Conceptualizing the Contextual Dynamics of Safety Climate and Safety Culture Research: A Comparative Scientometric Analysis

Safety climate and safety culture are important research domains in risk and safety science, and various industry and service sectors show significant interest in, and commitment to, applying its concepts, theories, and methods to enhance organizational safety performance. Despite the large body of literature on these topics, there are disagreements about the scope and focus of these concepts, and there is a lack of systematic understanding of their development patterns and the knowledge domains on which these are built. This article presents a comparative analysis of the literature focusing on safety climate and safety culture, using various scientometric analysis approaches and tools. General development patterns are identified, including the publication trends, in terms of temporal and geographical activity, the science domains in which safety culture and safety climate research occurs, and the scientific domains and articles that have primarily influenced their respective development. It is found that the safety culture and safety climate domains show strong similarities, e.g., in dominant application domains and frequently occurring terms. However, safety culture research attracts comparatively more attention from other scientific domains, and the research domains rely on partially different knowledge bases. In particular, while measurement plays a role in both domains, the results suggest that safety climate research focuses comparatively more on the development and validation of questionnaires and surveys in particular organizational contexts, whereas safety culture research appears to relate these measurements to wider organizational features and management mechanisms. Finally, various directions for future research are identified based on the obtained results.

Trust, Workload, Outdoor Adventure Leadership, and Organizational Safety Climate

The outdoor adventure leadership (OAL) field has an extensive body of work centered on individual safety performance, but much less at the organization level of analysis and assessment of organizational safety. Safety climate is a well-established construct and when measured can be indicative of employees’ perceptions of organizational safety and predictive of safety performance. This study employed a safety climate scale and surveyed 506 employees across ten United States OAL not-for-profit organizations. Dimensions of safety as a recognized value, and leadership and management for safety typically scored the highest across organizations. The Dimensions of safety as learning oriented, and safety as integrated into operations, typically scored the lowest. Trust in the organization and OAL delivery pressure, workload, and stress emerged as important indicators of safety climate at the organizational level. Directions for future research based upon this safety climate tool are identified.

The Relationship Between Organizational Safety Culture and Organization Safety Performance. The Mediating Role of Safety Management System

Introduction: Safety performance is defined as efforts undertaken by organizations with the crucial aim of curtailing accidents and injuries to workers. It plays a crucial role in an organization aiming to achieve an anticipated outcome. A plethora of studies have found positive association between safety culture and safety performance of organizations. However, little is known on how the mechanism through which organizational safety culture exerts its influence on safety performance. Thus, this study investigates the indirect effect of safety management system in the relationship between organizational safety culture and safety performance. Methods: This study employs the use of a 5-point Likert questionnaire to collect data from 134 respondents who are head of safety officers in F&B industries located in Lagos, Nigeria. SmartPLS 2.0 was used for data analysis. Results: Results from path analysis revealed that safety culture and safety management system positively relate to safety performance. Furthermore, the mediation analysis indicated an indirect effect of safety management system in the relationship between safety culture and safety performance. Conclusion: It is concluded that though safety culture has a significant positive relationship on safety performance, however its effect will be more if F&B organizations create and constantly implement a robust safety management system.

Accident and Emergency Care Made High Reliable: Perception of Staff on Factors Affecting Application of High-Reliability Organization Principles in Accident Emergency Units

There is a growing concern regarding patient safety and high reliability which made more intense with this ongoing pandemic.Aim of this study is to assess the organizational factors affecting the practice of High-Reliability Organization (HRO) Principles as perceived by staff in selected Accident and Emergency Units. Methodology: A hospital based cross-sectional study in three Accident and Emergency care setting, among healthcare staff, conducted using a self-administered questionnaire.Results: Out of the five factors affecting HRO practices as perceived by staff, “Organizational Safety Culture” (Mean-4.27., SD-0.49) has the highest mean value followed by Leadership (Mean: 3.96, SD: 0.44) and Teamwork (Mean: 3.95, SD: 0.5). “Work Environment” (Mean: 3.94, SD: 0.46) has the lowest score. All independent and dependent variables have a significant positive correlation with HRO principles (Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level-1-tailed). Multivariate analysis was carried out to assess the proportion variability of the dependent variable. The linear regression model explains 22% of the variability of the HRO practices (dependent variable) by factors affecting HRO practices (independent variables) if all the factors operate together.The distribution of Coefficients, Standardized B value is 0.29 (significant at the 0.01 level), showing if “Organizational Safety Culture” operates together with the other four independent variables 29% of the variability of the HRO practices (dependent variable) can be explained by Organizational Safety Culture.Conclusion: Organizational safety culture shows significant (< 0.01) effect on determining HRO practices.

A Conceptual Model of Multi-Spectra Perceptions for Enhancing the Safety Climate in Construction Workplaces

Construction safety climates can reflect organizational safety behavior and commitment, employees’ safety perceptions and attitudes, and the supervisory and support environments. Maintaining a healthy safety climate can help prevent workers from fatal accidents and illnesses. To enhance the safety climate and, consequently, improve safety performance at a construction site, it is very important to analyze the elements that affect the safety climate and are significant for different types of construction work organizations. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to develop a multi-spectra perception model to investigate which factors were considered critical from four key perspectives: managers, superintendents, skilled laborers, and general helpers. To achieve this goal, a survey questionnaire was conducted to collect empirical data from one commercial building construction project. Based on a stepwise regression analysis, it was revealed that the most significant factors enhancing the safety climate are: from the managers’ perspective, a combination of improvement in the support environment and reduction in work pressure; for superintendents and skilled laborers, increasing worker competence; and for general laborers, increasing worker involvement. This research contributes to a better understanding of the significant factors and provides a measure for each important role in enhancing the safety climate at a job site.