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The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive model of safety culture for the US fire service.

Based upon a modified version of Cooper’s Reciprocal Determinism Model, the research uses two sets of exogenous variables, labeled Safety Management System and Safety Related Behaviors, to explain a dependent variable called Organizational Safety Climate. The model has been used successfully to improve safety performance in other high risk, high performance organizations. Using survey data collected from over 1,000 firefighters in three medium‐sized US municipalities, the theoretical model is tested.

Results from multiple regression analyses provide strong support for the hypothesis that individual perceptions of safety management and safety behavior predict individual perceptions of safety climate, both at the “fire service” organizational level and at the individual department level.

Limitations of the study include a cross‐sectional design, the use of self‐reported perceptions for the variables, and the fact that the three mid‐sized US fire departments from which data were gathered self‐selected to participate in the study.

A practical feature of the theoretical model tested is the ability to create “safety report cards” for each of the 12 dimensions that define the three variables used in the study.

This model holds the promise of reducing firefighter injuries and deaths by identifying managerial and behavioral safety improvement areas within US fire departments.

To the authors’ knowledge, this research represents the first attempt to both identify and test empirically a safety culture model for the US fire service.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between safety culture and the organizational identity of safety management system (SMS), in order to provide more awareness of how airline employees perceive organizational identity and safety culture as they successfully implement SMS.

A conceptual path model analysis is tested using data analysis research design.

The findings show that safety culture has been strengthened as the result of the implementation of a SMS. Furthermore, the loyalty factor of organizational identity is found to positively and significantly predict the performance of SMS through safety culture.

This paper is intended to provide some introductory perspectives on how to successfully apply safety culture and the supporting organizational identity for implementing SMS, as well as guidance about the areas in which airlines must improve if they wish to reduce accidents and incidents.

The questionnaire survey is designed to form perceptions of flight crews and helps to maintain a focus on the key persons in aviation safety management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational safety climate and organizational health performance outcomes (i.e. absenteeism, presenteeism, health care utilization) mediated by individual worker health. The authors used three pathways to examine this relationship: a physical pathway starting with physical safety climate and mediated by musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), a psychosocial pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by emotional exhaustion, and a combined pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by both MSDs and emotional exhaustion.

Three mediational multilevel analyses were conducted using a sample of 8,761 employees working in 177 health care organizations.

Although the findings did not support the hypothesized physical pathway, they showed that the psychosocial pathway worked satisfactorily for two of the three health performance outcomes (absenteeism and presenteeism). The combined physical and psychosocial pathway explained differences in the third outcome: health care utilization.

This is one of the few studies to include both physical and psychosocial pathways that lead to employee health and organizational performance. The results underscore the importance of paying attention to psychological health and safety in the health care workplace. Not only for the psychological health of employees, but also to improve their physical health and subsequent organizational health performance.

Through a number of comprehensive reviews, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has recommended that healthcare organizations develop safety cultures to align delivery system processes with the workforce requirements to improve patient outcomes. Until health systems can provide safer care environments, patients remain at risk for suboptimal care and adverse outcomes. Health science researchers have begun to explore how safety cultures might act as an essential system feature to improve organizational outcomes. Since safety cultures are established through modification in employee safety perspective and work behavior, human resource (HR) professionals need to contribute to this developing organizational domain. The IOM indicates individual employee behaviors cumulatively provide the primary antecedent for organizational safety and quality outcomes. Yet, many safety culture scholars indicate the concept is neither theoretically defined nor consistently applied and researched as the terms safety culture, safety climate, and safety attitude are interchangeably used to represent the same concept. As such, this paper examines the intersection of organizational culture and healthcare safety by analyzing the theoretical underpinnings of safety culture, exploring the constructs for measurement, and assessing the current state of safety culture research. Safety culture draws from the theoretical perspectives of sociology (represented by normal accident theory), organizational psychology (represented by high reliability theory), and human factors (represented by the aviation framework). By understanding not only the origins but also the empirical safety culture research and the associated intervention initiatives, healthcare professionals can design appropriate HR strategies to address the system characteristics that adversely affect patient outcomes. Increased emphasis on human resource management research is particularly important to the development of safety cultures. This paper contributes to the existing healthcare literature by providing the first comprehensive critical analysis of the theory, research, and practice that comprise contemporary safety culture science.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of occupational safety and health (OSH) on the relationship between high performance human resource practices (HPHRP) and organizational performance.

The authors collected data from 227 human resource management professionals in Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China and used exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression for data analysis.

The results supported the construct validity of the preliminary measure of HPHRP with the inclusion of a measure on OSH. The mediating role of perceived safety climate in the relationship of HPHRP and organizational performance was also confirmed.

This research highlights the importance of OSH on HPHRP in Hong Kong organizations. Results explored that HPHRP positively influences organizational performance through the mediator of perceived safety climate.

This paper adds value by improving the understanding of the importance of OSH in human resource management in China. It reveals an important path, HRM managers' perceived safety climate, through which HPHRP is transmitted to organizational performance.

This study aims to apply the affective events theory and psychological contract theory to investigate how job satisfaction and psychological safety mediate the effect of the behavioral integrity of supervisors on the organizational commitment of employees.

A questionnaire survey was conducted using purposive sampling. In total, 500 questionnaire copies were distributed, and 453 responses were collected, of which 441 were valid (valid response rate = 88.2%).

The behavioral integrity of supervisors has a direct negative effect on organizational commitment but significant positive effects on job satisfaction and psychological safety, and job satisfaction and psychological safety have significant positive effects on organizational commitment. Job satisfaction and psychological safety have significant mediating effects on the association between the behavioral integrity of supervisors and the organizational commitment of employees.

Leaders and top management should “practice what they preach,” integrate honesty into organizational culture through training and establish a code of conduct to ensure that employees uphold their commitments. Companies should establish appropriate disciplinary systems and norms related to work and other aspects of organizational culture; they should also establish fair, just and open assessment systems to minimize the gap between their employees’ actual and expected earnings.

This study is the first to simultaneously consider the mediating effects of job satisfaction and psychological safety on the association between behavioral integrity and organizational commitment.

This article aims to encourage healthcare administrators to consider the learning organization concept and foster collaborative learning among teams in their attempt to improve patient safety.

Relevant healthcare, organizational behavior and human resource management literature was reviewed.

A patient safety culture, fostered by healthcare leaders, should include an organizational culture that encourages collaborative learning, replaces the blame culture, prioritizes patient safety and rewards individuals who identify serious mistakes.

As healthcare institution staffs are being asked to deliver more complex medical services with fewer resources, there is a need to understand how hospital staff can learn from other organizational settings, especially the non‐healthcare sectors.

The paper provides suggestions for improving patient safety which are drawn from the health and business management literature.

This study aims to use organizational identification, organizational culture and safety culture as the intervening variables between safety mission statements and safety behavior to survey and model the process of brokering knowledge from the top strategy makers to the workers on assignments. A pilot empirical research initiative was launched to determine the linkage between safety missions and safety behavior in the airline industry.

First, descriptive statistics and independent‐sample t‐tests were used to evaluate the mean, standard deviation (SD) and the relationship between the safety mission statement, organizational identification, organizational culture, safety culture and safety behavior and the respondent's years of working for the sampled airline. In addition, Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the relationships between the five factors. Finally, path analysis was used to examine the direct effects and indirect effects between individual factors.

The findings show that organizational identification and organizational culture are two important intervening variables between the safety mission statement (knowledge brokering) and safety behavior. The results of Pearson correlation analysis indicate that five factors are highly correlated with each other, especially the safety mission statement and organizational identification; organizational culture and safety culture; organizational identification and organizational culture; and safety culture and safety behavior. Besides, the safety mission statement has a negative direct effect on the pilot's safety behavior.

To understand the process of using the safety mission statement to change safety behavior can significantly increase the benefits of brokering knowledge. Furthermore, this study has provided an overview of the flight crews' perceptions on how safety is managed in the aviation industry. Based on the findings, it is concluded that organizations in the various sectors of the airline could do better in managing safety, and in brokering the safety knowledge in the industry. At another level, this study provides an opportunity to explore the validity of causal relationships among different areas.

The purpose of this paper is to examine employees’ safety behaviours (ESBs) within the beverage manufacturing industry. It also assessed employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours. It further investigated the impact of organisational culture (OC) on ESBs. Finally, the study identified the likely determinants of ESBs.

A survey methodology was employed as an appropriate approach. In total, 197 valid questionnaires were retrieved from employees working in the beverage manufacturing industry. The questionnaires were processed for quantitative analyses to test the hypotheses. A simple regression analysis was carried out to assess employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours and to investigate the impact of OC on ESBs. Descriptive frequencies and percentages were used to identify the determinants of ESBs.

The results suggest that employees’ perception of their own safety behaviour was positive. OC was reported to have a strong positive impact on ESBs. Safe working conditions, job satisfaction and organisational leadership were identified as the key organisational determinants of safety behaviours among the employees.

Interpreting these findings must be done with caution as the sample size was relatively small and solely obtained from four beverage manufacturing firms. Generalising the findings from this study must also be carefully done as the study is industry-specific and country-specific.

Besides the loss of talents through unsafe behaviours, accidents can hurt work performance, productivity and profitability of an organisation. Industry organisations and their managers can therefore implement perceptual, organisational and cultural interventions that reinforce appropriate safety behaviours among employees at the workplace.

Understanding these cultural, perceptual and organisational perspectives on ESBs is not only a significant input for safety behavioural analysis and interventions but can also reduce the socioeconomic cost of unsafe and risk behaviours among employees at the firm, industry, national and global levels.

The empirical tests of employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours are heavily biased towards data originating from the developed country industry settings which suggest that the dynamics of ESBs in the less developed economies are likely to be unknown. This study is first to examine ESBs in a developing country beverage manufacturing industry setting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between health and safety (H&S) and organisational culture in project business, in particular to explore the validity of current cognitive emphases of linear organisational maturity towards a “safety culture”, and normative models and prescriptions.

An interpretative methodology is employed, informed by ethnography (Douglas' cultural theory) and clinical consultative (Schein's model) approaches, using case‐based analysis comprising seven project business organisations.

The cases were characterized by diverse organisational cultures and diverse H&S practices informed by habits and intuitive behaviour, as well as cognitive strategies and decisions for implementation. H&S was not the top priority for these cases. Good performance related to alignment with the prevailing culture rather than pursuit of a “safety culture”.

The term “safety culture” is misdirected; greater attention on what is, rather than normative models and prescription, is necessary. Generalisation is limited by the case‐based approach.

Practitioners need to pay more attention to organisational culture and alignment of H&S practices, to the unintended consequences of prescriptions, and robust systems.

The way activities are conducted requires awareness of the prevailing culture in order to align the structure and processes to the culture for effective operations. These implications are general, and within project business and management, Failure to do so carries increased risk of failing to satisfy business and broader stakeholder interests.

Anomalies in H&S research and practice are challenged, especially “safety culture” and normative approaches. The contribution is the combination employment of the Schein and Douglas models to understand organisational culture and H&S cultural alignment.