Documents safety factors 6 results

"We consider multiple safety measures in relation to the COVID-19 virus and look at their adoption levels for a variety of 15 individual countries, based on data from Yougov.co.uk. Subsequently, we establish correlation coefficients between measure-specific uptake levels and Hofstede dimension scores for all countries considered. We notably find that Power Distance Index (PDI) and Individualism (IDV) have a considerable explanatory power. In addition, we carried out a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis to see whether the behavioural patterns across countries can be grouped, and which Hofstede dimensions correlate strongest with the two main components that follow from the PCA. The PCA provides further confirmation of PDI and IDV being the most important explanatory factors for the uptake of measures across countries. The cluster analysis, in turn, reveals four broad groups, which only partly coincide with the way that the mental image clustering scheme by Wursten (2019) allots countries into its respective clusters. Hence, this provides a basis to suggest that data-driven exercises like the ones from our paper can serve to adjust Wursten's intuitive scheme."

"The Zero Accident Vision (ZAV) is a promising approach developed in industry, but not so much addressed by the safety science research community. In a discussion paper in Safety Science (2013) a call was made for more research in this area. Three years later is a good time to take status of developments in this field. A first set of empirical studies has been published, several authors see new perspectives with the vision, while misunderstandings still flourish with a focus on ‘zero incidents' as a ‘goal', rather than the ‘vision' that all occupational incidents are preventable. This has thus given rise to fundamental criticism of ZAV with some authors seeing ZAV as an unjustified and misleading pretention that is counter-productive for safety. In this paper an overview is given of the knowledge developments in this respect, as well as on the discourse on the controversial aspect of ZAV.There appears to be consensus that merely promoting traditional safety management or accident prevention will not lead to significant new improvements in safety. Six innovative perspectives associated with ZAV are identified and presented in this paper, which together offer a range of possibilities for both industry and for the safety science community to develop new practices and knowledge that may provide significant improvements in safety. The call for more empirical research into this challenging area is relevant for the advocates of ZAV as well as for its critics."

"In two studies we examine whether Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is related to perceptions of safety climate and job satisfaction among maritime workers from three Norwegian shipping companies. Results from Study 1 (N = 486) and Study 2 (N = 594) showed that PsyCap was positively associated with – and explained between 10% and 12% of the variance in perceptions of safety climate. PsyCap contributed to the variance in safety climate after adjusting for social desirable responding. An interaction analysis indicated that officers and non-officers perceived the safety climate as similar when their PsyCap is low, but that officers with high levels of PsyCap have a more positive perception of the safety climate than non-officers with high levels of PsyCap. In Study 2 a positive association was established between safety perceptions and job satisfaction, as well as between PsyCap and job satisfaction in a multicultural sample of maritime workers. Findings from analyses of indirect effects suggest that PsyCap has an indirect (mediating) relationship with perceptions of safety climate through job satisfaction. Altogether, PsyCap and job satisfaction explained 21% of the variance in safety climate. Cross-national differences were established in that the indirect effect was only valid for European workers, and not for Filipinos. An important implication of these findings is that safety focused interventions could benefit from taking PsyCap into account in training and motivating for safety."

"Recreating the information flow in decision processes after serious accidents enables researchers and policy makers to identify both the threshold points at which action begins to fail and gaps in information processes that could be corrected to reduce risk in future incidents. The Yarnell Hill Fire of 30 June 2013 occurred in a rapidly changing, high-risk environment of the Arizona highlands in which the interaction among the physical terrain, wind and vegetation conditions, technical support structures, and organizational decision processes led to the collapse of the firefighting strategy and the loss of nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew. Based on documentation from operational management manuals, accident reports, and agency records, simulation methods are used to retrace the information flow in this complex decision process and reveal fresh insights into the limitations of standard firefighting practices in rapidly escalating, dangerous, wildfire conditions."