Organizational support and safety outcomes: An un-investigated relationship?

1. Organizational support and safety outcomes: An un-investigated relationship? Kathryn Mearns & Tom Reader Industrial Psychology Research Centre University of Aberdeen

2. Background • Relationship between health investment and LTIs (Mearns, Whitaker & Flin, 2003) • Organizational investment in health results in positive employee behaviours (Mearns & Hope, 2005) • Current study investigates relationship between perceived organizational support (POS); supervisor/co-worker support for health & safety citizenship behaviour • POS reflects employees’ beliefs about an organization’s support, commitment and care towards them (Eisenberger, Huntingdon, Hutchison & Sowa,1986), particularly if that support is discretionary • SCB reflects [safety related] discretionary behaviours that go beyond those formally prescribed by the organization and for which there are no direct rewards (Organ, 1988, 1994)

3. Context • Offshore industry high-hazard/high-reliability • Strong focus on SMS and safety training • Safety management mandatory • Occupational health management mandatory • Little variance between organisations • Proactive promotion of personal health, e.g. healthy eating, exercise is discretionary • More variance between organisations • Meets requirement of organizational support

4. Measures • Perceived Organisational Support • 13 items from Eisenberger et al.,1986 & Ribisl & Reischl,1993), e.g. operating company’s commitment to the well-being of employees • Supervisor & Co-worker Support for Health • 14 items from Ribisl & Reischl (1993); 6 for supervisors and 8 for workmates, describing the role that colleagues play in improving and maintaining the respondent’s health e.g. sympathy afforded by supervisors for health problems & degree to which workmates share health information • Safety Citizenship Behaviours • 9 items describing safety behaviours e.g. monitoring safety behaviours of workmates, informing management about safety problems (Geller et al.,1996; Simard and Marchand,1995) All measured on 5 point Likert scale ranging from ‘1 Strongly disagree’ to ‘5 Strongly agree’ • Demographics • Operator/Contractor status, occupation, length of time on installation

5. Results • 703 questionnaires returned from 18 offshore installations (overall response rate 35%). • fixed production platforms, drilling rigs, well-service vessels and Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessels (FPSOs) • 84% of respondents identified themselves as members of core crew • 60% claimed they worked for contractor or sub-contractor companies • 19% worked on their installation for < 1 year; 45% between 1-5 years; 22% between 6-10 years; 14% more than 10 years. • Maintenance (23%), administration/management (15%), production (13%), construction (11%) and catering (10%) accounted for most occupations

6. Results 1 Table 1 Descriptive statistics (n=692) Cronbach’s Alphas show in bold across the diagonal All correlations significant at the .001 level (2-tailed)

7. Results 2 Table 2 Stepwise linear regression predicting safety behaviour ***p<.001, *p<.05

8. Conclusions • The results indicate that high levels perceived general support from the organisation and specific support from the supervisor in relation to health issues appear to have an impact on safety performance outcomes such as intervening to assist work colleagues and reporting dangers • Care and concern for the well-being of workers at the organizational and supervisor level leads to a reciprocal relationship in terms of increased safety behaviour showing that appropriate social exchanges within an organisation may lead to unanticipated benefits in terms of employee performance • Actually, this is not an un-investigated relationship! • Recent studies, e.g. Craig & Wallace, 2006; Gyekye & Saminen, 2005 have also been addressing similar issues