How Safety Climate Impacts Safety Voice-Investigating the Mediating Role of Psychological Safety from a Social Cognitive Perspective

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 20;19(19):11867. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191911867.

Abstract

Safety voice has become a popular research topic in the organizational safety field because it helps to prevent accidents. A good safety climate and psychological safety can motivate employees to actively express their ideas about safety, but the specific mechanisms of safety climate and psychological safety, on safety voice, are not yet clear. Based on the "environment-subject cognition-behavior" triadic interaction model of social cognitive theory, this paper explores the relationship between safety climate and safety voice, and the mediating role of psychological safety. We collected questionnaires and conducted data analysis of the valid questionnaires using analytical methods such as hierarchical regression, stepwise regression, and the bootstrap sampling method. We found that safety climate significantly and positively influenced safety voice, and psychological safety played a mediating role between safety climate and safety voice, which strengthened the positive relationship between them. From the research results, it was clear that to stimulate employees to express safety voice behavior, organizations should strive to create a good safety climate and pay attention to building employees' psychological safety. The findings of this paper provide useful insights for the management of employee safety voice behavior in enterprises.

Keywords: mediating role; psychological safety; safety climate; safety voice; “environment-subject cognition-behavior” triadic interaction model.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cognition
  • Humans
  • Organizational Culture*
  • Organizations
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Voice*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (2-9-2019-073).