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Driving for work has been identified as potentially one of the riskiest activities performed by workers within the course of their working day. Jurisdictions around the world have passed legislation and adopted policy and procedures to improve the safety of workers. However, particularly within the work driving setting, complying with legislation and the minimum safety standards and procedures is not sufficient to improve work driving safety. This chapter outlines the manner in which safety citizenship behavior can offer further improvement to work-related driving safety by acting as a complementary paradigm to improve risk management and current models and applications of safety culture.

Research on concepts associated with risk management and theoretical frameworks associated with safety culture and safety citizenship behavior are reviewed, along with their practical application within the work driving safety setting. A model incorporating safety citizenship behavior as a complementary paradigm to safety culture is proposed. It is suggested that this model provides a theoretical framework to inform future research directions aimed at improving safety within the work driving setting.

This paper will examine the unsafe work practices that are plaguing the construction industry. Statistics show that four out of five of all workplace accidents are attributed to unsafe behaviour. Research studies have sought to understand worker self-protection. For example, it is difficult to make predictions of conditions that influenced worker’s behaviour to act unsafely or safely in a given work situation. It is evident there is a gap in the literature in this area of research, most notably failing to understand the underlying “why” factors. The aim of the study is to identify and examine the proximate set of contributing factors most likely to have an influence on workers’ decisions about participation in unsafe behaviour.

To perform the study, questionnaires were adopted, and 225 construction workers from 9 construction companies participated in the study.

Results showed that both underlying organisational factors and individual factors could affect the risk aversion among construction workers. The paper also highlights measures to create a safe work environment to minimise unsafe behaviour among construction workers. Results from the study are important to help organisation to systematically plan for a good working environment.

As the results were based only from the questionnaires, a deeper understanding behind the workers’ responses was not probed.

Construction companies should work at several organisational levels at the same time. It is necessary to include levels such as individual, group, workplace and management levels, thus taking a system perspective on risk behaviour and safety.

While research on workplace safety spans across disciplines in medicine, public health, engineering, psychology, and business, research to date has not adopted a multilevel theoretical perspective that integrates theoretical issues and findings from various disciplines. In this chapter, we integrate research on workplace safety from a variety of disciplines and fields to develop a multilevel model of the processes that affect individual safety performance and safety and health outcomes. In doing so, we focus on cross-level linkages among national, organizational, and individual-level variables in relation to the exhibition of safe work behavior and occurrence of individual-level accidents, injuries, illnesses, and diseases. Our modeling of workplace safety is intended to fill a theoretical gap in our understanding of how the multitude of individual differences and situational factors interrelate across time to influence individual level safety behaviors and the consequences of these actions, and to encourage research to expand the limits of our knowledge.

Hospitals within the United States consistently have injury rates that are over twice the national employee injury rate. Hospital safety studies typically investigate care providers rather than support service employees. Compounding the lack of evidence for this understudied population is the scant evidence that is available to examine the relationship of support service employees’ perceptions of safety and work-related injuries. To examine this phenomenon, the purpose of this study was to investigate support service employees’ perceptions of safety leadership and social support as well as the relationship of safety perception to levels of reported injuries.

A nonexperimental survey was conducted with the data collected from hospital support service employees (n=1,272) and examined: (1) relationships between safety leadership (supervisor and organization) and individual and unit safety perceptions; (2) the moderating effect of social support (supervisor and coworker) on individual and unit safety perceptions; and (3) the relationship of safety perception to reported injury rates. The survey items in this study were based on the items from the AHRQ Patient Safety Culture Survey and the U.S. National Health Care Surveys.

Safety leadership (supervisor and organization) was found to be positively related to individual safety perceptions and unit safety grade as was supervisor and coworker support. Coworker support was found to positively moderate the following relationships: supervisor safety leadership and safety perceptions, supervisor safety leadership and unit safety grade, and senior management safety leadership and safety perceptions. Positive employee safety perceptions were found to have a significant relationship with lower reported injury rates.

These findings suggest that safety leadership from supervisors and senior management as well as coworker support has positive implications for support service employees’ perceptions of safety, which, in turn, are negatively related to lower odds of reporting injuries.

Occupational injury in the health care sector in the United States rates among the highest of all industries. Specific to hospital support service workers (e.g., Food & Nutrition, Environmental Services), studies have shown that injury rates for support service workers tend to be among the highest of hospital personnel, and yet there is a shortage of research investigating the safety climate of these workers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine safety perceptions of support service workers. Surveys were used to measure safety climate leadership factors (per the AHRQ's Survey of Patient Safety Culture) to determine if they are related to individual safety perceptions, as well as ratings of work unit safety. Following established safety climate research, we examined the role of the work environment (e.g., supervisor support and work unit culture) on safety perceptions. We found that both supervisor and organizational safety leadership are positively related to individual safety perceptions and supervisor support. Organizational safety leadership and work unit culture were positively related to work unit safety rating. Our findings demonstrate that the antecedent factors and pathways that promote a positive safety climate among health care providers functions in a similar manner for support service workers. These findings contribute to a better understanding of occupational safety of this understudied work group and provide evidence to hospital administration that developing a strong safety climate among support service workers is not entirely different from what is required to promote a robust safety climate across an organization.

The modern workplace contains many physical and interpersonal hazards to employee physical and psychological health/well-being. This chapter integrates the literatures on occupational safety (i.e., accidents and injuries) and mistreatment (physical violence and psychological abuse). A model is provided linking environmental (climate and leadership), individual differences (demographics and personality), motivation, behavior, and outcomes. It notes that some of the same variables have been linked to both safety and mistreatment, such as safety climate, mistreatment climate, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

This chapter presents a theoretical framework of the industrial relations (IR) system in China’s coal mining industry, combining the roles of management organizations, workers, and trade unions, as well as government agencies. It is one of the first empirical attempts to investigate the relationship between human resource (HR) practices, labor relations, and occupational safety in China’s coal mining industry over the past 60 years, based on the secondary data on coal mining accidents and case studies of two state-owned coal mines in a northern city in Anhui Province, China. The fluctuating occupational safety has been affected by government regulations over different time spans, marked by key political agendas, and by coal mining firms taking concrete measures to respond to these regulations, while exhibiting differing safety performance in state-owned versus township-and-village-owned mines. The field studies compared a safety-oriented to a cost-control-oriented HR and labor relations system, and their influences on safety performance. Coal mining firms and practitioners are advised to shift the traditional personnel management paradigm to a modern HR management system. In addition, although workers are often blamed directly for accidents, it is suggested that workers’ participation and voice in various processes of decision-making and policy implementation, and trade unions’ active involvement in protecting workers from occupational hazards, be encouraged.

Road trauma remains a significant concern internationally. Traffic crashes rank within the top three leading causes of death for individuals aged between 15–44 years old, with nonfatal casualties occurring at around 30 times the rate of fatal incidents. Historically, road safety research has not captured factors relating to driving purpose. However, more recently, researchers have focused on the importance of driving for work. Over a third of traffic volume represents commuting or driving in the line of employment; improving workplace road safety practices represents a tangible way of reducing road trauma. This chapter considers the link between safety culture and best practice in workplace road safety. It is argued that best practice is not a term to define individual safety practices, but a system of practices that create a culture of safety. This research uses data collected on organizations workplace road safety practices within the Australian context. This data has been collected by the National Road Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP); an initiative that constitutes a network of organizations and academics working together to develop a positive road safety culture. Twenty-four case studies are presented of organizations that have implemented workplace road safety programs to improve their safe driving culture. Qualitative analysis was conducted to systematically categorize the safety initiatives and their indicators of success. Almost all case studies expressed the importance of developing a safety-first culture in the workplace. Third-party regulation, internal policy and corporate social responsibility form the foundation of workplace safety. However, it was the culture and attitude towards the safety initiatives that achieved effectiveness in the long-term. The findings of this research support the argument that best practice is best achieved when integrated within a culture that values and prioritizes safety, rather than implemented in isolation to other elements in the workplace system.

The purpose of the study was to explore in literature what different leadership styles and behaviors of head nurses have a positive influence on the outcomes of patient safety or quality of care.

We reviewed the literature from January 2000 until September 2011. We searched Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl, Psychlit, and Econlit.

We found 10 studies addressing the relationship between head nurse leadership and safety and quality. A wide array of styles and practices were associated with different patient outcomes. Transformational leadership was the most used concept in the studies. A trend can be observed over these studies suggesting that a trustful relationship between the head nurse and subordinates is an important driving force for the achievement of positive patient outcomes. Furthermore, the effects of these trustful relationships seem to be amplified by supporting mechanisms, often objective conditions like clinical pathways and, especially, staffing level.

This study offers an up-to-date review of the limited number of studies on the relationship between nurse leadership and patient outcomes. Although mostly transformational leadership was found to be responsible for positive associations with outcomes, also contingent reward had positive influence on outcomes. We formulated some comments on the predominance of the transformational leadership concept and suggested the application of complexity theory and political leadership for the current context of care. We formulated some implications for practice and further research, mainly the need for more systematic empirical and cross cultural studies and the urgent need for the development of a validated set of nurse-sensitive patient outcome indicators.