A RESEARCH ON THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL SAFETY CLIMATE UPON THE SAFE BEHAVIORS

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the organizational safety climate and the safety behaviors of the employees. It is been accepted by many researchers that unsafe employee behavior at work place is one of the primary determinants of occupational accidents. More recently researchers suggest that safe/unsafe behaviors of the employees are affected by certain organizational factors. Recent studies accept organizational safety climate as one these factors that affects safe/unsafe behaviors of the employees. In this context, this study conducted in an active shipyard in Turkey, finds that there are significant relations between the four dimensions of the organizational safety climate and the safety behavior of the employees

Keywords

• Job safety climate, safe behavior

References

1. BROWN, K.A., WILLIS, P.G. and PRUSSIA, G.E. (2000): “Predicting Safe Employee Behavior in The Steel Industry: Development and Test of A Sociotechnical Model”, Journal of Operations Management, 18: 445–465.
2. CHEYNE, A., OLIVER, A., TOMAS, J.M. and COX, S. (2003): “The Architecture of Employee Attitudes to Safety In The Manufacturing Sector”, Personnel Review, 31: 649-670.
3. CHOUDHRY, R.M. and FANG, D. (2008): “Why Operatives Engage in Unsafe Work Behavior: Investigating Factors on Construction Sites”, Safety Science, 46: 566–584.
4. CLARKE, S. (2006): “Safety Climate in An Automobile Manufacturing Plant. The Effects of Work Environment, Job Communication and Safety Attitudes on Accidents and Unsafe Behaviour”, Personnel Review, 35: 413-430.
5. COX, S. and COX, T. (1991): “The Structure of Employee Attitudes to Safety: A European Example”, Work and Stres, 5: 93–106.
6. COYLE, I.R., SLEEMAN, S.D. and ADAMS, N. (1995): “Safety Climate. Journal of Safety Research, 26: 247–254.
7. DONALD, I. and CANTER, D. (1994): “Employee Attitudes and Safety in Chemical Industry”, Journal of Loss Prevention in Process Industries, 7: 203– 208.
8. DOV, Z. (2008): “Safety Climate and Beyond: A Multi-Level Multi-Climate Framework”, Safety Science, 46: 376–387.

9. GLENDON, A.I, and LITHERLAND, D.K. (2001): “Safety climate Factors, Group Differences and Safety Behaviour in Road Construction”, Safety Science, 39: 157-188.
10. JOHNSON, S.E. (2007): “The Predictive Validity of Safety Climate”, Journal of Safety Research, 38: 511–521.
11. MEARNS, K., WHİTAKER, S.M. and FLIN, R. (2003): “Safety Climate, Safety Management Practice and Safety Performance in Offshore Environments”, Safety Science, 41: 641–680.
12. MOHAMED, S. (2002): “Safety climate in construction site environments”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 5: 375−384.
13. MOHAMED, S., ALI, T.H. and Tam, W.Y.V. (2009): “National Culture and Safe Work Behaviour of Construction Workers in Pakistan”, Safety Science, 47: 29- 35.
14. MULLEN, J. (2004): “Investigating Factors that Influence Individual Safety Behavior at Work”, Journal of Safety Research, 35: 275– 285.
15. NEAL, A. and GRIFFIN, M.A. (2006): “A Study of The Lagged Relationships Among Safety Climate, Safety Motivation, Safety Behavior, and Accidents at the Individual and Group Levels”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 946-953.
16. NISKANEN, T. (1994): “Safety climate in the road administration”, Safety Science, 17: 237–255.
17. OLIVER, A., CHEYNE, A., TOMAS, J.M. and COX, S. (2002): “The Effects of Organizational and Individual Factors on Occupational Accidents”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75: 473–488.
18. SADULLAH, O. (2008): “İnsan Kaynakları Yönetiminde Koruma İşlevi (İşgüvenliği ve İşgören Sağlığı)”, Sadullah et all. (eds.) İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimi 3rd Edition, İstanbul, İşletme Fakültesi Review
19. SEO, D.C. (2005): “An Explicative Model of Unsafe Work Behavior”, Safety Science, 43: 187–211.
20. TOMAS, J.M., MELİA, J.L. and OLIVER, A. (1999): “A Cross-Validation of A Structural Equation Model of Accidents: Organizational and Psychological Variables As Predictors of Work Safety”, Work & Stress, 13: 49-58.
21. TURNBERG, W. and DANIELL, W. (2008): “Evaluation of A Healthcare Safety Climate Measurement Tool”, Journal of Safety Research, 39: 563-568.
22. VARONEN, U. And MATTILA, M. (2000): “The Safety Climate and It‟s Relationships to Safety Practices, Safety of Work Environment and Occupational Accidents in Eight Wood-Processing Companies”, Accident Analysis and Prevention, 32: 761–769.
23. VINODKUMAR, M.N. and BHASI, M. (2009): “Safety Climate Factors and Its Relationship With Accidents and Personal Attributes in The Chemical Industry”, Safety Science, 47: 659-667.
24. ZHOU, Q., FANG, D. and WANG, X. (2008): “A Method to Identify Strategies for The Improvement of Human Safety Behavior by Considering Safety Climate and Personal Experience”, Safety Science, 46: 1406–1419.