Dov Zohar

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.

A Multilevel Model of Safety Climate: Cross-Level Relationships Between Organization and Group-Level Climates

Organizational climates have been investigated separately at organization and subunit levels. This article tests a multilevel model of safety climate, covering both levels of analysis. Results indicate that organization-level and group-level climates are globally aligned, and the effect of organization climate on safety behavior is fully mediated by group climate level. However, the data also revealed meaningful group-level variation in a single organization, attributable to supervisory discretion in implementing formal procedures associated with competing demands like safety versus productivity. Variables that limit supervisory discretion (i.e., organization climate strength and procedural formalization) reduce both between-groups climate variation and within-group variability (i.e., increased group climate strength), although effect sizes were smaller than those associated with cross-level climate relationships. Implications for climate theory are discussed.

Climate as a social-cognitive construction of supervisory safety practices: scripts as proxy of behavior patterns.

Organizational climate research has focused on prediction of organizational outcomes rather than on climate as a social-cognitive mediator between environmental attributes and relevant outcomes. This article presents a model specifying that supervisory safety practices predict (safety) climate level and strength as moderated by leadership quality. Using supervisory scripts as proxy of practices, it is shown that script orientation indicative of safely priority predicted climate level, whereas script simplicity and cross-situational variability predicted climate strength. Transformational leadership mitigated these effects because of closer leader-member relationships. Safety climate partially mediated the relationship between supervisory scripts and injury rate during the 6-month period following climate and script measurement. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

Transformational leadership and group interaction as climate antecedents: a social network analysis.

In order to test the social mechanisms through which organizational climate emerges, this article introduces a model that combines transformational leadership and social interaction as antecedents of climate strength (i.e., the degree of within-unit agreement about climate perceptions). Despite their longstanding status as primary variables, both antecedents have received limited empirical research. The sample consisted of 45 platoons of infantry soldiers from 5 different brigades, using safety climate as the exemplar. Results indicate a partially mediated model between transformational leadership and climate strength, with density of group communication network as the mediating variable. In addition, the results showed independent effects for group centralization of the communication and friendship networks, which exerted incremental effects on climate strength over transformational leadership. Whereas centralization of the communication network was found to be negatively related to climate strength, centralization of the friendship network was positively related to it. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Healthcare climate: a framework for measuring and improving patient safety.

Objectives:Reviews of patient safety efforts suggest that technical/administrative change must be augmented by global factors such as organizational culture and climate. The objective was to outline a comprehensive model for healthcare climate and test one of its elements, the nursing subclimate, in terms of several patient safety outcomes. Design:Measure organizational climate in nursing units, followed by random sampling of patient safety practices in each unit 6 months later. Setting:Sixty-nine inpatient units in three hospitals that make up the entire tertiary care system in one metropolitan area. Subjects:A total of 955 nurses. Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:A two-part Nursing Climate Scale referring to hospital- and unit-level climates, followed by five randomly timed observations of patient safety practices covering routine and emergency care in each unit. Climate scales met the criteria of internal reliability, within-unit agreement, and between-unit variability, using standard statistics of climate research. Both the hospital and unit nursing climates exhibited significant variation, which predicted the routine medication safety scores (Z = 2.65 and 2.93 accordingly, p < .01), with similar results for emergency safety scores. A significant interaction (Z = 2.78, p < .01) indicated that best/worst safety is obtained when the unit and hospital climates are aligned (for better or worse) and that positive unit climate can compensate for the detrimental effect of poor hospital climate. Furthermore, climates strength increased its predictive power with regard to patient safety practices (Z = 3.64 for medication and 2.28 for emergency safety; p < .01). The small number of participating hospitals limits organization-level analyses. Conclusions:The nursing climate identifies units where the likelihood of adverse events is greater or lower than the hospitals average. Such information can guide prevention efforts in selected units. These data encourage the development of additional climate subscales subsumed under the healthcare climate model (e.g., physicians subclimate).

When things go wrong: The effect of daily work hassles on effort, exertion and negative mood

This paper discusses the effect of occupational hassles on negative mood and effort exertion. Expert ratings were used to measure the predictor variables, assignment complexity and hassles severity, whereas the dependent variables were measured with validated self-report scales. Using pooled-time series analysis on daily records of a sample of military jump masters (parachute trainers), it was shown that hassles severity predicted end-of-day mood, fatigue and subjective workload. This indicates that, despite their transient nature, daily hassles at work constitute a significant factor whose effect has been overlooked by available methods of occupational stress. Furthermore, the interaction between assignment complexity and hassles severity suggests that other variables, such as coping options for dealing with hassles, moderate the effect of hassles on behavioural and emotional outcomes. Since this effect can be explained by means of different theoretical constructs (i.e. effort exertion, cognitive appraisal and rate of progress) this poses a challenge for future research, both theoretical and applied.

Promoting Increased Use of Ear Protectors in Noise Through Information Feedback

Workers in a noisy department of a metal fabrication plant took hearing tests before and at the end of their workshifts to ascertain the extent of temporary hearing losses that occurred with and without earplugs being worn. This information was fed back to individual workers as a means for motivating greater use of ear protectors issued for hearing conservation purposes. Subsequent observations of earplug users in this department for 5 months showed a steady increase, attaining a level of 85 -90%. No more than 10% of the workers in another noisy department in the same plant, serving as a control group, wore earplugs over the same 5-month period after being given a standard lecture on hearing conservation in noise, later augmented by disciplinary threats. The effectiveness of the feedback technique in promoting earplug usage was explained as a two-stage process involving individual reinforcement, and subsequent group adoption of new norms for accepted behavior.

Effects of energy availability on immediate and delayed emotional reactions to work events.

This study focuses on daily work events as proximal stimuli for discrete emotional reactions and suggests that availability of energy resources required for coping with goal-disruptive events, or for capitalizing on new opportunities offered by goal-enhancing events, influences intensity of emotional reactions. Using experience-sampling methodology with a sample of hospital residents, it is shown that negative emotion and fatigue following disruptive events are intensified when only limited energy resources are available due to current workload. However, positive emotions, promoted by goal-enhancing events, are mitigated due to inability to capitalize on new opportunities or challenges. Aftereffects of work events reveal that the energizing effect of goal-enhancing events mitigates end-of-day fatigue and negative emotion on high-workload days, although the effect of disruptive events is diminished by the end of such days, apparently because of lesser conspicuity against a background of high workload. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Predicting burnout with a hassle-based measure of role demands

The paper presents a hassle-based measure of job demands, whose scales of hassles-conflict, hassles-ambiguity and hassles-overload consist of items pertaining to such role episodes. Hierarchical multiple regression is used to test the incremental validity of the new variables. This was done with a statistical model where the role stressor variables (i.e. role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) were entered first, followed by the three equivalent hassle variables. The data indicate that the new Role Hassles Index (RHI) shows a substantial R2 increment with regard to the MBIs exhaustion and depersonalization scales, but not in regard to self-accomplishment. These data are interpreted as supporting a balance model of burnout, specifying that exhaustion is an outcome of daily demand level on the one hand, and recovery availability on the other.

Discourse-Based Intervention for Modifying Supervisory Communication as Leverage for Safety Climate and Performance Improvement: A Randomized Field Study

The article presents a randomized field study designed to improve safety climate and resultant safety performance by modifying daily messages in supervisor-member communications. Supervisors in the experimental group received 2 individualized feedback sessions regarding the extent to which they integrated safety and productivity-related issues in daily verbal exchanges with their members; those in the control group received no feedback. Feedback data originated from 7-9 workers for each supervisor, reporting about received supervisory messages during the most recent verbal exchange. Questionnaire data collected 8 weeks before and after the 12-week intervention phase revealed significant changes for safety climate, safety behavior, subjective workload, teamwork, and (independently measured) safety audit scores for the experimental group. Data for the control group (except for safety behavior) remained unchanged. These results are explained by corresponding changes (or lack thereof in the control group) in perceived discourse messages during the 6-week period between the 1st and 2nd feedback sessions. Theoretical and practical implications for climate improvement and organizational discourse research are discussed.