The “is” and the “ought”: How do perceived social norms influence safety behaviors at work?

Abstract

Despite a widespread view that social norms have an important contextual influence on health attitudes and behaviors, the impact of normative influences on safety behaviors has received very little attention. The current study proposes that supervisors' and coworkers' descriptive and injunctive safety norms influence proactive and compliance safety behaviors. Longitudinal results from 132 workers in a passenger transportation company support the link between coworkers' descriptive safety norms (at Time 1) and proactive safety practices (at Time 2). Crystallization of supervisor' injunctive safety norms (at Time 2) moderated the effect of coworkers' descriptive safety norms (at Time 1) on self-reported proactive safety behavior (at Time 2). These findings emphasize the differences between supervisors' and coworkers' descriptive and injunctive norms as sources of social influence on compliance and proactive safety behavior.

Can Leader–Member Exchange Contribute to Safety Performance in An Italian Warehouse?

“…The first is about adhering to safe work practices and, in a broader sense, indicates behaviors directly related to work tasks. Safety compliance has been defined as engaging in activities that are part of the formal work procedures (i.e., correct use of equipment) and “applying appropriate work practices to reduce exposure to potential hazards and injury” (Fugas et al, 2011, p. 68). When safety participation was spotlighted, it has become evident that these kind of behaviors can enhance safety within the work environment and, generally toward “the maintenance of overall safety system” (Griffin and Neal, 2000, p. 356); this class of behavior can predicted micro-accidents, property damage, near-miss events and lost-time injuries (Curcuruto et al, 2015; Saracino et al, 2015).…”

Nurses’ response to parents’ ‘speaking‐up’ efforts to ensure their hospitalized child's safety: an attribution theory perspective

“…Yet, staff's positive attitudes towards safety in their unit in general (Fugas et al . , Schwappach et al . ) and towards patients’ involvement in ensuring their safety (Schwappach et al .…”

Profiling Safety Behaviors: Exploration of the Sociocognitive Variables that Best Discriminate Between Different Behavioral Patterns

“…Groups and teams, rather than individuals, have become the foundation of contemporary organizations. At the same time, the literature, which initially focused on individual‐level variables (e.g., workers’ attitudes and the role of leadership), has evolved to consider group‐level constructs such as the influence of social norms in the context of the social ecology where safety behaviors are learned and reinforced …”

“…Previous research on the predictors of safety behaviors, their mediators, and their moderators tended to use multiple linear regression analysis and focus on either safety compliance behaviors or proactive safety behaviors, but rarely on different combinations of the two. So far, to our knowledge, the study of safety behavioral patterns using multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) has not received much attention.…”

“…Previous theoretical and empirical contributions have shown the importance of social norms in predicting safety behaviors . In this stream of research, these studies have recovered the concept of social norms and applied it in the context of safety.…”