communes is analyzed over a thirty year period. Adherence to four communal objectives, as independent variables, is considered: Settling the land and absorbing settlers, farming as a way of life, refraining from financial speculation and minimizing consumption. Economic performance was used as the criterion variable. The findings show that the federation of religious kibbutzim (plural of kibbutz) adhered most closely to the social objectives and achieved better economic/financial performance than other kubbutz federations. The economic success of the religious kibbutzim is attributed to a religious rational ethic that was developed during their formative years and maintained consistently over time.     

Notes on the Interpretation of Traffic Accident Data and of Risk Homeostasis Theory: A Reply to L. Evans

A quick and summary comment is made on a paper by Evans, who set out to "definitively answer" the question "whether there is any validity" in risk homeostasis theory (RHT), and who arrives at the conclusion that the "theory should be rejected" because the data "provide the clearest evidence refuting the theory." It will be argued here that the seven cases Evans puts forward against RHT do not justify such a rather boldly-worded conclusion. On the contrary, the data presented by Evans can be seen to be either not inconsistent with RHT (Case 1), in error (Case 2), or fail to take account of relevant economic changes (Case 3) and of pertinent exposure variables (Case 5), incomplete or the product of guess-work (Case 4), irrelevant (Case 6), nonrepresentative (Case 7) and in all cases open to alternative interpretations that do not conflict with the theory under debate. Moreover, Evans' reasoning seems to betray not only careless reading of what RHT does in fact say, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of the notion of target risk in particular. Refuting a "refutation" does not, of course, imply that RHT is valid, or valid at least within as yet to be defined limits. Attempts to address the validity question should preferably take the form of well-controlled field experiments, instead of retrospective analyses of multi-interpretable archival data that can be debated ad infinitum.     

Consumer Confidence in the Safety of Food and Newspaper Coverage of Food Safety Issues: A Longitudinal Perspective

This study develops a longitudinal perspective on consumer confidence in the safety of food to explore if, how, and why consumer confidence changes over time. In the first study, a theory-based monitoring instrument for consumer confidence in the safety of food was developed and validated. The monitoring instrument assesses consumer confidence together with its determinants. Model and measurement invariance were validated rigorously before developments in consumer confidence in the safety of food and its determinants were investigated over time. The results from the longitudinal analysis show that across four waves of annual data collection (2003–2006), the framework was stable and that the relative importance of the determinants of confidence was, generally, constant over time. Some changes were observed regarding the mean ratings on the latent constructs. The second study explored how newspaper coverage of food safety related issues affects consumer confidence in the safety of food through subjective consumer recall of food safety incidents. The results show that the newspaper coverage on food safety issues is positively associated with consumer recall of food safety incidents, both in terms of intensity and recency of media coverage.