Perceived safety climate and organizational trust: the mediator role of job satisfaction

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1 Available online at ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) PSIWORLD 2014 Perceived safety climate and organizational trust: the mediator role of job satisfaction Eugen Avram a, Daniela Ionescu b, Cornel L. Mincu a * a Department of Psychology, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, , Romania b Department of Psychology, Al. I. Cuza University, Ia i, , Romania Abstract Objectives. The goal of the current study is to emphasize the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationship between the perception of safety climate and organizational trust and to highlight the impact of the safety climate dimensions on the organizational trust dimensions. Participants. The present study was built collecting data from 147 participants from the health system. Methodology. The design used in the study was transversal, predictive intragroup correlation type. Results. Job satisfaction is a partial mediator in the relationship between the perception of safety climate and organizational trust The The Authors. Published by Elsevier by Elsevier Ltd. This Ltd. is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD Keywords: percieved safety climate; job satisfaction; organizational trust. 1. The perception of occupational safety The perception of safety climate is defined as a subjective perception of employees regarding organizational policies and practices meant to ensure a safe and out of danger occupational environment (Radzaz et al., 2013). Hoffman et al. (2005) conceives safety climate as a construct that embodies a series of dimensions: the management's attitude towards safety issues, proactive behaviors for maintaining safety and the rewarding system for these behaviors. Watson et al. (2005) highlights the importance of the organizational policies and practices promoted by the management inside the organization. The positive perception of management involvement in maintaining safeness at work is significantly negatively associated with risky behaviors at work and the trust in senior managers is * Corresponding author. Tel.: ; fax: address: eugen.avram@fpse.unibuc.ro The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD doi: /j.sbspro

2 680 Eugen Avram et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) associated with a positive perception of safety climate. Individuals who are working in occupational environments where safety policies and practices are perilous, acquire a negative perception of safety climate at work (Sunal et al., 2010). Accordingly, people who perceive a positive safety climate at work tend to be more compliant when it comes to following safety procedures and practices, avoiding occupational accidents (DeJoy et al., 2004). Employees who envision their workplace environment as being secure, show positive attitudes towards their employers (Hoffman et al., 2003). According to the social capital theory (Coleman, 1988), the perception of work environment and person's behavior are altered by a series of social dimensions of the workplace environment, as the following: direct employee supervision, offering some normative examples through workplace colleague's behavior, managerial practices and policies (Geller, 1991). Occupational safety perception is influenced by the perception of the importance that the manager gives to training courses aiming for rising workplace safety and also by the perceived status of the person in charge with implementing safety systems at workplace. Investing these persons with a high status and setting high goals for workplace safety maintenance are factors that contribute to the development of a positive occupational safety culture in organizations (Zohar, 2002). 2. Job satisfaction Job satisfaction represents the positive or negative attitude that the person shows towards his job (Schultz & Schultz, 1994). Job satisfaction may be regarded as a global concept or as an umbrella concept for a series of dimensions of workplace context towards which the person reacts in an affective manner. Also, job satisfaction can be defined by the level of satisfaction the person gets through job rewarding, especially when it comes to the awards that fuel the intrinsic motivation of the employee (Statt, 2004). Job satisfaction is the result of the individual's evaluations concerning different aspects of the work he is performing (Judge et al., 2000). The past studies indicated significant correlations between job satisfaction and different variables as occupational commitment, resignation rates, work motivation, organizational culture, etc. (Vukonjanski et al., 2013). Workplace satisfaction implies achievements evaluations and workplace success and it is closely correlated with well-being. An employee is satisfied with the work he is performing if he does what he enjoys, does his job with enthusiasm and receives rewards for his efforts. Job satisfaction is an important factor for achieving the sense of personal fulfillment (Kaliski, 2007). Robbins (2003) states that there are four major workplace satisfaction determinants. The first one is represented by fair rewards, supportive workplace conditions, the job nature, the supportive workplace body. Organizational support perception results in increasing job satisfaction and decreasing resignation rates (Paille et al., 2010). The perception of a positive workplace entails a high job satisfaction which makes the employee to feel grateful towards the organization and makes him wish to set a long term relation founded on mutual trust with the organization (MacKenzie et al., 1998). Job satisfaction in influenced by the workplace conditions and workplace safety (Latham, 2007). Job environment is one of the greatest predictors of job satisfaction (Malek et al., 2009). A risky workplace environment that determines the person to have a negative perception of the safety climate at work, decreases the person's level of job satisfaction. Workplace stress and the perception of a perilous workplace safety have a negative impact on job satisfaction, being associated with resignation rates (Malek et al., 2009). Satisfaction drops significantly in risk conditions and work overload (Yoshimura and Acar, 2004). 3. Organizational trust Trust can be defined as the confidence in a person's integrity, character and authenticity. Organizationally speaking, trust is conceptualized as being the voluntary openness of individuals towards vulnerability in the front of other people from their workplace (Rousseau et al., 1998). The trust in organization, in supervising managers and workplace colleagues, represents an influence factor for compliance towards safety procedures intended to maintain a safe work environment. Reason (1997) states that for an adequate safety culture it is necessary to implement a correct information system within the organization. This presumes trustiness coming from employees towards their supervisors regarding their activities report. Trusting the

3 Eugen Avram et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) organization and the managers allows the employees to report in an honest way the mistakes and errors present in the safety procedures so that the workplace safety management may be continuously improved. An efficient occupation safety may be created by implementing some procedures for reporting information and some fair norms regarding the rewarding and punishment system for employees' actions. The employees will fairly inform the supervisors concerning mishaps in their activities only if they trust their managers to act accordingly in a fair manner. Likewise, it is necessary to implement a learning process at work. Employees must know the right norms and practices regarding occupational safety (Burns, 2005). Organizational trust is an essential element that plays a great role in the process of implementing safety organizational systems. When they feel that they are being treated right, employees obtain a greater trust in the organization thus, are more compliant to decisions being made by the organization (Wech, 2002). Dawson (2002) claims that employees with a negative workplace safety perception obtained the highest level of trust in connection to their direct superiors and not to the senior managers, the lowest trust rates being affirmed between first line employees and the top executive level. Workplace safety and organizational trust describe a significant direct relationship. The improvement of enforcing workplace safety systems can not be attained in the absence of a high level of trust between the members of an organization. 4. Method The aim of the current study is to highlight the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationship between safety climate perception and organizational trust and also, emphasizing the impact of safety climate dimensions and job satisfaction dimensions on the organizational trust dimensions. The general hypothesis of the study is that job satisfaction is a mediator of the relationship between safety climate perception and organizational trust, thus, a positive perception of the safety climate leads to a high job satisfaction level, these concepts being associated to a high level of occupational trust coming from the employee. Data for the study was collected from 147 employees in the health system (nurses, stretcher-bearer) with ages from 21 to 58 years old (60,5% women, 39,5% men; M = 33,3, SD = 9,92). Safety climate perception was assessed using Work Safety Scale developed by Hayes et al. (1989). The internal consistency for all the subscales of the scale is Cronbach alfa > Job satisfaction was measured using Job Descriptive Index developed by Smith et al. (1969). Cronbach alfa internal consistency for all JDI subscales is between the values of 0.69 and Organizational trust was evaluated using Organizational Trust Profile (Ellis & Zhalabak, 2008), Cronbach alpha having a 0.94 value. For revealing mediating models and prediction, hierarchical linear regression analysis and the mediating analysis with the help of regression was applied. 5. Results The current study claims that job satisfaction is a partial mediator of the relationship between safety climate perception and organizational trust. The indirect effect of safety climate perception on the organization trust (.17, p =.001) is statistically significant, the relationship between safety climate perception and organizational trust being partially mediated by job satisfaction. A positive perception of the safety climate predicts a high level of job satisfaction, which leads to a high level of organizational trust (Figure 1).

4 682 Eugen Avram et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) Job satisfaction a=1.05 b=.18 The perception of c'=.17 Organizational safety climate trust c=.28 Figure 1. Mediating role of satisfaction in the relationship of confidence and trust. Note*: a = effect of the predictor variable on the mediating variable; b = mediating variable effect on criterion variabile; c = total effect; c = indirect effect of the predictor variable on criterion variable; a, b, c, c are nonstandardized beta coefficients. The positive perception of the safety climate is a predictor for a high level of job satisfaction, explaining 45% of the job satisfaction variation. High job satisfaction is a predictor of a high organizational trust, describing 28% of the organizational trust variation. A positive perception of the safety climate and a high job satisfaction predict together high levels of organizational trust, arguing 33% of the criterion variable variation. Sobel Test Z = 6.65 is statistically significant, p =.05 bilateral. Mediating effect is.19 (Table 1). Table 1. The results of the mediation analysis via hierarchical linear regression Prediction models B SE(B) t sig. (p) R² P1: The perception of safety climate C1: Job satisfaction P2: Job satisfaction C2: Organizational trust P3: The perception of safety climate P4: Job satisfaction C 3,4: Organizational trust Note: P = predictor, C = criterion. The positive safety perception promoted by the direct manager (ß =.43, p <.000, =.14) and the positive perception of the safety promoted by the institution/manager (ß =.58, p <.000, =.34) independently predict a high level of trust in organizational competence. The positive perception of safety promoted by the direct manager explains 14% of the criterion variable variation, and the positive perception of the safety promoted by the institution/management explains 34% of the criterion variable variance. The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues (ß =.24, p <.000, =.06), by the direct manager (ß =.40, p <.000, =.16) and by the institution/management (ß =.50, p <.000, =.25) independently predict a high level of trust in openness and honesty. The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues explain 6% of the criterion variable variance, the positive perception of safety promoted by the direct manager explains 16% of the variance, and the positive perception of the safety promoted by the institution/management explains 25% of the variance. The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues (ß =.24, p <.000, =.05), by the direct manager (ß =.51, p <.000, =.26) and by the institution/management (ß =.63, p <.000, =.40), independently predict a high level of concern for employees, expressed by the organization. The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues explains 5% of the criterion variable variance, the positive perception of safety promoted by the direct manager explains 26% of the variance, and the positive perception of safety promoted by the institution/management explains 40% of the variance. The positive perception of the workplace safety (ß =.20, p =.018), of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues (ß =.20, p =.046) and the safety promoted by the direct manager (ß =.29, p =.001), predict together a high level of organizational reliability and explain 27% of the criterion variable variance ( =.27). The positive

5 Eugen Avram et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) perception of the workplace safety (ß =.26, p <.000) and of the safety promoted by the institution/management (ß =.51, p <.000) predict together a high level of trust in the organizational fidelity and explain 35% of the criterion variable variance (R =.35). The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues (ß =.23, p =.004, =.05), by the direct manager (ß =.48, p <.000, =.23) and by the institution/management (ß =.55, p <.000, =.30) predict independently a high level of identification. The positive perception of safety promoted by the workplace colleagues explains 5% of the criterion variable variance; the positive perception of safety promoted by the direct manager explains 23& of the variance and the positive perceptions of the safety promoted by the institution/management explains 30% of the criterion variable variance. 6. Conclusions The current study emphasized the fact that job satisfaction is a partial mediator of the relationship between the safety climate perception and organizational trust. The positive perception of the safety climate is associated with a high level of job satisfaction, which is connected to o high level of organizational trust from the employees. The dimensions of the safety climate have a significant impact on the organizational trust dimensions, thus every aspect of the safety climate workplace perception has a great role in enhancing the trust of the employees in the organization they work for. References Burns, C. (2005). Dual Attitudes about Trust in Safety Culture. The Business Review, 4(2), Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, Dawson, L. (2002). Trust me! It's safe!. Professional Safety, 47(2), DeJoy, D., Gershon, R., Schaffer, B. (2004). Safety Climate: Assessing management and organizational influences on safety. Professional Safety, 49(7), Ellis, K.., & Shockley Zalabak, P. (2008). The Organizational Trust Profile: Comprehensive Instrument to measure Organizational Trust. In E., Avram & P., Shockley Zalabak. Încrederea Organiza ional (pp ). Bucure ti: Editura Universitar. Gil, A.S. (2008). The role of trust in employee-manager relationship. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(1), Geller, E. (1991). If only more would actively care. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 24, Hoffman, D., Morgeson, F., & Gerras, S. (2003). Climate as a moderator of the relationship between leader member exchange and content specific citizenship: Safety climate as an exemplar. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), Judge, T., Bono, J. & Locke, E. (2000). Personality and job satisfaction: the mediating role of job characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(2), Kaliski, B.S. (2007). Encyclopedia of Business and Finance, Second edition. Thompson Gale, Detroit, p Latham, G.P. (2007). Work Motivation: History, Theory, Research, and Practice, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. MacKenzie, S., Podsakoff, P., & Ahearne, M. (1998). Some possible antecedents and consequences of in-role and extra-role salesperson performance. Journal of Marketing, 62, Malek, M. D., Fahrudin, A., & Kamil, I. S. M. (2009). Occupational stress and psychological well being in emergency services. Asian Social Work and Policy, 3, Paille, P., Bourdeau, L., & Galois, I. (2010). Support, trust, satisfaction, intent to leave and citizenship at organizational level.a social exchange approach. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 18(1), Radzaz, N., & Bahari, S. (2013). Psychosocial Safety Climate in Organization: An Overview of Theoretical and Empirical Development. Journal of Social and Development Sciences, 4(9), Robins, S.P. (2003). Organizational Behaviour: Concept Controversy And Application. Nineth Edition. Prentice Hall. Rousseau, D., Sitkin, S., Burt, R., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different afterall: A cross discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organizational accidents. Aldershot: Ashgate. Sunal, A., Sunal, O., Yasin, F. (2011). A Comparison of Workers Employed in Hazardous Jobs in Terms of Job Satisfaction, Perceived Job Risk and Stress: Turkish Jean Sandblasting Workers, Dock Workers, Factory Workers and Miners. Soc Indic Res, 02, Schultz, D.P., & Schultz, S.E. (1994). Psychology and work today: An Introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. United States of America, Macmillan Publishing Company. Statt, D. (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Business Management, Third edition. Routledge Publishing, Detroit, p. 78.

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