speaking of safety - the role of communication in managing occupational safety
Pieter Cornelissen is a PhD student in the Research Group Communication Science. His supervisor is prof.dr. M.D.T. de Jong from the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences (BMS).
With over 374 million occupational accidents and 2.78 million fatalities annually worldwide (International Labour Organization, 2018), workplace safety is a problematic and persistent issue. Considering the impact of these accidents on employees, their colleagues, friends, family and organisations, this dissertation aims to contribute to safer workplaces by increasing current insights and understandings of occupational safety. It does so by applying various research methods to develop a better understanding of personal, social and organisational aspects that (potentially) influence occupational safety.
In the past hundred years a wide variety of approaches and factors have been used in an attempt to improve safety in the workplace. During the first half of the 20th century two hypotheses regarding accidents were dominant: The environmental hypothesis, in which accidents are attributed to external factors (e.g., labour conditions), and the individual hypothesis, which is based on the belief that some people are more prone to accidents than others (Swuste et al., 2010). After the Second World War new scientific insights led to different approaches to occupational safety between the scientific and professional domain. Whereas the scientific focus shifted from a psychological view towards a combination of technology, ergonomics and epidemiology (Swuste et al., 2014), the professional fields sticks with a human failure approach. While during the 1970s some steps were made to integrate the insights and knowledge from different disciplines, these two distinct approaches largely remain to date. These different approaches and their wide variety of studied factors call for a thorough overview of what has been studied to date. Therefore, this dissertation starts with the question:
RQ 1: What is the current status of occupational safety research with regard to determinants of safety outcomes and performance?
Considering the importance of communication for the effective organisation and coordination of work, it is no wonder that communication is also important for the safe execution of work (e.g., Quinn & Dutton, 2005; Vassie & Lucas, 2001). Whereas safety communication is mainly associated with supervisor-subordinate communication, advancing insights have shown that a more comprehensive understanding of safety communication is needed for it to become effective. Furthermore, there is still debate on how safety communication relates to other safety variables such as safety climate, safety culture and safety performance. Whereas some state the relation with safety performance to be direct, others assume that safety communication affects safety performance through safety climate or safety culture. Lastly, given the societal and organisational changes that have taken place over the past decades (e.g., globalisation, increasingly loose labour market) communication is becoming increasingly important for safety in the workplace. In order to contribute to current understandings of safety communication the following overall research question is formulated:
RQ 2: What is the role of communication in occupational safety?
This dissertation starts by exploring the different factors that have been studied in occupational safety research through a systematic literature review in order to answer the first research question (Chapter 2). Based on the outcomes areas for further research were identified. Chapters 3 and 4 describe qualitative studies that focus on supervisors and managers and their perceptions of occupational safety, whereas chapters 5 and 6 focus on safety communication in relation to employees.
Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of research conducted in four high-risk industries between 1980 and 2016. Through a systematic and step-wise procedure the 27.527 records extracted from four online bibliographical databases were reduced to 176 peer-reviewed articles. Subsequently, the variables studied in these articles and the nature of their relationships (i.e., positive, negative, or nonsignificant) were extracted, grouped and classified, resulting in 1.946 relationships between 84 variables. These variables were then clustered into seven clusters, comprising a total of 20 categories. The results indicate that the far majority of studied relationships between variables either are subject to debate or appear to be understudied. However, consensus is found for the negative relationship between safety performance and negative safety outcomes (i.e., incidents, accidents and injuries), safety compliance and negative safety outcomes, and psychophysical states and negative safety outcomes, indicating that more or better performance, compliance, and psychophysical states are related to fewer incidents, accidents, and injuries. Working hours and lifestyle disorders on the other hand, were positively related to negative safety outcomes, indicating that an increase in these variables is associated with an increase in incidents, accidents, or injuries. Consensus was also found for the positive relationships between seven variables and safety performance, indicating that more or higher (safety) control, safety climate, management behaviours, (safety) communication, safety policies and procedures, psychophysical states, and safety knowledge (sharing) are associated with better performance. One of the most interesting clusters is that of the influence of management and colleagues and, more specifically, the results regarding the management of safety. In light of organisational efforts to improve occupational safety, the results regarding management attitudes & behaviours and management of safety were further explored through semi-structured interviews with supervisors.
Chapter 3 builds on the outcomes of the systematic literature review from Chapter 2 by exploring supervisors’ beliefs and attitudes towards (the management of) occupational safety through semi-structured, in-depth interviews (N = 22). The results illustrate that safety is perceived to play a substantial and (increasingly) important role in supervisors’ job, although they have to balance safety with other organisational objectives. Whereas the majority of supervisors believes the motivation for safety within their organisation to be sincere, some supervisors point out that this motivation is predominantly external. Half of the supervisors differentiate between an overall responsibility for safety and a final responsibility, with the latter being attributed to those higher in hierarchy. Supervisors’ beliefs regarding the preventability of accident, accident reasons, and incident reporting were rather negative and fatalistic. Whereas none of the supervisors believed that incidents and accidents could be completely prevented, they agreed with one another that incident prevention should be the aim of the organisation. Accidents were mostly thought to be the result of unconscious actions or behaviours for which the consequences were not foreseen, although other factors such as time, a lack of focus and old habits were also mentioned. Supervisors did not think that all incidents were reported, and were especially sceptical about the reporting of minor incidents. They did think that incident reporting could be improved by increasing the visibility of, and follow-ups on incident reports and by providing more insights into the purpose and importance of reporting. Unexpectedly, supervisors perceived a problematic gap between field employees and employees working in the office related to a mutual dependency. Lastly, supervisors’ attitudes towards the safety management instruments from Chapter 2 were assessed. In general, the findings here were in line with the outcomes described in Chapter 2 as the supervisors expressed positive attitudes towards the use of inspections, accident registration and accident analysis, training and safety-related activities. However, the supervisors were divided on the use of sanctions and rewards, and they were critical with regard to the use of (unwritten) rules and regulations. Despite their predominantly positive attitudes, the supervisors had concerns with regard to the application of these instruments, and they believed their effectiveness could be improved. Noteworthy is that communication emerged as a crucial factor for the management of occupational safety. Not only was communication viewed by supervisors as an effective mean on its own, they also stressed its importance for other safety management instruments.
Chapter 4 further explores the role of safety in supervisors’ work to increase understandings of what drives safety-related thinking, decisions and behaviours. By applying the ideal institutional orders framework as proposed by Thornton et al. (2013) to qualitative data gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with managers the aim was to identify, illustrate and explain the potentially different rationales for safety-related behaviours and decisions. In essence, institutional logics provide ‘guidelines on how to interpret and function in social situations’ (Greenwood et al., 2011, p. 318). Multiple of such logics can be simultaneously present and depending on the degree of logic compatibility (i.e., the extent to which logics provide (in)compatible prescriptions for action), and the degree of logic centrality (i.e., the extent to which one or multiple logics are core to organisational functioning), logic multiplicity may lead to institutional complexity. The results demonstrate that an institutional logics perspective can be effectively applied to identify the different rationales (i.e., logics) towards occupational safety. The market logic was reflected in the use of safety performance as a means to increase consumer preference and in the effects of market competitiveness on occupational safety. The professional logic was reflected in prioritising staying safe over getting the work done and vice versa, based on assessments of individual situations. Lastly, the corporation logic was reflected in managers’ use of hierarchical power to determine the content and planning of work. These examples not only illustrate the different rationales that underlie safety-related behaviours and decisions, but also how they differ between managers. Next to examples of individual logics in managers’ quotes, examples of logic multiplicity between the logics of the market, profession, and corporation emerged. Institutional complexity between the market and profession logics became apparent through the incompatibility of the self-interested focus on increasing (efficiency) profits of the market logic and the professional logic’s urge to adhere to high quality work standards. The complexity between the market logic and corporation logic was the result of the incompatibility between the market logic’s self-interested focus on increasing (efficiency) profits and the corporation’s logic in which managers have to uphold their hierarchical status and responsibilities. Lastly, complexity between the professional logic and the logic of the corporation arose due to the incompatibility between corporate work routines and the actual work that needed to be done.
The studies presented in Chapters 3 and 4 provide an in-depth exploration of variables related to managers perspectives regarding (the management of) safety. However, in the organisational setting managers are not the ones most at risk. Considering the (perceived) importance of communication (Chapters 2 and 3) and the importance of employees’ safety performance for occupational safety (Chapter 2), ways through which employees can be best approached and stimulated to work safely are further explored through quantitative research.
Chapter 5 explores the potential of distinguishing between different levels of ability and motivation for occupational safety. By means of a quantitative questionnaire among employees of a logistics warehouse (N = 77), the influence of three levels of motivation and ability (i.e. personal, social, and structural) on safety climate and safety performance was assessed, aiming to increase insights in how these elements can be effectively used to improve occupational safety. Although the analyses only allowed for differentiation between personal and external levels of motivation and ability, the results illustrate that the inclusion of different levels increased the predictive power of motivation and ability for safety climate and safety performance, compared to using the overall constructs of motivation and ability. Specifically, the external level of ability proved important for levels of safety climate, while both the personal level of motivation and the external level of ability proved important for levels of safety performance. These findings imply that motivation and ability should not be approached as the singular constructs they are currently thought to be. In improving perceptions of safety and safety performance of their employees, organisations should focus on personal motivation (e.g., in safety instructions) and external ability (e.g., providing proper safety equipment and safety training).
Chapter 6 describes the development and initial validation of a safety communication measurement instrument. The narrow and unilateral view on safety communication in existing measurement scales is at odds with the (perceived) importance of communication for occupational safety as highlighted in the different chapters of this dissertation. Building on safety communication literature, existing safety communication measures, and the input from expert rounds, 22 safety communication-related topics were identified. These topics formed the basis for an initial item pool of 134 items that was provided to a development sample (N = 252) in the form of a questionnaire. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed an underlying structure of safety communication consisting of 13 distinctive factors: message, vertical communication, sender credibility, reach, exemplary behaviours, timing, match with practice, tone, feedback, dissemination failures, communication channels, horizontal communication, and formality. Subsequent bivariate and partial correlation analyses to explore the relationships of these factors with safety climate, safety motivation, and safety knowledge revealed a (partial) overlap between the safety communication variables and safety climate. However, even when the variance shared with safety climate is controlled for, sender credibility emerges as an important factor for safety motivation, while vertical communication, reach, tone, communication channels, and horizontal communication emerge as important factors for safety knowledge. These findings illustrate the importance of a more comprehensive understanding of safety communication and the resulting measurement instrument provides researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive instrument to assess employee perceptions of organisational safety communication.
The combined outcomes of the different studies presented in this dissertation have several overarching theoretical and practical implications. First, occupational safety is subject to the dynamics of the organisation and the influences of the field in which it operates. Aside from the wide variety of different factors that have the potential to influence occupational safety (Chapter 2), occupational safety has to compete with other organisational objectives within the organisation (Chapter 3). In addition, safety-related thinking, decisions and behaviour are constantly influenced by actors from within and outside of the organisation. Employees continuously have to balance the different interests regarding occupational safety as provided by the logics of the market, profession and corporation (Chapter 4). The (perceived) priority of occupational safety might be further influenced by ambiguous beliefs regarding the motivation within the organisation to pursue occupational safety, the responsibility for occupational safety, and the preventability of occupational incidents (Chapter 3). Practitioners are recommended to adopt an integrative approach towards occupational safety that includes both technical and human factors. They are recommended to prioritise occupational safety and align the different perceptions, beliefs and prescriptions from institutional logics toward this priority.
Second, occupational safety is a very complex and broad issue. Over the years practitioners and researchers have adopted different approaches and applied a wide variety of different factors in their attempts to improve workplace safety (Chapters 1 and 2). The extensive amount of ambiguity regarding the relationships of studied factors with safety outcomes and safety performance (Chapter 2) further complicates the search for an effective solution to workplace incidents. Even when the effectivity of a specific factor has been demonstrated in several studies an effective implementation may be hindered by personal perceptions or beliefs (Chapter 3), conflicting prescriptions from institutional logics (Chapter 4), and the different levels at which factors can operate (Chapter 5). Before implementing safety policies, interventions or safety management instruments, managers and practitioners are recommended to conduct a thorough analysis of the expected effectivity and the perceptions and beliefs of their employees regarding said policies, interventions and instruments.
Third, safety communication emerges as an important factor for the improvement of occupational safety. Not only did the majority of studies underline the positive influence of communication on safety performance (Chapter 2), its importance for both occupational safety and other safety management instruments was also underlined by supervisors (Chapter 3). Despite its perceived importance, it was revealed that a clear and common agreed upon conceptualisation of safety communication and its relationships with other safety-related variables is lacking. The outcomes of the development and initial validation of a safety communication measurement instrument (Chapter 6) seem to confirm the hypothesised overlap between safety communication and safety climate. However, the results also indicate that several aspects of safety communication (i.e., sender credibility, vertical communication, reach, tone, communication channels, and horizontal communication) explain additional variance in safety motivation and safety knowledge compared to safety climate. These findings highlight the need for a more comprehensive understanding of safety communication and additional research to study its potential. Especially considering the potential of communication in addressing specific levels of motivation and knowledge (Chapter 5).
In sum, the outcomes of the different studies provided in this dissertation illustrate the complexity of occupational safety, and the potential of communication for improving occupational safety.
