Safety Climate and Safety Behaviour

TLDR

The paper reviews a research program on safety climate and safety behaviour, outlining its antecedents, consequences, and future integration into broader work‑effectiveness models. It presents a model linking safety climate, safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety behaviour, and discusses extensions that embed safety behaviour within wider work‑effectiveness frameworks. Empirical studies confirm the hypothesized linkages between safety climate and safety behaviour, and longitudinal analyses show that general organisational climate, supportive leadership, and conscientiousness affect the stability and change of these constructs.

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of a research program examining the antecedents and consequences of safety climate and safety behaviour. A model is presented identifying the linkages between safety climate, safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety behaviour. Findings from a series of studies are reviewed that support the hypothesized linkages between safety climate and safety behaviour. Longitudinal analyses have examined the role of additional factors, such as general organisational climate, supportive leadership and conscientiousness as sources of stability and change in safety climate and safety behaviour. Further developments of the model, aimed at integrating safety behaviour into broader models of work effectiveness, are also discussed.