Perceived Organizational Support and Perceived Safety Climate from the Perspective of Safety Professionals: Testing Reciprocal Causality using a Cross-Lagged Panel Design

Autor(en)

Johanna Bunner, Roman Prem, Christian Korunka

Abstrakt

Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine the reciprocal relationship between safety professionals perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived safety climate. Safety professionals are most effective when they perceive support from management and employees and they also attribute most of their success to support from the organization. Their work directly improves safety climate, and organizations with a high safety climate show a higher value for the safety professional. The causal direction of this relationship is, however, unclear. Method: Using a sample of 162 safety professionals, we conducted a cross-lagged panel study over one year to examine whether safety professionals’ POS improves their perceived safety climate and/or whether safety climate also increases POS over time. Data were collected at two points and, after testing for measurement invariance, a cross-lagged SEM was conducted to analyze the reciprocal relationship. Results: Our findings show that safety professionals’ POS was positively related to perceived safety climate over time. Perceived safety climate, however, did not contribute to safety professionals’ POS. Conclusions: This study significantly adds to the discussion about the factors influencing safety professionals’ successful inclusion in organizations, enabling them to perform their work and, thus, improve occupational safety. Practical Applications: Since safety climate increases in organizations in which safety professionals feel supported, this study points out the kind of support that contributes to improved organizational safety. Support for safety professionals may come in classical forms such as approval, pay, job enrichment, and information on or influence over organizational policies.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Arbeits-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialpsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

Journal

Journal of Safety Research

Band

78

Seiten

1-8

Anzahl der Seiten

8

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2021.06.006

Publikationsdatum

2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501003 Arbeitspsychologie, 501015 Organisationspsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/perceived-organizational-support-and-perceived-safety-climate-from-the-perspective-of-safety-professionals-testing-reciprocal-causality-using-a-crosslagged-panel-design(d3cbb96c-9596-41cf-a0da-5dfb749e42f1).html