The “social-physiology” of safety. An integrative approach to understanding organisational psychological mechanisms behind safety performance

Abstract

This paper aims at contributing to a comprehensive perspective on occupational safety by integrating research on different specific organisational psychological concepts found to contribute to different types of organisational performance, and apply these to an occupational safety context. A second aim was to present perspectives on how occupational safety may be promoted within an organization. The following mechanisms are suggested. A leadership style promoting co-operation, inspiring, fostering group goals, as well as providing individualized support and empowering workers may intrinsically be expected to comprise rich and open communication and thus support the development of high-quality interactions between managers and employees. Such interaction and communication may promote the development of mutual trust, and the development of a good workgroup climate. Trust, in turn, may further promote communication and interaction. Mutual trust, high-quality relations, and a strong group climate may promote workers' motivation and intentions to contribute to the organisational goals. Managers successful in demonstrating true and consistent priority of workers' safety may promote the development of workers' trust but also convince that safety is a prime organisational goal. This may promote workers' motivation to behave safely. Trustful relations characterized by empowerment and participation are then likely also to support the realization of safety intentions into safe behavior.