Safety participation in the workplace: A multidimensional assessment tool (PROSAFE)

The importance of the concept of the workforce participation in safety management has been underlined by different studies in the Human Factors literature of the last twenty years. All these contributions have stressed the importance of considering the positive contribution of individuals and teams in achieving the desired level of safety. Within this framework, the construct of proactive safety orientation toward safety emerged as a general and broad set of psychological orientations by individuals in managing safety issues, preventing injuries, improving workplace safety conditions and sustainability of organizational contexts, beyond the mere avoidance of negative events for individuals, teams and organizations. In the light of these conceptual bases, the aim of the present research is to define an original assessment tool of "proactive safety orientation" to assess the psychological factors leading individuals toward a more proactive and participative approach to safety management and risk prevention in the workplace. The model tool was developed as a multidimensional questionnaire on existing conceptual dimensions of organizational proactivity adapted to safety issues in the workplace. In order to achieve this aim, three main research phases were planned: 1) Exploratory semi-structured interviews on conceptual issues, involving safety experts 2) Generation of a new set of assessment measures with content items interview with experts 3) Quantitative pilot study on the psychometric properties of reliability of the new evaluation instruments involving a new set of safety experts. In summary, our research allowed us to generate an assessment tool inclusive of six psychological dimensions supportive of a general proactive orientation by individuals toward the management of safety and the prevention of accidents in the workplace: i) participative self-efficacy; ii) influence perception; iii) psychological ownership; iv) felt responsibility; v) anticipation orientation; vi) improvement orientation.

Online recruitment: The role of trust in technology

In recent years, online recruitment has become a prevalent human resource management practice worldwide. Although studies emphasized the importance of candidates' perceptions related to the recruiting web site attributes, there is no research focused on the effects of trust toward the IT technology during the online application process. Given the importance of trust dynamics in personnel recruitment, the aim of this study is to investigate the role of trust towards the web platforms supporting online recruitment. Results, from a sample of university students including 330 participants, showed that trust toward the web site affects both directly and indirectly - via company attractiveness - the intention to apply for a job

A diagnostic tool to evaluate the proactivity levels of risk-Reporting activities by the workforce

Prevention of occupational injuries is an important task of Human Resource Management. Empiric research showed that risk perception, safety communication and worker's participation in safety programs may have a relevant role in reducing accident and injury occurrence - see for example (Conchie, 2013). These considerations lead us to this study to propose a new methodology which consists in an index aimed to assess the proactivity of worker participation in safety management systems. The innovation consists in defining a diagnostic measurement model to assess the degree of workforce proactivity, considering a specific kind of participatory contribute by workers for safety promotion in the workplace, like the spontaneous risk-reporting initiatives. The measurement tool has been defined and tested by an interdisciplinary team composed of four university researchers (human factor experts) and two site safety managers of a chemical site which is chosen with the purpose to apply for the first time the new tool. Preliminary results show that different levels of proactivity were adopted and that the highest levels of proactivity are relatively less frequent. The tool offers relevant diagnostic information for the industrial organizations which aim to achieve higher level of proactivity in risk management, offering practical indications for managerial interventions focused on stimulating and improving appropriate participation by the workforce. © Copyright 2014, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l

Psychological ownership in organization: A contribution to the Italian validation of pierce and colleagues scale

We present a contribution to the Italian validation of the scale of Pierce Van Dyne e Cummings (1992) concerning the organizational ownership. This construct even internationally widely adopted is mostly absent in the scientific Italian debate. Using data from a sample of 598 Italian employees, was studied both the internal and external validity of the version with seven items that of the one with four. The results showed better psychometric properties of the shorter version and good evidence with regard to internal and external validity

Dynamic safety capability and management systems: An assessment tool to evaluate the “fitness-to-operate” in high-risk industrial environments

Aim: The paper outlines a systemic approach to understanding and assessing safety capability in high-risk industries, like off-shore oil, gas industry, chemical operators. The "Fitness to Operate" framework (acronym: FTO) (Griffin et al., 2014) has been recently defined by three enabling capitals that create safety capability: organizational capital, social capital, and human capital. Furthermore, each type of capital is identified by more specific dimensions based on current theories of safety, management, and organizational processes. In this paper, we will present a multidimensional assessment tool that offers a comprehensive picture of safety capability by real industrial operators in order to understand and evaluate their "fitness-to-operate" (FTO). Method: This current paper aims to describe the multi-phase development process of a FTO assessment tool in the format of a multidimensional survey questionnaire. A) The first research phase consists of the item generation of a large prototype pool with about 200 contents-items covering the 27 dimensions of the conceptual representation of the FTO framework. This initial pool was developed by a team of academic researchers, through a deductive process, and in the light of the original FTO conceptualization, as defined by Griffin and colleagues (2014) B) In a second research phase, the initial pools of items were re-examined by a new pool of academic researchers, assessing the quality of the contents, and in order to refine the extensive version of the prototype, eliminating potential redundancies and inadequate items. C) In a third phase with structured interviews to a pool of industrial experts (senior safety managers; senior executives), the authors assessed the quality of the prototype tool developed by the academic researchers, in order to evaluate and ranks the items of the prototype in term of quality, in order to define and identify a shorter version of the prototype. All the items were assessed by the experts considering criteria such as: i) relevance ii) clearness iii) verifiability iv) specificity v) ease of answer. Implications: Overall, the FTO assessment tool enables a comprehensive coverage of factors that influence short-term and long-term safety outcomes. The tool may serve to help safety regulators and industrial operators to understand, assess, and eventually implement and improve the safety capability and fitness-to-operate in complex industrial and organizational context

Proactivity Toward Workplace Safety Improvement: An Investigation of Its Motivational Drivers and Organizational Outcomes

Initiating a safety oriented change - or safety initiative - is conceptually distinct from other forms of safety participation and safety citizenship behaviour, yet little attention has been given to its performance outcomes or its motivational antecedents. An initial study with a sample composed of middle managers (N = 86) showed that safety initiative predicted objective improvement actions six months later, whereas, showing differential validity, safety compliance predicted the implementation of monitoring actions. Two subsequent studies focused on motivational antecedents. First, using a sample of team leaders (N = 295), we tested a higher-order structure of proactive motivation that incorporates three domains: “can do”, “reason to” and future orientation. Second, in a longitudinal study of chemical work operators (N = 188), after checking for the influence of potential confounds (past behaviours; accidents experience; perceived risk), we showed that safety initiative was predicted only by proactive motivation. Instead, safety compliance was found to be associated with affective commitment and scrupulousness, whereas safety helping was found to be associated with affective commitment. Self-reported behaviours were validated against rater assessments. This study supports the importance of distinguishing safety initiative from other safety behaviours, indicating how to create an organizational context supporting a proactive management of workplace safety

Die Bedeutung eines digitalen Prozessmanagements für die öffentliche Sekundarschule Uster SSU

Auch die öffentliche Hand muss sich den neuen Anforderungen der Wirtschaft stellen und unternehmerisches Denken beweisen. Steuergelder müssen sorgfältig verwaltet werden. Deshalb finden bewährte Führungsinstrumente aus der Privatwirtschaft zunehmend Anwendung im öffentlichen Bereich. Druck kann aber auch Innovation fördern. Diese Arbeit zeigt auf, dass Prozessmanagement ein wichtiger Ausgangspunkt für eine moderne und kundenorientierte öffentliche Verwaltung ist und unterstützt die zwingende Umsetzung der New Public Management (NPM), des Harmonisierten Rechnungsmodells2 (HRM2) bzw. die Einführung eines Internen Kontrollsystems (IKS). Im ersten Teil die wichtigsten Grundlagen des Prozessmanagements für eine öffentliche Organisation erörtert. Es werden Begriffe geklärt und Zusammenhänge aufgezeigt. Die Bedeutung von Prozessmanagement in der Verwaltung wird deutlich. Im zweiten Teil wird für die Schulverwaltung der Sekundarstufe Uster (SSU), einer öffentlichen Schule, eine Pilotphase durchgeführt, um Erfahrungen und Argumente zu sammeln, um das Prozessmanagement auf die ganze SSU zu erweitern. In dieser Phase werden exemplarisch mit der kommerziellen Software ADONIS für Prozessmodellierung von der BOC Group eine Prozesslandkarte der gesamten Organisation der Sekundarstufe Uster (SSU) sowie drei Prozesse designt. Die Pilotphase wird mit einer Präsentation der Ergebnisse vor der Schulpflege der Sekundarstufe Uster und mit einem Projektauftrag abgeschlossen. Ziel des Projektauftrages ist es, alle Prozesse der Sekundarstufe Uster, welche den Unterricht unterstützen, sowohl auf der strategischen, als auch auf der operativen Ebene abzubilden, um ein wirkungsvolles und nachhaltiges Instrument zu entwickeln, welches die gesetzlichen Vorgaben des Kantons erfüllt (Einführung eines Internen Kontrollsystems und eines umfassenden Risikomanagements sowie die Entwicklung einer Balanced Scorecard (BSC))

Upward Safety Communication In The Workplace: How Team Leaders Stimulate Employees’ Voice Through Empowering and Monitoring Supervision

The importance of employees’ voice for workplace safety management is receiving growing attention. The present contribution focuses on three different categories of safety-specific voice behaviours and their links with complementary safety supervision styles: promotive voice (i.e. offering original suggestions to improve safety in work practices), preventive voice (i.e. raising personal concerns for potential risks), and proscriptive voice (i.e. speaking up against violations of safety standards). The first aim of the study is to provide evidence of the differential validity of the three categories of safety voice. Second, it intends to investigate how team leaders can stimulate these different kinds of employees’ voice. A survey investigation was conducted in a multinational chemical industry (N = 192). The statistical results of the study unveil that only empowering supervision affected promotive and preventive voices, whereas proscriptive voice was found to be affected by both empowering and monitoring supervision. Overall, the findings seem to indicate a substantial conceptual independence between the three categories of safety voice. At the same time, the study suggests that distinct supervision actions may affect these different expressions of employees’ safety voice in different ways, underlining the importance of a differential approach to these constructs, not only for research advancement, but also for the design of appropriate organisational programs aimed at stimulating open safety communication in the workplace, and to develop a more articulated approach to safety supervision, in order to support employees’ propensity to engage in appropriate safety voice actions, in accordance with their working situations

Prosocial and proactive "safety citizenship behaviour" (SCB): The mediation role of affective commitment and psychological ownership

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Safety citizenship behaviour (SCB) is an important participation factor in work-groups. Our study aims to study the influence of some antecedents of this safety-specific dimension of organizational citizenship. In the light of the current research stream that distinguishes between prosocial vs. proactive forms of organizational citizenship, we will investigate the effects of the following variables: organizational support for safety participation; team safety climate; psychological ownership toward the management of safety; affective commitment toward the organization. The research was conducted in a multinational chemical industry (N = 314). Prosocial oriented forms of SCB (safety stewardship) were mainly related to the influence of affective dimensions of organizational belongingness (affective commitment). On the other hand, proactive oriented forms of SCB (safety voice) showed higher linkages with the internalization of safety promotion instances (psychological ownership). The conclusions of the article include conceptual implications for academic research and managerial practice. The aim of this is to support a broader safety citizenship orientation by the workforce in the management of safety related instances in the workplace