The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Occupational Safety and Workplace Health

Sharon Clarke, Tahira M. Probst, Frank W. Guldenmund, Jonathan Passmore

• Éditeur: Wiley-Blackwell
• Année: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118979006
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychologie
• Sous-sujet: Industrie- & Organisationspsychologie

• A Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Psychology focusing on occupational safety and workplace health.
• The editors draw on their collective experience to present thematically structured material from leading thinkers and practitioners in the USA, Europe, and Asia Pacific
• Provides comprehensive coverage of the major contributions that psychology can make toward the improvement of workplace safety and employee health
• Equips those who need it most with cutting-edge research on key topics including wellbeing, safety culture, safety leadership, stress, bullying, workplace health promotion and proactivity

1
The Psychology of Occupational Safety and Workplace health

Sharon Clarke, Tahira M. Probst, Frank Guldenmund, and Jonathan Passmore

Occupational health and safety remains a critical issue for academics and practitioners alike, given the impact that occupational accidents and work-related ill-health has on individuals, families, organizations, and societies worldwide. Despite the significant advances that have been made in disciplines such as occupational health psychology, safety science, and industrial ergonomics, workplace fatalities and deaths resulting from work-related diseases remain a global issue. The International Labour Organization (ILO, 2014) estimates that over 2.3 million fatalities are caused by occupational accidents and work-related diseases per annum; in addition, occupational injuries (requiring absence of three days or more from work) result from over 313 million non-fatal occupational accidents each year. Given the significant proportion of our lives that we spend working, research and practice into occupational safety and workplace health and well-being can also provide insight into ways in which the world of work can have positive benefits, in terms of satisfaction, challenge, and achievement.

This edited volume takes an integrative approach to health and safety in organizations, bringing together a collection of chapters from renowned contributors. Their fields of expertise range from personality and individual differences to risk management at a societal level. We examine key topics in the health and safety literature, both from the specific perspective of occupational safety (e.g., personality, social norms, and leadership) and workplace health and well-being (e.g., job demands, long work hours, and workplace aggression), and also from a consideration of the intersection of these two areas (e.g., safety workarounds and organizational climate). The first two parts of this volume consider those factors that influence occupational health and safety and the subsequent challenges; in the third part, we examine the practical implications for individuals and organizations, with a particular focus on the design and implementation of interventions in organizations, and the broader context within which such interventions take place. Interventions are examined from a variety of perspectives, from the micro level (e.g., behavioral safety and training) through to a macro-level approach (e.g., psychosocial safety climate and organizational culture). In this part, we explore the challenges of managing health and safety in safety-critical environments (e.g., patient safety culture) and the wider context of the risk society.

The first part focuses on occupational safety. Traditionally, research and practice in occupational safety has been dominated by technical, engineering, and human factors approaches. In this volume, we examine the influences on occupational safety from a psychological perspective, considering factors at an individual, team, job, and organizational level that impact upon the work environment and employees’ behavior. Recent research in this area has highlighted the importance of the psychological perspective and emphasized the range of factors that influence workplace safety (e.g., Clarke, 2010; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011). This section comprises six chapters, which explore the following topics: personality and individual differences; behavior as a mediator of personality on safety outcomes; role of social norms at group level; safety leadership; role of coworker and leader trust; job design and safety behavior.

In Chapter 2, Smith, Jordan, and Wallace discuss how personality and other individual differences (e.g., cognition, age, and experience) influence an employee’s ability to respond to organizational hazards. They provide a historical overview, from the early conceptualization of “accident proneness” (Greenwood & Woods, 1919), to the Big Five personality characteristics (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and their ability to predict safety behavior and safety outcomes, including accidents and injuries. Although a useful typology, Smith et al. discuss personality traits that fall outside of the Big Five, such as those comprising core self-evaluations (self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability; Judge, Locke, & Durham, 1997). They extend the discussion to consider the role of self-regulation, focusing on regulatory focus as a dual-path motivational phenomenon (Higgins, 1997) in which individuals tend to approach or avoid outcomes by applying promotion or prevention strategies; those who have a greater tendency toward prevention strategies also tend to have higher scores on safety performance. Their review is suggestive of motivational mechanisms underlying safety performance (a theme which is picked up repeatedly in the following chapters). A number of individual differences not only affect the safety-related behavior that people engage in, but also their ability to cope with stressors (e.g., hardiness). The chapter highlights how age and experience influence accident liability (e.g., a lack of “know-how” makes younger workers particularly vulnerable) and type of job (e.g., level of cognitive or physical demands) interacts with individual differences (e.g., physiological and psychological factors) to influence safety behavior and accident liability. Smith et al. emphasize the role of “mindfulness” as important but understudied in relation to safety (another theme which will reappear in later chapters of this volume).

In Chapter 3, Foster and Nichols consider the mediating effects of behavior on the relationship between personality and workplace safety. The chapter focuses on the complexities of this relationship, and considers how multiple personality traits and combinations of traits (including sub-facets of the Big Five) best predict safety-related behavior. They explore how different patterns of traits are associated with different behaviors, including a detailed examination of the six safety-related behaviors identified by Hogan and Foster (2013) as critical to a high level of safety performance and how personality relates to these behaviors. While some facets are important predictors of safety behaviors, others are essentially irrelevant. There are a number of underlying psychological mechanisms by which personality can influence safety, including its influence on individuals’ response to stress (as discussed in Part II of this volume). Based on their review, Foster and Nichols discuss how individual differences in personality should be taken into account in relation to the design and delivery of safety training (as discussed further in Part III of this volume). Although the authors have focused on safety in this chapter, they also highlight implications for the design of tailored interventions aimed at improving health and well-being: in terms of individual participation in health programs, such as health screening (see also Chapter 17 on Workplace Health Promotion in Part III).

Although individual-level factors have an important influence on employee behavior, this behavior takes place within a social and organizational context. Social psychological theories emphasize the importance of understanding this context as one cannot fully understand behavior, without consideration of the social context (Johns, 2006). In most organizational settings, this comprises coworkers, supervisors, and managers, each of whom has an influence on individuals’ behavior. The following chapters consider the effects of the social context on safety behavior, in terms of social norms, leadership, and the role of interpersonal trust.

In Chapter 4, Silva and Fugas consider the influence of peer norms on safety and health at work. Whereas the previous two chapters in this part take the individual as the primary unit of analysis, in this chapter we shift to consider the group. Silva and Fugas draw on social and organizational psychology to discuss social influence, in terms of the subjective norms or pressure that people perceive from important others to exhibit, or not exhibit, a specific behavior. They distinguish between two types of norm – those that are descriptive (reflecting what is commonly done) and injunctive (reflecting what is approved/disapproved). There are affective and cognitive motivations for perceiving that one has to conform to group behavior. The reference groups are those that are psychologically significant to the individual’s attitudes and behaviors. Silva and Fugas also discuss the difference between local norms and global norms, where the former are more proximal. It is important to understand the role of coworker norms not only in relation to occupational safety, but also workplace health and well-being. This chapter discusses the influence of social norms on a range of risk behaviors that affect health and safety, such as healthy eating, smoking, and risky driving behaviors. The authors review the empirical research, which has shown that coworkers’ descriptive safety norms are a major differentiating variable in proactive safety behaviors. Coworkers’ norms play a critical role in risk perception and management, determining which behaviors are safe or unsafe, and reinforcing those behaviors.

In Chapter 5, Wong, Kelloway, and Makhan focus on the role of supervisors and managers on employee safety behavior. They review the research evidence, which shows that leaders have a significant influence on workplace safety, and examine the effects of different leadership styles on safety outcomes, especially transformational leadership style (Bass, 1985). In addition, Wong et al. discuss the role of active transactional leadership as a positive influence in relation to safety (due to the increased emphasis on monitoring compliance and correcting errors before they lead to safety incidents); other complementary models of leadership, such as “empowering leadership” (a style of leadership associated with psychological empowerment; Martínez-Córcoles et al., 2011) which focuses on the role of leaders developing self-management skills in their subordinates; and the role of leader–member exchange (LMX) where a high LMX relationship between leader and subordinate facilitates the influence of leaders on employee safety behaviors. Wong et al. discuss mediating and moderating influences on how leadership impacts on occupational safety behavior, including safety climate, perceived organizational support, role stressors, and individual-level factors of trust and motivation. In terms of practical implications, the authors introduce the SAFER model of safety leadership, which provides explicit guidance in terms of leader behaviors.

In Chapter 6, Conchie, Woodcock, and Taylor discuss the importance of interpersonal trust in the creation of a safe work environment. They highlight that trust is important in increasing employee engagement in safety, willingness to comply with management requests, and propensity to take the initiative. Trust may also be misplaced and actually detract from the critical vigilance required for high levels of safety performance. In their review of the research evidence, Conchie et al. discuss trust as a mechanism for facilitating the effects of a transformational leader on employee behaviors, leading to employees engaging in safety-related behavior. They extend their discussion by considering not only trust in the leader, but also the employee being trusted by the leader. Trust is related to aspects of safety culture, such as open communication and organizational learning; a lack of trust can create a climate of blame and fear, which leads employees to be concerned about “covering their backs” and stifles organizational learning. They highlight the “fragility” of trust and the difficulties associated with rebuilding trust. Furthermore, Conchie et al. discuss strategies for rebuilding trust and their relative effectiveness in different circumstances.

In the final chapter of this part, we examine the influence of job-related and organizational factors on safety behavior. In Chapter 7, Chmiel and Hansez examine these broader contextual factors with particular reference to their influence on violations and errors. Reason’s (1990) classification of human error, captures both unintentional actions (slips, lapses, and mistakes) and intentional deviations from safety procedures (violations); both types of unsafe act are associated with accident involvement and occupational injuries. The authors use the General Accident Case Scenario (Wagenaar, Hudson, & Reason, 1990) to illustrate how errors and violations relate to accident involvement and extend their discussion to consider the underlying psychological processes involved. In terms of antecedents, Chmiel and Hansez discuss General Failure Types (GFTs) as precursors of accidents and which fall into three categories: Physical environment; Human behavior; and Management. The effects of organizational and job related factors are mediated by psychological processes, including energy depletion (such as burnout), motivational processes (such as work engagement), instrumental processes, and social exchange. They argue that different types of behavior have different antecedents and psychological processes linking them.

The second part focuses on workplace health and well-being. Within the field of occupational health psychology, theories of occupational stress and the impact of stress on employees’ health and well-being, constitutes a major area of research. The first chapter in this part (Taris & Schaufeli) focuses on one of most influential frameworks, the Job Demands-Resources (JDR) model (Demerouti et al., 2001), which conceptualizes job demands and job resources within the work environment, and how these factors affect health and well-being over time. Other stress theories are drawn upon to discuss the effects on health and well-being in this part; the chapter by Nielsen et al. draws on the transactional model of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) to examine the effects of workplace aggression, and chapters by Cangiano and Parker, and Halbesleben and Bellairs, both draw on conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to examine the effects of proactivity and safety workarounds respectively. In this part we address some of the contemporary challenges in the workplace that have an impact on health and well-being, including long work hours (O’Driscoll & Roche) and workplace aggression (Nielsen et al.). Although certain demands within the workplace can act to erode physical and psychological well-being, individual differences in how employees manage their jobs will also impact their health; for example, those who are more proactive tend to “craft” their jobs, with proactivity having the potential to both improve and damage health (as discussed by Cangiano & Parker).

In Chapter 8, Taris and Schaufeli provide a review of the research conducted in relation to the JDR framework, which links job demands and job resources to health, well-being, and other outcomes. The initial focus of the model was on burnout, but it has been extended to consider further outcome variables; there is empirical evidence to support the relationships predicted by the model in relation to burnout, such that high job demands are associated with high levels of fatigue and exhaustion, and lack of resources associated with withdrawal. The model was later revised to extend outcomes from the specific concept of burnout to strain more generally. Later development of the model also recognized that in relation to interactions between job demands and job resources, these may be mediated by a variety of different pathways, in contrast to the two specific pathways (strain and motivation) which mediated the main effects of job demands and job resources, respectively. In their review, Taris and Schaufeli note that although most empirical evidence is drawn from self-report cross-sectional data, more recently longitudinal studies have also provided support for the assumptions of the revised JDR model; however, they also highlight that over longer time periods where there is long-term stability in some variables, such as work engagement and job resources, the expected results have not been consistently demonstrated. The chapter discusses other extensions of the model, such as the inclusion of personal resources, as well as job resources; that is, extending the model to include individual-level factors, as well as environmental factors. Personal resources relate to resilience and the ability to impact upon the environment. Taris and Schaufeli discuss the different ways of incorporating personal resources into the JDR model including as a potential confound (as personal resources are related to both work characteristics and ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Series
• Title page
• Copyright
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Series Editor Preface
• Railway Children
• 1 The Psychology of Occupational Safety and Workplace health
• Part I Occupational Safety
• Part II Workplace Health and Well-Being
• Part III Improving Occupational Safety and Workplace Health in Organizations
• Index
• EULA