Safety climate cross-validation, strength and prediction of safety behaviour

Abstract

The present paper investigates the dimensionality of safety climate, tests a hypothesis of sharedness among members in a social unit as a characteristic of safety climate and tests the predictive validity of safety climate with regard to safety behaviour. The dimensionality of safety climate reported by [Cheyne, A., Cox, S., Oliver, A., Tomás, J.M., 1998. Modelling safety climate in the prediction of levels of safety activity. Work and Stress, 12 (3), 255–271.] was successfully replicated in three different samples (N1 = 242, N2 = 275, N3 = 284) in Swedish construction industry. Support was found for a hypothesis of a second order safety climate factor. A theoretically suggested distinction between safety climate and individual safety attitudes was supported. Safety climate was found to significantly predict self-reported safety behaviour 7 months later. This was true also with previous safety behaviour under control, supporting a causal relationship between safety climate and how workers behave with regard to safety.