An explicit investigation of occupational stress and safety behavior on the relationships between supportive leadership and safety compliance in sewerage industry

This study aims to examine the influence of supportive leadership on occupational stress, safety behaviour and safety compliance of workers working in Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd. (IWK) Malaysia. Moreover, the study intends to investigate the mediational role of occupational stress and safety behaviour. Supportive leadership negatively influence occupational stress while positively influences safety behaviour. Occupational stress put a negative effect on safety behaviour and safety compliance, while safety behaviour has a positive effect on safety compliance. Supportive leadership positively influence safety compliance. Occupational stress and safety behaviour partially mediate the relationship between supportive leadership and safety compliance. The outcomes of this study offer significant insights into the management of Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd. (IWK) to reduce occupational stress, encourage safety behaviour, and improve safety compliance by providing supportive leadership to the workers. Unlike other industries, the sewerage operation industry (in Malaysia) is under an intensive work burden and work pressure that eventually causes occupational stress, lack of safety compliance and ignorance of safety behaviours among workers. The link of supportive leadership with safety compliance is scare with the mediating role of occupational stress and safety behaviour, especially in the sewerage industry particularly in developing countries such as Malaysia.

Impact of Safety Climate on Safety Behaviour in Construction Projects: Mediating Mechanism and Interacting Effect

This study aimed to investigate the impact of safety climate on safety behaviour with the mediating role of safety attitude and mediating role of safety-specific transformational leadership. Data were collected from 294 respondents from different construction projects in Pakistan. The study employed an analytical descriptive approach as its research methodology. The results revealed that safety climate exhibits a significant positive correlation with safety behaviour in projects, as well as with safety attitude. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that safety attitude and safety-specific transformational leadership do not mediate the relationship between safety climate and safety behaviour in projects. In this study, the implications for the project managers and employees as well as future research directions are discussed.

Testing and practical validation of an individual safety performance assessment methodology – the SSP System

The “Safety Score Permit” (SSP) is a new tool that focuses on behaviour and is based on a point system which allows individual performance’s tracking, thus encouraging safe actions. The present study aims at verifying the applicability and practical validation of the first SSP version; the ultimate goal is to evaluate its coverage within different industrial contexts and identify limitations and opportunities for improvement. A pilot implementation was conducted in three large companies, presented as three case studies. The records of safety behaviour observations (SBO) of each case were analysed to verify if all the “observed deviations” fitted into the classes and subclasses typified in the system. Although the study basis was the same in all three cases, in two of them the research was based on existing SBO records collected in 2019, whilst in the 3rd case there was a much higher interaction throughout the work. In this case, the process was started from scratch, including the SBO procedure, its monitoring and subsequent data analysis, to create the necessary conditions for the implementation of the full system. The results obtained revealed that, in general, the SSP platform has the ability to cover most deviations identified in an organization. The system has the potential to become a useful and transparent tool to monitor employees’ safety performance at all hierarchical levels; it also helps to identify weaknesses in the companies’ OHS processes. This work was essentially exploratory but it shed light on how to improve the system further and also unveiled new opportunities. A key issue to enhance SSP as a management tool is to expand its scope to all types of human errors, thus offering better support to strategic OHS decisions.

The Effect of Abusive Supervision on Safety Behaviour: A Moderated Mediation Model

Leadership behavior has an impact on the behavior of employees. Previous studies have mainly studied the impact of positive leadership behaviors on employees’ behaviors, but there is an absence of research on the impact of negative leadership behaviours (abusive supervision) on safety behaviours (including safety participation and safety compliance). In this study, 599 front-line employees in the petrochemical industry were selected as subjects. Abusive supervision, safety behaviour, safety motivation and a conscientiousness questionnaire were used as measurements to explore the relationship between abusive supervision and employee safety behaviors, and to further explore the roles of safety motivation, conscientiousness and the relationship between them. This study found that abusive supervision is negatively related to employee safety behaviours (safety compliance and safety participation); that safety motivation plays a mediating role in the relationship between abusive supervision and employees’ safety behavior; and that conscientiousness moderates the role of safety motivation between the relationship of abusive supervision and employees’ safety behaviour. With a higher level of conscientiousness, the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and employee safety behaviours is weaker. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings for abusive supervision and the management of safety behaviours.

Occupational Stressors and Safety Behaviour among Oil and Gas Workers in Kuwait: The Mediating Role of Mental Health and Fatigue

This paper provides an examination of direct and mediated relationships among occupational stressors (responsibilities towards family and living environment), mental health (anxiety and depression), fatigue (physical and mental fatigue), and safety behaviour (safety compliance and safety participation). In this cross-sectional study, data were collected by means of a questionnaire among oil and gas workers (foreign employees working at a remote oil and gas field site located in Kuwait), during a two-month period (November–December 2018). Regression analyses (bivariate and hierarchical), carried out on 387 responses, were employed to test the links between occupational stressors, mental health, fatigue, and safety behaviour in the hypothesised model. The results provide support for the direct relationship in the model, in that both responsibilities towards family and living environment predicted safety behaviour participation. Further, the results provide partial support for the mediated relationships in the model, as mental health and fatigue were found to mediate the relationship of responsibilities towards family and living environment with safety participation behaviour. It is concluded that occupational stressors have a negative effect on safety behaviour, while mental health and fatigue can operate as risk factors. Given this, it is recommended that organisations need to enhance remote oil and gas workers’ safety behaviour by encouraging them to effectively balance their stress, mental health, and level of fatigue. This can be achieved by actions such as promoting spirituality, boosting workers’ resilience, providing recreational facilities and encouraging communications.

EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN SAFETY VARIABLES AND WELL-BEING OUTCOMES IN MALAYSIAN MANUFACTURING SECTOR: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In Malaysia’s manufacturing industry, workplace mishaps and injuries are a big problem. This industry has made only minor developments in terms of reducing fatalities and significant injuries. The fatality rate has decreased marginally; however, the previous year’s severe injury rate remains unchanged (Department of Occupational Safety and Health, 2021). In Malaysia’s aspiration into becoming an advanced country by 2020, reducing occupational mishaps and injuries is one of the key employments concerns it aims to address. As a substantial determinant of mishaps and safety behaviour, the perception of the work setting is considered essential. Safety measures must emphasise the way employees view their work setting in order to improve safety plans and practices. Safety policy and procedures must bring about a shift in employees’ mindsets and awareness of their immediate work setting in order to succeed in the intervention towards the shift in behaviour. This study proposes a conceptual framework to examine the interaction between safety climates, safety behaviour towards the quality of work-life, and psychological well-being within Malaysia’s manufacturing industry that would assist in the advancement of more efficient safety interventions of reducing mishaps.

The effect of abusive supervision on safety behaviour of Chinese underground miners: a multi-level moderated mediation analysis

Purpose Prior research has suggested that abusive supervision has negative impacts on various work outcomes. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between abusive supervision and employees’ safety behaviour. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to address these limitations by developing and testing a theoretically based conceptual model that explicitly considers the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between abusive supervision and safety behaviour of underground coal miners in China. Design/methodology/approach At Time 1, the authors conducted a survey of 630 employees to assess their supervisors’ abusive leadership behaviours, their own power distance beliefs and their self-reflection. At Time 2, the authros sent questionnaires to the leaders and invited them to evaluate employees’ safety behaviour in the workplace. After cleaning the survey data, the authors tested our model using a multi-level analysis on a sample (n = 458) of underground miners across 96 coal mining sites in China. Findings The authors propose that abusive supervision decreases employees’ safety compliance/participation by reducing reflection but strengthening rumination. The authors further find that the linkage from abusive supervision to reflection/rumination to safety compliance/participation is affected by power distance. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, This is one of the first empirical studies to investigate the mediating effects of a deep cognitive processing variable – namely, self-reflection – and the moderating effects of power distance on the relationship between abusive supervision and safety behaviour.