Can psychological capital promote safety behaviours? A systematic review

There Is Hope in Safety Promotion! How Can Resources and Demands Impact Workers’ Safety Participation?

“…The most important result of this investigation is that hope directly promotes safety participation. In fact, the study of the role of personal resources in promoting safe behavior is a new topic, still little explored in the safety field [22]. Following Ye, et al's [23] study, we found a positive association between hope and safety participation.…”

“…Recently, the same significant results about hope, were found in a study from Saleem and colleagues [21] among 345 Malaysian construction workers, showing that hope can significantly and positively affect both safety performance indicators. Other noteworthy results are summarized in Margheritti et al [22] literature review, indicating that hope, as a sub-dimension of PsyCap, is directly and indirectly associated with safety performance. Specifically, two studies included in the review and carried out in China showed that hope was highly and positively associated with safety participation in a sample of 400 frontline workers in coal mines [23] and among construction workers [24].…”

“…Instead, He et al [25] observed that hope was not directly related to safety behaviors (i.e., compliance and participation) but indirectly to safety participation by communication competencies. However, only three of the twenty studies included in Margheritti et al's [22] review investigated the specific role of hope, presenting several limitations.…”

The dynamic interplay of job characteristics and psychological capital with employee health: A longitudinal analysis of reciprocal effects.

“…This optimism bias can lead to risk-taking in the work context that is not always reasonable or beneficial and thus could have negative effects on well-being and resources (Caponecchia, 2010). In line with this, a recent review on the relationship between psychological capital and occupational safety behaviors raises the question if personal resources and safety outcomes have an inverted U-shape relationship, as research reveals potential “dark sides” of high self-efficacy and optimism (Margheritti et al, 2022). Future research could assess groups of people who are expected to display broader ranges of PsyCap, for example, newcomers or job seekers, to investigate this inverted U-shape relationship and tipping points at which the actual expected desirable consequences of PsyCap may turn into undesirable ones.…”

“…Delving into these mechanisms was beyond our study's scope. Future research should focus on these aspects, particularly exploring the potential dark side of high PsyCap, which has been mostly overlooked by theory and research before (Margheritti et al, 2022).…”