Safety climate and self-reported injury: Assessing the mediating role of employee safety control

Yueng Hsiang Huang, Michael Ho, Gordon S. Smith, Peter Y. Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

190 Scopus citations

Abstract

To further reduce injuries in the workplace, companies have begun focusing on organizational factors which may contribute to workplace safety. Safety climate is an organizational factor commonly cited as a predictor of injury occurrence. Characterized by the shared perceptions of employees, safety climate can be viewed as a snapshot of the prevailing state of safety in the organization at a discrete point in time. However, few studies have elaborated plausible mechanisms through which safety climate likely influences injury occurrence. A mediating model is proposed to link safety climate (i.e., management commitment to safety, return-to-work policies, post-injury administration, and safety training) with self-reported injury through employees' perceived control on safety. Factorial evidence substantiated that management commitment to safety, return-to-work policies, post-injury administration, and safety training are important dimensions of safety climate. In addition, the data support that safety climate is a critical factor predicting the history of a self-reported occupational injury, and that employee safety control mediates the relationship between safety climate and occupational injury. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating organizational factors and workers' characteristics in efforts to improve organizational safety performance.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)425-433
Number of pages9
JournalAccident Analysis and Prevention
Volume38
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2006
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Employee safety control
  • Safety climate
  • Workplace injury

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human Factors and Ergonomics
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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