Peter Sevastos

Curtin industrial safety trial: Managerial behavior and program effectiveness

Behavior-based safety has been found universally efficacious when evaluated under controlled conditions. The Curtin Trial aimed to test the general acceptability of behavior-based safety in Australian industry. A 50% failure rate was observed. This paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of observed managerial behavior in relation to program effectiveness. Field notes taken in the course of 325 hours of participant observation during implementation of behavior-based safety in 9 work areas were analyzed qualitatively and categorized. These data were compared with statistical results of the safety programs effectiveness on improving safe practices and good housekeeping. Nine dimensions to managerial behavior were identified which were associated with program effectiveness. A relatively small number of studies investigating organizational characteristics and safety have found generally similar social environmental features to those observed in this study. Behavior-based safety appears to be effective only in organizations with recognizable managerial styles.

Multiskilling in Practice: Lessons from a Minerals Processing Firm:

Increasingly, multiskilling programmes are a key element in workplace reform. In this paper, the findings of a longitudinal case study of multiskilling involving process workers are presented. The study found that the multiskilling programme and associated changes to work organization only marginally altered skill requirements for jobs, although there was evidence of increased worker control over certain aspects of the work role. There was no evidence to suggest that these developments reflected a fundamental shift in the nature of management-employee relations. Conclusions are drawn as to the extent to which such innovations signal a departure from traditional Taylorist and Fordist orientations towards skills formation and work organization.

The 'happy productive worker thesis' and Australian managers

Few conundrums have captured and held the imagination of organizational researchers and practitioners as has the ‘happy productive worker’ thesis, or the proposition that ‘a happy worker is a good worker’. This thesis is revisited by investigating the impact of job-related affective well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction on Australian managers’ performance. Decades of research have been unable to establish a strong link be-tween intrinsic job satisfaction and performance. Despite mixed empirical evidence, there is support in the literature to suggest that a relationship exists between affective well-being, intrinsic job satisfaction and managers’ performance. Affect has rarely been used as a predictor of managers’ job performance outcomes. Indicators of their affective well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction were shown to predict dimensions of their contextual and task performance.

Curtin industrial safety trial: Methods and safe practice and housekeeping outcomes

Abstract Introduction: Behavior-based safety programs have been well tested under controlled circumstances but less is published on their effectiveness in uncontrolled conditions. The aims reported in this paper were to evaluate a behavior-based safety program in terms of effectiveness to improve safe work practices and good housekeeping, and the effect of mode of administration upon program effectiveness. The compliance of companies in implementing the intervention was also investigated. Methods: Nine work areas in seven companies were selected in Western Australia. A quasi-experimental within-group before-after design with a multiple baseline was employed. The behavior-based safety intervention was based closely upon that described by Komaki, Barwick and Scott, J. Appl. Psychol . 63(4) (1978) 434–445. Baseline observations continued for a minimum of four weeks and post-intervention observations for a minimum of ten weeks. Observations were conducted by employees, and feedback administered jointly by the company and the researchers. Observer agreement was monitored throughout. The outcome variables were the safe practice rate and the good housekeeping rate. Results: Three out of nine work areas demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in both safe practices and good housekeeping. Three had a significant improvement in housekeeping but a non-significant improvement in safe practices. One was worse in safe practices and improved in housekeeping (both non-significant). Two were worse in both safe practices and housekeeping (not significant). There was no association between programs coordinated by employees on the floor versus supervisor-coordinated programs. Discussion: The behavior-based safety program did not perform as well in this trial as has been previously documented. Further field trials in uncontrolled industrial conditions are needed to better understand the practical usefulness of behavioral-based safetyprograms.

The application of a facet scale job satisfaction model for environmental health officers in Australia and Scotland

The direction provided from published research emphasises that job satisfaction is multi-dimensional, and the associations with work related and non-work related predictor variables as being complex. The isolation of the discrete influence of individual predictor variables is therefore difficult. The application of multivariate analysis incorporating hierarchical stepdown protocols and interaction effects offers one approach that provides for the discrimination between the explanatory characteristics of these variables. Principal Axis Factoring with oblimin rotation and Structural Equations Modelling were applied to survey data to develop a Measurement Model comprising six latent constructs that characterised the job satisfaction of Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) in Australia. The model was successfully applied to data from the EHOs in Scotland. This paper presents the application of the Measurement Model to examine the association between selected work content and the demographic aspects of the EHOs in Australia and in Scotland, and their job satisfaction. The analysis protocol included Canonical Correlation, Multiple Linear Regression and Factorial Manova and Mancova. The unique variance explained by the work content factors and the demographic aspects of the job were similar. The linear representation of model pathways provided more comprehensive explanatory power than the curvilinear association. The presentation of evidence of multidimensional complexity, including interaction effects, underscored the need for caution before generalising on the influence of individual factors on job satisfaction. The analysis protocol presented in this paper can be applied to other situations in environmental health involving multivariate complexity.

The Western Australian test of invariant factorial structure in the work autonomy scale between managerial and non-managerial employee classifications

ABSTRACT This paper explores the conceptualisation of work autonomy through an investigation of the factorial structure stability of the Global Work Autonomy Scale at different employee levels. After administering the Global Work Autonomy Scale (Breaugh, 1985) to employees in a public sector organisation, analysis of responses confirmed an a priori three-factor model of work autonomy (method autonomy, scheduling autonomy and criteria autonomy) in a group of non-managerial employees (n = 193). A subsequent multi-sample analysis was conducted to test the invariance of the three-factor model for a group of managerial employees (n = 205). After constraining factor loadings and factor covariances, the hypothesised model continued to provide a reasonable fit to the data, confirming the generalisability of the three-factor model to both employee classifications. The methodological and theoretical implications for research into work autonomy are discussed.