Moderators of the Safety Climate-Injury Relationship: A Meta-Analytic Examination

This study examined the variability in the observed relationship between safety climate and injuries in the extant literature by meta-analytically examining possible moderators of the safety climate-injury relationship at both the individual and group levels of analysis. Hypotheses were posited regarding the effects of six moderators: study design (i.e., retrospective or prospective), the time frame for gathering injury data, the degree of content contamination and deficiency in safety climate measures, the source of injury data (i.e., archival or self-report), and the operationalization of injury severity. Results revealed that the safety climate-injury relationship is stronger at the group level (? = -.23) than at the individual level of analysis (? = -.18). Meaningful moderators included the time frame between the measurement of safety climate and injuries for prospective group-level studies, safety climate content contamination for group-level studies, and safety climate content deficiency for individual-level studies. Longer time frames for gathering injury data and safety climate content deficiency were found to decrease effect sizes while content contamination was associated with stronger effect sizes. Methodological recommendations are proposed for future research of the safety climate-injury relationship including prospective longitudinal study designs with data collected and analyzed at the group-level of analysis and injuries operationalized at a greater level of severity

Organizational climate profiles: Identifying meaningful combinations of climate level and strength

According to situation strength theory, organizational climate should have a stronger effect on group behavior when members’ perceptions of the climate are both unambiguous (i.e., very high or very low) and shared than when they are more ambiguous and less shared. In the organizational climate literature, this proposition is typically examined by testing the interaction between climate level (i.e., mean) and strength (i.e., variability); surprisingly, the preponderance of empirical research testing this interaction does not support this theoretical expectation. This may be because the traditional variable-centered approach fails to consider the possibility of overlooked subpopulations consisting of unique combinations of climate level and strength, creating distinct climate profiles. To address this issue, we use a group-centered conceptualization and analyses (i.e., latent profile analysis) to examine the extent to which 302 workgroups (Sample 1) and 107 organizations (Sample 2) evidence statistically and practically meaningful climate profiles. Results revealed four to six distinct climate profiles across multiple climate types were differentially associated with theoretically relevant outcomes, including objective financial measures. Consistent with situation strength theory, groups with strong and favorable profiles tended to have more positive outcomes, whereas groups with weaker, less favorable profiles tended to have less positive outcomes. In contrast, the traditional variable-centered approach was generally unsupportive of an interaction between climate level and strength. Overall, these findings provide evidence that the group-centered approach is a more sensitive statistical modeling technique for testing a fundamental tenet of situation strength theory in the context of organizational climate research

The Relationship Between Typical And Maximum Performance: A Meta-Analytic Examination

This study\u27s purpose was to meta-analytically estimate the magnitude of the relationship between typical and maximum job performance to determine if this distinction deserves greater attention. We also tested several moderators including three associated with the temporal boundaries of this relationship and examined theoretical antecedents of typical and maximum performance (ability, motivation, and personality). This meta-analysis revealed a moderate typical-maximum performance association (ρ =.42), suggesting that a meaningful distinction does exist. Although the examined temporal moderators did not meaningfully affect the typical-maximum performance relationship, task complexity, type of performance measure, and study setting were significant moderators. Antecedent analyses confirmed that both ability and Openness to Experience are more strongly related to maximum than typical performance. The implications of these findings are discussed. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Workplace Safety: A Review And Research Synthesis

Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (a) what we currently know about workplace safety and (b) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research

A Meta-Analysis Of Personality And Workplace Safety: Addressing Unanswered Questions

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to address unanswered questions regarding the associations between personality and workplace safety by (a) clarifying the magnitude and meaning of these associations with both broad and facet-level personality traits, (b) delineating how personality is associated with workplace safety, and (c) testing the relative importance of personality in comparison to perceptions of the social context of safety (i.e., safety climate) in predicting safety-related behavior. Our results revealed that whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with unsafe behaviors, extraversion and neuroticism were positively associated with them. Of these traits, agreeableness accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in safety-related behavior and openness to experience was unrelated. At the facet level, sensation seeking, altruism, anger, and impulsiveness were all meaningfully associated with safety-related behavior, though sensation seeking was the only facet that demonstrated a stronger relationship than its parent trait (i.e., extraversion). In addition, meta-analytic path modeling supported the theoretical expectation that personality\u27s associations with accidents are mediated by safety-related behavior. Finally, although safety climate perceptions accounted for the majority of explained variance in safety-related behavior, personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) still accounted for a unique and substantive proportion of the explained variance. Taken together, these results substantiate the value of considering personality traits as key correlates of workplace safety

Workplace Discrimination: A Meta-Analytic Extension, Critique, And Future Research Agenda

Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and nonwork contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research

Adjusting To New Work Teams: Testing Work Experience As A Multidimensional Resource For Newcomers

The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. We tested hypotheses using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers\u27 past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

A Meta-Analysis Of Sex And Race Differences In Perceived Workplace Mistreatment

Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person\u27s sex) in the workplace than men (δ =.46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ =.02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person\u27s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ =.71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ =.10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research