How Work Intensification Relates to Organization-Level Safety Performance: The Mediating Roles of Safety Climate, Safety Motivation, and Safety Knowledge

Abstract

Recent changes in the world of work have led to increased job demands with subsequent effects on occupational safety. Although work intensification has been linked to detrimental safety behavior and more accidents, there is so far no sufficient explanation for this relationship. This paper investigates the mediating roles of safety climate, safety motivation, and safety knowledge in the relationships of work intensification with components of safety performance at an organizational level. Safety engineers and managers from 122 Austrian high-accident companies participated in a cross-sectional survey. In line with our hypotheses, work intensification negatively related to both components of safety performance: safety compliance and safety participation. The results of a serial multiple mediation analysis further revealed safety climate and safety motivation to be serial mediators of the relationship between work intensification and safety performance. Unexpectedly, safety knowledge and safety climate only serially mediated the relationship between work intensification and safety compliance, but not the relationship between work intensification and safety participation. This study provides evidence for the detrimental effect of work intensification on safety performance across organizations. Additionally, this study offers an explanation as to how work intensification affects safety performance, enabling practitioners to protect their occupational safety procedures and policies from work intensification.

Determinants of Occupational Safety Culture in Hospitals and other Workplaces—Results from an Integrative Literature Review

“…We identified 44 studies investigating various determinants of an occupational safety culture . Seventeen studies referred to hospital workplaces [41,44,48,54,56,[62][63][64][65][66][67][69][70][71]80,81,84] and 27 studies were conducted at other workplaces, mostly manufacturing, construction, and other industry sectors [42,43,[45][46][47][49][50][51][52][53]55,[57][58][59][60][61]68,[72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79]82,83].…”

“…The 44 studies were published between 2000 and 2020. Most of the studies applied a cross-sectional research design [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]68,69,[71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]83,84]. We identified four cohort studies using a longitudinal research design [56,67,70,82], and only one study employing a mixed-methods design [66].…”

“…We identified four cohort studies using a longitudinal research design [56,67,70,82], and only one study employing a mixed-methods design [66]. Fifteen studies were conducted in European countries: five in Spain [51][52][53]73,83], three in Sweden [61,72,82], two in Italy [43,48], one in the Netherlands [44], one in Austria [45], one in the United Kingdom [47], one in Serbia [68], and one in Portugal [78]. Seventeen studies were carried out in the United States of America (USA) [41,49,50,54,56,[58][59][60]62,71,[74][75][76][77][79][80][81].…”

“…Some studies also focused on descriptions of workplace characteristics and covered the following topics: type of organization or department [43,68,72,73,78], OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) certification [72], geographical location of the organization [57], and company size or number of employees [45,46,53,72,73]. Other topics included information on employees, like kind of job contract or type of employment [43,53,57,73], respondents' role or job position [45][46][47]53,57,60,68,72,73,78], work shift [43], weekly working hours or number of hours worked [46,49,60,72], and individual data like union membership [46]. Some studies addressed organizational environment and functionality [68,72], environmental or physical working conditions [49,57,72], the quality of environmental working conditions (e.g., humidity, lighting, ventilation, temperature, workspace) [49,73,83], and work-related safety practices [74].…”

“…Some studies addressed organizational environment and functionality [68,72], environmental or physical working conditions [49,57,72], the quality of environmental working conditions (e.g., humidity, lighting, ventilation, temperature, workspace) [49,73,83], and work-related safety practices [74]. Other studies focused on different aspects of psychosocial working conditions [42,45,46,52,53,61,72,74,75,82]. One study mentioned specific work limitations (e.g., physical demands, time management) [60].…”