Transcript Safety Climate and Involvement in Safety Management: a

Safety Climate and Involvement in
Safety Management: a Study with
First-Line Managers
Dongo Rémi KOUABENAN*
Robert NGUEUTSA*
Safiétou MBAYE**
* Université de Grenoble 2 (France): [email protected],
[email protected]
** EDF R & D (France): [email protected]
Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa, July 22-27, 2012
Introduction

This study examines the effect of safety climate on involvement in safety management by firstline managers (FLM). FLMs remain a largely unexplored population even though they play a key
role in managing safety on production sites.

Safety climate (Zohar, 1980) reflects perceptions of the importance placed on safety in an
organization and the perceived attitudes of managers toward safety issues. It is one of the key
variables in obtaining the best safety performance and stronger commitment to safety-related
actions (Silva et al. 2004; Cooper and Phillips, 2004, Tucker et al. 2008, Zohar, 2010).

Sixty-three FLMs from a nuclear power firm answered a questionnaire measuring perceived
safety climate at the workplace, perceived risk, and involvement in safety management.

We postulated that risk perceptions can shed light on the managerial decisions that FLMs make
and the safety actions they instigate or promote.

We hypothesized that a positive perception of the safety climate would promote substantial
involvement in safety management, and that this effect would be stronger than the perceivedrisk effect.

Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa,
July 22-27, 2012
Methodology
Dimensions measured: safety climate with three sub-dimensions, risk perception, involvement in
safety management (see Table 1)
Sample (N = 63)
Mean
Dimensions Measured
Age
44
Safety climate
Seniority (in yrs)
20.34
Number of agents
supervised
Area of Activity
Items
M
α
50
3.31
.93
•Management’s attitude toward
safety
15
3.68
.80
•Feeling of being encouraged by
superiors to get involved in safety
19
3.13
.91
•Feeling of being called upon by
subordinates about safety issues
16
3.15
.91
Perceived probability of risks for
supervised agents
17
2.78
.92
Involvement in safety
management
28
3.24
.96
19.46
%
Maintenance
54.1
Production
21.3
Logistics
8.2
Risk perception
8.2
Administration
8.2
Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa, July 22-27, 2012
Results (1/2)
Effect of Safety-Climate Sub-Dimensions on FLM Involvement in Safety Management
Positive
perception
Negative
perception
M (S.D.)
M (S.D.)
F (1, 61)
p
ƞ²
Safety climate (overall scale)
3.63 (.61)
2.82 (.70)
23.30
.001
.28
Management’s attitude toward
safety
3.43 (.86)
3.01 (.54)
4.97
.029
.08
Feeling of being encouraged by
superiors
3.55 (.64)
2.91 (.76)
13.26
.001
.18
Feeling of being called upon by
subordinates
3.6 (.52)
2.71 (.78)
29.32
.001
.33
Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa,
July 22-27, 2012
Results (2/2)
Perceived-risk effect on FLM involvement in safety management fully mediated by safety climate.
Perceived-risk effect on FLM involvement in safety management fully mediated by feeling of being
called upon by subordinates.
Safety Climate
β = .29*
β = .71**
Perceived Risk
(β = .14)
β = .36**
FLM Involvement in
Safety Management
*p < .05, **p < .01
Perceived-risk effect on involvement in safety management partially mediated by feeling of being
encouraged by superiors.
No mediation between perceived risk and perceived safety-attitude of management.
Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa, July 22-27, 2012
DISCUSSION - CONCLUSION

Perception of a good safety climate leads to substantial involvement in preventive actions by
both managers and their subordinates (Clarke, 2006).

The present study makes an innovative contribution by introducing the question of
subordinates’ role expectations of FLMs as a measure of the safety climate.
– This sub-dimension of the safety climate had the strongest effect on FLM involvement in
safety management.
– It was the only sub-dimension that fully mediated the perceived-risk effect on FLM
involvement.

These results point out the importance of paying attention to the safety climate in
organizations by supporting FLMs and making them feel useful, providing them with facilitating
means for promoting the safety actions they undertake.

This also requires organizations to find ways of keeping subordinates informed about what they
can expect from FLMs.
Poster presented at the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, South Africa,
July 22-27, 2012