Journal of Applied Psychology 1980, Vol. 65, No.

1, 96-102

Safety Climate in Industrial Organizations: Theoretical and Applied Implications

Dov Zohar TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel A 40-item measure of organizational climate for safety was constructed and validated in a stratified sample of 20 industrial organizations in Israel. This climate reflects employees' perceptions about the relative importance of safe conduct in their occupational behavior. It can vary from highly positive to a neutral level, and its average level reflects the safety climate in a given company. It was shown that there is an agreement among employees' perceptions regarding safety climate in their company and that the level of this climate is correlated with safety program effectiveness as judged by safety inspectors. The two dimensions of highest importance in determining the level of this climate were workers' perceptions of management attitudes about safety and their perceptions regarding the relevance of safety in general production processes. It is proposed that organizational climate, when operationalized and validated as demonstrated in this article, can serve as a useful tool in understanding occupational behavior.

In their review article, James and Jones The purpose of this article is to describe a particular type of organizational climate (1974) distinguished between measures of and to examine its implications. This climate organizational climate that are based on (a) is a climate for safety in industrial organiza- structural properties of organizations such tions. Writers of organizational climate dis- as size, structure, systems complexity, leadtinguish between holistic climate measures, ership style, and goal directions (e.g., Foresuch as House and Rizzo's (1972) scale, and hand & Gilmer, 1964; Porter & Lawler, 1965) specific climate measures. Examples for such and (b) perceptions held by employees about specific climates are Litwin and Stringer's aspects of their organizational environment, (1968) motivation climate, Schneider and summarized over individual employees (e.g., Bartlett's (1970) individual differences cli- Schneider, 1973; Sells, 1968; Tagiuri, 1968). mate, or Taylor's (1972) creativity climate. In the present article we adopted this second Obviously, then, any given organization interpretation of organizational climate. creates a number of different climates, and Namely, climate was viewed as a summary the term organizational climate has to be of molar perceptions that employees share supplemented by an appropriate adjective about their work environments. Following indicating which type of climate it is. To follow Schneider's (1975) proposal, the term Schneider (1975), it is assumed that these organizational climate should describe an perceptions have a psychological utility in area of research rather than a specific or- serving as a frame of reference for guiding ganizational measure. It is in this spirit that appropriate and adaptive task behaviors. the concept of safety climate was developed. Based on a variety of cues present in their work environment, employees develop coThis study was supported by a grant from the Com- herent sets of perceptions and expectations regarding behavior-outcome contingencies mittee for Preventive Action, Ministry of Labor, Israel. The author wishes to thank Ezey Dar-El for his con- and behave accordingly (Dieterly & Schneitinued encouragement through all phases of this work. der, 1974; Fleishman, 1953; Litwin & Requests for reprints should be sent to Dov Zohar, Faculty of Industrial and Management Engineering, Stringer, 1968). These coherent sets of orTechnion, Haifa, Israel. ganizational perceptions, when shared and
Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0021-9010/80/6501-00%$00.75

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summarized for individual employees, are defined here as organizational climates. Determining Safety Climate Dimensions To determine the various dimensions of safety climate, a review of safety literature was undertaken. The purpose of this review was to define organizational characteristics that differentiate between high versus low accident-rate companies. It was assumed that such organizational features characterize individual plants and the global perception of these by production workers, hence, form the safety climate of that factory. One of the most consistent findings in the reviewed literature was that in factories having successful safety programs, there was a strong management commitment to safety. This commitment was exhibited in a variety of ways. Cohen, Smith, and Cohen (1975), Mobley (Note 1), and Shafai-Sahrai (1971) have all found that in low-accident companies, top management was personally involved in safety activities on a routine basis, whereas such commitment was conspicuously absent in high-accident companies. Cleveland, Cohen, Smith, and Cohen (1978) and Shafai-Sahrai (1971) have reported that in low-accident companies safety matters were given high priority in company meetings and production scheduling, based on the conviction that safety is an integral part of production systems and accidents are actually symptoms of design faults in that system. Another expression of management commitment found to discriminate between companies was the rank and status of safety officers; in the better companies they had a higher status. This finding was reported by the Accident Prevention Advisory Unit in the United Kingdom (1976), Cohen et al. (1975), Davis and Stahl (1964), and Planek, Driessen, and Vilardo (1967). A second highly consistent organizational characteristic discriminating between companies was emphasis put on safety training. In better companies it was designed as an integral part of new workers' training (Cohen et al., 1975; National Safety Council, 1969; Mobley, Note 1) or as a follow-up and periodic retraining for workers and supervisors (Davis

& Stahl, 1964; Planek et al., 1967). A third characteristic was the existence of open communication links and frequent contacts between workers and management (Accident Prevention Advisory Unit in U.K., 1976; Cohen et al., 1975). Another expression of this free flow of information was found to be the carrying out of frequent safety inspections by appropriate personnel (Davis & Stahl, 1964; Planek et al., 1967). General environmental control and good housekeeping was the fourth characteristic appearing consistently. Orderly plant operations, controlled environmental conditions, and high usage of safety devices comprised this organizational characteristic in low-accident companies (Shafai-Sahrai, 1971; Smith, Cohen, Cohen, & Cleveland, 1975). A fifth characteristic was a stable work force with less turnover and older workers (Cleveland et al., 1978; Cohen et al., 1975; Davis & Stahl, 1964). Although not specifically studied, this factor probably reflected better industrial relations and elaborate personnel development practices in these factories. Finally, successful companies had distinctive ways of promoting safety. These included guidance and counseling, rather than enforcement and admonition. In addition, it included individual praise or recognition for safe performance and enlisting workers' families in safety promotions (Cleveland et al., 1978; Davis & Stahl, 1964; National Safety Council, 1969). When all these organizational characteristics are integrated, it is possible to form a coherent organizational pattern of a highly safe company: Management is actively involved in safety management and creates a general administrative control climate (Grimaldi, 1970) in which work is to be performed. This climate results in increased performance reliability of workers, good housekeeping, and high design and maintenance standards for work environments. There are well-developed personnel-selection training and development programs in which safe conduct is an integral part. Communication links between workers and management are kept open, enabling a flow of information regarding production as well as safety matters. Finally, general management philosophy is not strictly production oriented but also

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people oriented, as evidenced by various supportive policies described above. All the organizational characteristics described above were corroborated in a comprehensive review article published by Cohen (1977). (Although his article was published after the present study was completed, it was used in preparing this article.) Based on the reviewed literature, it was decided that the safety climate questionnaire would include the following dimensions: (a) perceived management attitudes towards safety, (b) perceived effects of safe conduct on promotion, (c) perceived effects of safe conduct on social status, (d) perceived organizational status of safety officer, (e) perceived importance and effectiveness of safety training, (f) perceived risk level at work place, and (g) perceived effectiveness of enforcement versus guidance in promoting safety. These dimensions, therefore, included those organizational characteristics found to discriminate between high versus low accident-rate companies. Based on the literature of organizational climate and the literature of organizational safety practices, two hypotheses were formulated: (a) Workers in different companies share common perceptions regarding safety in their organization. The sum of these perceptions is the safety climate in each organization, (b) Safety climate can vary from a less favorable to a more favorable one. Its level in each company is expected to be correlated with that company's safety record.

Method Questionnaire Development

Based on the industrial safety literature described above, seven organizational dimensions were included in the initial version of the safety climate questionnaire. Each of these climate dimensions was represented by seven items that were short statements with 5-point scales for evaluating subjects' agreement with them. All items were phrased positively so that full agreement resulted in a higher score in this dimension. This procedure resulted in a questionnaire of 49 items. The questionnaire was then given to a pilot sample of 120 production workers in four factories. Workers were interviewed by a team of three interviewers who read each item aloud and recorded subjects' agreement to it on the 5-point scale. These data were then factor analyzed using a principal-components factor analysis with varimax rotation. This procedure resulted in eight factors that largely overlapped the original ones, thus confirming the validity of the theoretical considerations for developing these questionnaire items. Nine items found to be unrelated to any specific factor were pulled out, resulting in a 40-item questionnaire. Items assigned to each factor had a loading greater than .49 on that factor. Table 1 lists these factors with their respective eigenvalues and the number of questionnaire items representing them. It should be noted that Factor 8 was retained, despite the fact that its eigenvalue was less than 1, which is the lowest recommended value for factor retention (Guttman, 1954). This was done because in a discriminant analysis that will be referred to below (Table 4), it proved to be of a high discriminant value.

Questionnaire Administration
Twenty factories were selected for questionnaire administration. Factory selection was done in a quasirandom manner. Using a national listing of large industrial organizations (i.e., those having more than 500 workers), 5 factories were randomly chosen from each of four production categories: metal fabrication, food processing, chemical industry, and textile industry. Out

Table 1 Principal-Components Factor Analysis of the Safety Climate Questionnaire

%of variance No. of questionnaire items 6 9 7 5 3 5 2 3

Factor Perceived importance of safety training programs Perceived management attitudes toward safety Perceived effects of safe conduct on promotion Perceived level of risk at work place Perceived effects of required work pace on safety Perceived status of safety officer Perceived effects of safe conduct on social status Perceived status of safety committee

Eigenvalue

9.84 4.63 2.53 2.34 1.66 1.17 1.07 .84

40.9 19.3 10.6 9.7 6.9 4.8 4.4 3.4

SAFETY CLIMATE of the 20 selected factories, 4 declined to cooperate and were, therefore, substituted by others selected in the same manner. All factories had a worker population of 500-1,000 workers and exhibited a wide range of technologies and safety records. Questionnaire administration was limited to production workers only, and in each plant a stratified random sample of 20 workers was selected. Sample stratification was based on the relative size of the various production departments in the factory, resulting in a random sample in which the various departments were proportionally represented. Workers were interviewed by one member of the threemember interviewing team. During the interview, questionnaire items were read aloud and interpreted if necessary. Workers' responses were then recorded on a 5-point scale for each item.

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Table 2 Multiple-Range Test of Factories Based on Respective Safety Climate Scores

Production categories
M

Group

score

n of plants
5 4 4 7

Chem Met Text

4 1 1 1

Food
1 I
4

1
2 3 4

186.6 153.3 141.1 120.8

2 1

1 1 2

Note. Chem = chemical, Met = metal, Text = textile.

Questionnaire Interpretation
To obtain safety climate scores, responses for each item in the questionnaire were given values from 1 to 5. The value 5 was given for high agreement with a statement, and a value of 1 was given for disagreement with a statement. Each questionnaire could thus be assigned a single score indicating the safety climate level for that individual worker. This score was the sum of values for all items in the questionnaire. The safety climate level for a given factory was determined by the average score of all 20 workers interviewed in that plant. This procedure of representing the climate by a single score was based on theoretical considerations whereby all climate dimensions described conditions and procedures affecting safety programs' effectiveness. Since these wer,e considered additive in nature, a high score would indicate more favorable conditions and procedures.

Results To test the hypothesis stating that workers' perceptions of their work place safety were relatively homogeneous, the variance of safety climate scores within factories was compared with the variance between factories using a one-way analysis of variance. The resulting F ratio was highly significant, F(19, 380) = 52.4, p < .001, hence supporting the notion of a definable safety climate in industrial organizations. Using a multiple-range test (Nie, Hull, Jenkins, Steinbrenner, & Bent, 1975, pp. 427-428), the 20 plants were divided into four groups based on differences between their respective group mean climate scores. Each group included all factory pairs having scores that differed by a range smaller than the shortest significant range for the .05 level of significance. Table 2 lists group means and respective production categories of

plants in each group. One evident characteristic of this table is that chemical plants have the highest safety climate scores, whereas food processing plants have the lowest scores. Metal processing and textile factories fall in between. These data could be expected based on the technologies and risk levels involved. Chemical plants have the highest risks in their production processes, followed by metal fabrication and textile factories. It is interesting, therefore, although expected based on our second hypothesis, that the resulting safety program practices were reflected in the safety climate levels of these companies. An attempt to test the second hypothesis directly by correlating safety climate scores with standard safety measures such as accident-frequency rate and accident-severity rate was terminated due to the apparent lack of reliability of these measures. This lack of reliability resulted from the fact that these measures were based on reports used for workers' compensation purposes. Because of different insurance policies and a system of penalties, some factories had highly inflated figures, whereas others had a bias in the opposite direction. As an alternative, therefore, four experienced safety inspectors working at Israel's Institute of Safety and Hygiene were asked to rank order the selected factories according to safety practices and accident-prevention programs. Ranking was done separately in each production category, since judges otherwise had great difficulty in comparing various factories. The textile factories and three others were not rank ordered because of judges' insufficient familiarity with their functioning.

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Table 3 Ranking of Factories Within Each Production Category

Metal Judge Rank
1 2 3 4 5 A a b c d e B a b c d e C a b c d e D a b c d e

Chemical Judge score

A f g h i B f g h i C f g h i D f g h :

Food Judge score

A j k 1 B J k 1 C 1 k J D j k 1

score

156.3 116.2 124.4 115.4 110.4

156.9 158.8 155.3 148.1

135.8 103.2 108.5

Note. When different factories share the same rank, the climate score is the one given to the modal factory in that rank. Factories are represented by lowercase letters.

Due to their geographical dispersion, it was pair of ranks. When fewer factories were impossible to get the inspectors to visit these ranked, there was a stronger effect of lowfactories, and they had to be omitted. Re- ering the resulting correlation coefficient. sults of this procedure are given in Table 3. This relatively high agreement between The agreement between judges' ranking judges' ranking and safety-climate scores and respective safety climate scores of fac- therefore supported the second hypothesis tories was tested using Spearman rank cor- and the validity of the safety climate quesrelation coefficients in each production tionnaire. Agreement among judges was category. These were rs = .90 (metal), rs also high, as can be seen in Table 3. In = .80 (chemical), and rs = .50 (food). These the metal category there was complete correlations are based on small ns ranging agreement between judges, whereas in the between three and five, hence they should chemical and food categories, disagreements be interpreted cautiously. Inspection of resulted from interchanges between single Table 3 indicates that all disagreements pairs of factories, resulting in high overall between judges' ranking and safety-climate agreement. ranks resulted from an interchange in a single Finally, a stepwise discriminant analysis was used to find the smallest number of climate dimensions that are sufficient to disTable 4 criminate between different factories based Stepwise Discriminant Analysis of the on their safety climate levels. Results of Safety Climate Questionnaire this analysis are given in Table 4. Based on Fto Wilks' lambda criterion (Nie et al., 1975), enter or Wilks' climate dimensions accounted for most of Climate dimension remove lambda the separation between factories. These dimensions, listed in decreasing discriminant Perceived importance of 141.12 .12 safety training power, are (a) perceived importance of safety Perceived effects of required training programs, (b) perceived effects of 81.44 .02 work pace on safety required work pace on safety, (c) perceived Perceived status of safety status of safety committee, and (d) perceived 58.92 .006 committee Perceived status of safety status of safety officer. 48.81 officer .002 The data in Table 4 can be interpreted Perceived effects of safe as indicating that two climate dimensions conduct on promotion 16.85 .0009 are most influential in determining safety Perceived level of risk at climate levels. The first dimension is the 7.96 .0006 work place Perceived management perceived relevance of safety to job behavior. 6.74 attitudes toward safety .0005 This relevance is reflected by regarding Perceived effect of safe safety training as an important prerequisite .0004 conduct on social status 1.88 for successful performance and by viewing

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higher work pace as potentially hazardous. The second climate dimension is the perceived management attitude toward safety, which can be readily exhibited in workers' eyes by the organizational status of both the safety officer and safety committee. The status of the safety committee can be assessed by the level of those managers who actively participate in it and by the actual implementation of its decisions, whereas the status of the safety officer can be assessed by executive authority relegated to him (e.g., authority to remove workers from production hall or to stop production processes when safety regulations are not followed). To summarize, then, the data in this study supported both hypotheses, namely: (a) Safety climate can be regarded as a characteristic of industrial organizations, and (b) safety climate is related to the general safety level in these organizations. Discussion Organizational safety climate, as defined in this article, has both theoretical and applied significance. The main implication is that management commitment to safety, with its multitude of expressions, is a major factor affecting the success of safety programs in industry. Such expressions might be the establishment of job-training programs, relegation of executive authority to safety officials, participation of high-level managers in safety committees, and taking safety into consideration in job design, including required work pace. Often, management views safety as a technical and independent aspect of the production process, detached from other management operations. Yet, not willing to ignore its responsibility in this regard (and complying with government regulations), management assigns all responsibility to specified safety personnel without relegating to them any executive power. The view proposed by this author as well as others (Cohen, 1977; Grimaldi, 1970) is quite to the contrary. Safety should be regarded as an integral part of the production system closely related to the overall degree of control management has over production processes (Grimaldi, 1970). Hence, it should not be detached from general management responsibilities such as environ-

mental control, maintenance and housekeeping, worker selection and training, information flow, and so forth. Indeed, accident analyses in most companies reveal these relationships and the literature reviewed points in this direction. The concept of safety climate implies that production workers indeed have a unified set of cognitions regarding the safety aspects of their organization. As proposed by Schneider (1975), such perceptions and behavior-outcome expectations can guide and direct job behaviors accordingly. Furthermore, these cognitions are largely related to perceptions of management attitudes about safety and its relevance to general production processes. It can therefore be concluded that a genuine change in management attitudes and increased commitment are prerequisites for any successful attempt at improving the safety level in industrial organizations. Attempting to improve safety levels, as we often see, with new safety regulations, poster campaigns, and departmental safety contests without first securing sincere management commitment might be missing the forest for the trees. This is the basic applied implication of the concept of safety climate in industrial organizations. Finally, the apparent difficulties the safety inspectors had in comparing factories from different production categories points toward the potential use of safety-climate scores as a common denominator for comparing different factories. A major source of difficulty has been the different technologies and risk levels involved in the various factories. Using a measure such as the one proposed here, which is independent of these factors, can therefore enable such comparisons when studying industrial safety programs. Reference Note
1. Mobley, W. H. Managerial evaluations of safety motivation and behavioral hypothesis (Contract Rep. CDC-74-1815). Cincinnati, Ohio: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1974.

References
Accident Prevention Advisory Unit. Success and failure in accident prevention. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976. Cleveland, R. J., Cohen, H. H., Smith, M. J., & Cohen, A. Safety program practices in recordholding plants.

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DOV ZOHAR Nie, N. H., Hull, C. H., Jenkins, J. G., Steinbrenner, K., & Bent, D. H. Statistical package for the social sciences (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. Planek, T., Driessen, G., & Vilardo, F. J. Evaluating the elements of an industrial safety program. National Safety News, August 1967, 60-63. Porter, L. W., & Lawler, E. E., III. Properties of organizational structure in relation to job attitudes and job behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 1965, 64, 23-51. Schneider, B. The perception of organizational climate: The customer's view. Journal of Applied Psychology , 1973,57,248-256. Schneider, B. Organizational climates: An essay. Personnel Psychology, 1975, 28, 447-479. Schneider, B., & Bartlett, C. J. Individual differences and organizational climate. II: Measurement of organizational climate by the multitrait-multirater matrix. Personnel Psychology, 1970, 23, 493-512. Sells, S. B. An approach to the nature of organizational climate. In R. Tagiuri & G. Litwin (Eds.), Organizational climate: Explorations of a concept. Boston: Division of Research, Harvard Business School Press, 1968. Shafai-Sahrai, Y. An inquiry into factors that might explain differences in occupational accident experience of similar size firms in the same industry (Tech. rep.). East Lansing, Mich.: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Michigan State University Press, 1971. Smith, M. J., Cohen, H. H., Cohen, A., & Cleveland, R. J. On-site observations of safety practices in plants with differential safety performance. National Safety Congress Transactions (Vol. 12). Chicago: National Safety Council, 1975. Tagiuri, R. The concepts of organizational climate. In R. Tagiuri & G. Litwin (Eds.), Organizational climate: Explorations of a concept. Boston: Division of Research, Harvard Business School Press, 1968. Taylor, C. W. (Ed.). Climate for creativity. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1972.

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Received January 8, 1979