A group-level model of safety climate: testing the effect of group climate on microaccidents in manufacturing jobs.
This article presents and tests a group-level model of safety climate to supplement the available organization-level model. Climate perceptions in this case are related to supervisory safety practices rather than to company policies and procedures. The study included 53 work groups in a single manufacturing company. Safety climate perceptions, measured with a newly developed scale, revealed both within-group homogeneity and between-groups variation. Predictive validity was measured with a new outcome measure, microaccidents, that refers to behavior-dependent on-the-job minor injuries requiring medical attention. Climate perceptions significantly predicted microaccident records during the 5-month recording period that followed climate measurement, when the effects of group- and individual-level risk factors were controlled. The study establishes an empirical link between safety climate perceptions and objective injury data.
Zohar
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Faculty of Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. dzohar@tx.technion.ac.il
D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D000328:Adult; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D012449:Safety; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014937:Work