Climate as a moderator of the relationship between leader-member exchange and content specific citizenship: safety climate as an exemplar

The present study integrates role theory, social exchange, organizational citizenship, and climate research to suggest that employees will reciprocate implied obligations of leadership-based social exchange (e.g., leader-member exchange [LMX]) by expanding their role and behaving in ways consistent with contextual behavioral expectations (e.g., work group climate). Using safety climate as an exemplar, the authors found that the relationship between LMX and subordinate safety citizenship role definitions was moderated by safety climate. In summary, high-quality LMX relationships resulted in expanded safety citizenship role definitions when there was a positive safety climate and there was no such expansion under less positive safety climates. The authors also found that safety citizenship role definitions were significantly related to safety citizenship behavior. Implications for both social exchange theory and safety research are discussed.     

Climate as situational strength: Safety climate strength as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and safety behaviour

Extant research on climate strength has frequently invoked situational strength in passing. Given this, it is surprising that the fundamental prediction from the situational strength literature—namely, that strong situations attenuate personality–behaviour relationships—has thus far never been tested empirically using climate strength as an operationalization of situational strength. Consequently, in the present study, we tested this fundamental prediction by positing that organizational safety climate strength moderates the relationships between employee conscientiousness and two forms of employee safety behaviour, such that those relationships are attenuated in strong climates. Using a multilevel design consisting of 964 Korean employees nested within 17 manufacturing organizations, we found support for these cross-level interaction hypotheses. These findings legitimize the frequent invocation of situational strength by climate strength researchers, contribute to the theoretical foundation underlying climate strength, and yield important implications for future research and practice.     

THE PRECURSORS AND PRODUCTS OF JUSTICE CLIMATES: GROUP LEADER ANTECEDENTS AND EMPLOYEE ATTITUDINAL CONSEQUENCES

Drawing on the organizational justice, organizational climate, leadership and personality, and social comparison theory literatures, we develop hypotheses about the effects of leader personality on the development of 3 types of justice climates (e.g., procedural, interpersonal, and informational) and the moderating effects of these climates on individual-level justice–attitude relationships. Largely consistent with the theoretically derived hypotheses, the results showed that leader (a) Agreeableness was positively related to procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice climates; (b) Conscientiousness was positively related to a procedural justice climate; and (c) Neuroticism was negatively related to all 3 types of justice climates. Further, consistent with social comparison theory, multilevel data analyses revealed that the relationship between individual justice perceptions and job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, commitment) was moderated by justice climate such that the relationships were stronger when justice climate was high.     

Evaluating health care work settings: A holistic conceptual framework

Abstract

After offering a systems perspective that considers a diversity of job-related and personal factors, we discuss the determinants and impacts of health care work climates and how staff morale and performance can influence the treatment milieu and quality of patient care. We also describe the physical features, organizational structure and policies, and suprapersonal and task factors that help to shape health care work climates. We then review research on the connections between work climate and staff morale and performance, the interplay of work climate factors, and the role of personal factors in these relationships. Finally, we orovide some ideas about how to improve health care work settings and focus on some promising new research directions.     

气氛强度:理论基础及其研究框架

随着多层次理论的发展,气氛强度成为组织管理研究中受到关注的新概念。以多层次理论中的合成模型和文化强度为理论基础,研究者对气氛强度的前因变量及其作用开展了一系列的研究。本文在回顾气氛强度的理论基础和研究框架的基础上,提出未来研究首先应补充气氛强度前因变量的探索;并在不同行业和不同工作类型中去验证气氛强度的作用;最后应关注对气氛的概念界定,从而扩展对气氛强度的研究。     

High-performance work systems and occupational safety

Two studies were conducted investigating the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and occupational safety. In Study 1, data were obtained from company human resource and safety directors across 138 organizations. LISREL VIII results showed that an HPWS was positively related to occupational safety at the organizational level. Study 2 used data from 189 front-line employees in 2 organizations. Trust in management and perceived safety climate were found to mediate the relationship between an HPWS and safety performance measured in terms of personal-safety orientation (i.e., safety knowledge, safety motivation, safety compliance, and safety initiative) and safety incidents (i.e., injuries requiring first aid and near misses). These 2 studies provide confirmation of the important role organizational factors play in ensuring worker safety.     

When organizational climate is unambiguous, it is also strong

Several recent studies have addressed the topic of climate strength--the degree to which there is agreement among an organization's members regarding the practices and policies as well as the shared values that characterize the organization. To further investigate antecedents of climate strength, the authors used data from the GLOBE Project, totaling 3,783 individuals from 123 organizations. The authors hypothesized that they would find greater climate strength in organizations with climates reflecting mechanistic as opposed to organic organizational forms. Although the authors did in fact find such a trend, they also unexpectedly uncovered significant and strong nonlinear effects, such that climates that are clearly mechanistic or clearly organic have strong climates, with weaker climates emerging for organizations with more ambiguous climates. These findings provide interesting new avenues to pursue in understanding the origins of climate strength.     

Do sales and service compete? The impact of multiple psychological climates on frontline employee performance

This research examines how employees’ climate perceptions – or psychological climate – influence their performance of climate-related outcomes. We focus on two specific climates arguably most relevant to boundary-spanning organizations: service and sales climates. Building from the resource-allocation framework, the authors examine the way employees reconcile these multiple psychological climates. Polynomial regression and response surface modeling are used to test for the influence of these distinct climates on employee outcomes using a sample of 252 marketing employees and their 68 immediate supervisors. Specifically, the authors examine relationships between service and sales climates and the employee performance outcomes of customer satisfaction, helping behavior, effort, and sales performance. Results provide insight into the benefits and pitfalls of sales and service climates co-existing. Specifically we find that while sales effort is highest in climates that heavily favor sales, sales performance may exist in both sales-favored and service-favored climates (yet not in the presence of both). From a customer satisfaction perspective we find no significant impact of increasing sales climate in the presence of high service perceptions. These findings – both significant and non-significant – provide implications for future research in the realm of service-sales ambidexterity and interface as well as insight and direction for frontline managers.     

Positive organizational behavior and safety in the offshore oil industry: Exploring the determinants of positive safety climate

Much research has now documented the substantial influence of safety climate on a range of important outcomes in safety critical organizations, but there has been scant attention to the question of what factors might be responsible for positive or negative safety climate. The present paper draws from positive organizational behavior theory to test workplace and individual factors that may affect safety climate. Specifically, we explore the potential influence of authentic leadership style and psychological capital on safety climate and risk outcomes. Across two samples of offshore oil-workers and seafarers working on oil platform supply ships, structural equation modeling yielded results that support a model in which authentic leadership exerts a direct effect on safety climate, as well as an indirect effect via psychological capital. This study shows the importance of leadership qualities as well as psychological factors in shaping a positive work safety climate and lowering the risk of accidents.     

Multifaceted Personality Predictors of Workplace Safety Performance: More Than Conscientiousness

This article concerns individual differences in workplace safety behavior. We identify six performance dimensions related to overall safety performance, which in turn, leads to occupational accidents and injuries. We define these dimensions and develop personality-based safety scales to predict them by combining facets of Five-Factor Model scales. Next, we validate these safety scales by aggregating results from independent criterion-related studies and show that a composite safety scale is more predictive of overall safety performance than individual Five-Factor Model scales. Also, results show that safety scales predict accidents and injuries, but this relationship is mediated by safety performance. We consider implications of using individual differences to study links between personality, safety performance, and accidents and injuries in selection, training, and organizational safety culture.     

A multilevel model of safety climate: cross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates

Organizational climates have been investigated separately at organization and subunit levels. This article tests a multilevel model of safety climate, covering both levels of analysis. Results indicate that organization-level and group-level climates are globally aligned, and the effect of organization climate on safety behavior is fully mediated by group climate level. However, the data also revealed meaningful group-level variation in a single organization, attributable to supervisory discretion in implementing formal procedures associated with competing demands like safety versus productivity. Variables that limit supervisory discretion (i.e., organization climate strength and procedural formalization) reduce both between-groups climate variation and within-group variability (i.e., increased group climate strength), although effect sizes were smaller than those associated with cross-level climate relationships. Implications for climate theory are discussed.     

Preferred organizational climates of Type A individuals

In this study, the relationship of Type A behavior to organizational climate preferences was investigated. Respondents were 118 male and female students of administration who would soon be undertaking full-time employment. Each completed the Jenkins Activity Survey, a widely used paper-and-pencil measure of Type A behavior, and indicated their preferences for nine organizational climates. Type A behavior scores were related in consistent and meaningful ways to work climates characterized by high performance standards, spontaneity, ambiguity, and toughness. These results indicate that individuals are attracted to jobs and organizational climates which match their own stable behavioral and attitudinal propensities.     

基于管理者安全管理行动的高风险企业安全氛围改善

随着系统可靠性的提高,高风险企业超过三分之二的事故原因涉及人的因素。员工不安全行为是系统失效的触发因素,潜藏的社会情境因素(如安全氛围)是“常驻的病原体”,因此探索并改善影响安全行为的社会情境因素是有效提升组织安全的关键。在众多的情境因素中,安全氛围对安全绩效的积极影响已得到充分的文献支持,但对如何改善安全氛围的探索却有限。本项目围绕管理者对安全的承诺这一安全氛围的核心维度,基于信号理论提出直接安全管理行动是体现管理者安全承诺的重要途径,并在探索主管和经理关键安全管理行动对团队和组织安全氛围影响的基础上开展相应的干预研究。具体而言,在团队层面,探索改善主管关键安全管理行动对团队安全氛围提升的有效性;在组织和团队两个层面,探索改善经理的关键安全管理行动对同时提升组织和团队安全氛围的有效性。研究结果预期可以在安全管理实践中推广应用。     

A TALE OF TWO CLIMATES: DIVERSITY CLIMATE FROM SUBORDINATES' AND MANAGERS' PERSPECTIVES AND THEIR ROLE IN STORE UNIT SALES PERFORMANCE

Applying Zohar's (2000) multilevel model of organizational climate, this study assessed the main and interactive effects of subordinates' and managers' diversity climate perspectives on store sales performance. Across 654 store units of a large U.S. retail organization, we observed main effects of subordinate and managerial diversity climates on unit sales percentage change and a significant subordinate × manager diversity climate perspective interaction. The greatest sales growth was found in stores wherein subordinates and management perceived highly pro-diversity climates (positive consistency). In contrast, the lowest sales growth was evident for stores in which both subordinates and managers reported less hospitable diversity climates (negative consistency). Our findings underscore the positive financial ramifications of highly consistent perceptions that diversity is valued in a work context.     

Development and test of a model linking safety-specific transformational leadership and occupational safety

The authors developed, tested, and replicated a model in which safety-specific transformational leadership predicted occupational injuries in 2 separate studies. Data from 174 restaurant workers (M age = 26.75 years, range = 15-64) were analyzed using structural equation modeling (LISREL 8; K. G. J?reskog & D. S?rbom, 1993) and provided strong support for a model whereby safety-specific transformational leadership predicted occupational injuries through the effects of perceived safety climate, safety consciousness, and safety-related events. Study 2 replicated and extended this model with data from 164 young workers from diverse jobs (M age = 19.54 years, range = 14-24). Safety-specific transformational leadership and role overload were related to occupational injuries through the effects of perceived safety climate, safety consciousness, and safety-related events.     

Clash of the climates: Examining the paradoxical effects of climates for promotion and prevention

Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self-enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization-level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.     

A study of the lagged relationships among safety climate, safety motivation, safety behavior, and accidents at the individual and group levels

The authors measured perceptions of safety climate, motivation, and behavior at 2 time points and linked them to prior and subsequent levels of accidents over a 5-year period. A series of analyses examined the effects of top-down and bottom-up processes operating simultaneously over time. In terms of top-down effects, average levels of safety climate within groups at 1 point in time predicted subsequent changes in individual safety motivation. Individual safety motivation, in turn, was associated with subsequent changes in self-reported safety behavior. In terms of bottom-up effects, improvements in the average level of safety behavior within groups were associated with a subsequent reduction in accidents at the group level. The results contribute to an understanding of the factors influencing workplace safety and the levels and lags at which these effects operate.     

The Promotional Role of School and Community Contexts for Military Students

This article examines how supportive public school environments can serve as a promotional context for the development of children and adolescents from military families. The authors integrate theory and research from multiple research strands (e.g., human development, studies of at-risk youth, educational reform, goodness of fit theory, and school climate) to outline how public schools can support the development of all children and adolescents. This article provides further support for the supposition that school climates and the social-ecological contexts surrounding a school (e.g., universities, communities, school districts) have the potential to protect at-risk children and adolescents from an array of negative social, emotional, and psychological outcomes. The authors draw linkages between these research domains and the development of military children and adolescents. Promotional civilian school environments embedded within supportive and inclusive contexts can create a social infrastructure that supports the development of military children and adolescents. The authors argue that this conceptual approach can create a foundation for interventions and research that focuses on schools as normative supportive developmental settings for military children and youth during challenging times of war (e.g., deployments and multiple school transitions). This article concludes with a discussion of future directions in research on the development of military children and adolescents. Based on a heuristic conceptual model that outlines areas needing further research, the authors call for a deeper theoretical and empirical integration of school climate and external contextual factors surrounding the school. Investigating the social and organizational dynamics within these contexts can result in a more comprehensive picture of the development of military children and adolescents.