Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Teses Dissertations and Teses 1-1-2011 Proactive Personality and Big Five Traits in Supervisors and Workgroup Members: Efects on Safety Climate and Safety Motivation Michael Anthony Buck Portland State University Let us know how access to this document benefts you. Follow this and additional works at: htp://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Recommended Citation Buck, Michael Anthony, "Proactive Personality and Big Five Traits in Supervisors and Workgroup Members: Efects on Safety Climate and Safety Motivation" (2011). Dissertations and Teses. Paper 268. 10.15760/etd.268 Tis Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Teses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact Proactive Personality and Big Five Traits in Supervisors and Workgroup Members: Effects on Safety Climate and Safety Motivation by Michael Anthony Buck A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Psychology Dissertation Committee: Donald M. Truxillo, Chair Leslie B. Hammer Talya N. Bauer Katherine E. McDonald Berrin Ergodan Portland State University ©2011 i ABSTRACT In 2009 there were 3.28 million non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Of these injuries and illnesses, 965,000 resulted in lost days from work. In addition there were 4,340 workplace fatalities. Given the number of occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities, and the associated direct and indirect costs, organizations have sought to improve safety at work. Safety climate and safety motivation are two variables hypothesized to affect safety behaviors and safety outcomes. Safety climate refers to the shared perceptions of workgroup members, of the organizations’ commitment to safety as evidenced by heir immediate supervisors’ pattern of implementing safety policies and procedures (Zohar, 2003). Therefore, the workgroup supervisor plays an major role in the development of safety climate. Social exchange theory and previous studies of leadership styles and safety suggest that supervisors who convey concern for subordinates’ well-being increase workers’ motivation to reciprocate by increasing their safe behaviors at work. However, no research to date has examined the relationship between supervisors’ personality and workers perceptions of safety climate, or the effect of Big Five trait-level variables on workers safety motivation. In this study I hypothesize that supervisors’ proactive personality and three Big Five traits will be positively related to workers’ safety climate perceptions. In addition, I hypothesize that four Big Five traits in workers will be positively related to workers safety motivation. Finally, I hypothesize that group- ii level safety climate will be significantly related to individual-level safety motivation after controlling for workers’ personality. Participants in this study were maintenance and construction workers from a municipal city bureau, in 28 workgroups, totaling 146 workers and 28 supervisors. Workgroup sizes vary but averaged 6.21 members, including the supervisor. The data were collected in small groups (paper-and-pencil) and electronically (on-line); workers and supervisors answered questionnaire items on personality variables, safety climate, safety motivation, safety behaviors, and safety outcomes. In addition, archival data on safety outcomes were collected. The data were analyzed using a combination of multiple regression, multi-level modeling, and path analysis to test hypotheses and answer research questions. Both proactive personality and Big Five traits in supervisors accounted for incremental variance in aggregated workgroup safety climate over controls. In addition, workgroup safety climate and individual workers’ cautiousness were significant predictors of workgroup safety motivation in a hierarchical linear model. At the individual level of the model, only the traits of cautiousness and morality were significant predictors of individual safety motivation. Tests of the Neal and Griffin (2004) model showed that safety motivation partially mediated the relationship between individual safety climate and safety participation behaviors. In addition, safety motivation fully mediated the relationships between morality and both safety compliance and safety participation behaviors. Finally, safety motivation partially iii mediated the relationship between cautiousness and both safety compliance and safety participation behaviors. The results suggest that supervisor personality can have an effect on the on workgroup safety climate perceptions. In addition, this study provided evidence that Big Five traits are useful predictors of the antecedents of accidents and injuries. Suggestions for training managers and future research are also discussed. iv Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................... i List of Tables .......................................................................................................... v List of Figures ....................................................................................................... vii Chapter I Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 Chapter II Safety Climate ........................................................................................................ 6 Chapter III Individual Differences and Safety ......................................................................... 38 Chapter IV Safety Outcomes .................................................................................................... 84 Chapter V Hypotheses ............................................................................................................ 98 Chapter VI Method ................................................................................................................. 106 Chapter VII Results ................................................................................................................. 118 Chapter VIII Discussion ............................................................................................................ 137 References ........................................................................................................... 181 Appendices A: Supervisor Survey ..................................................................................... 217 B: Worker Survey ........................................................................................... 222 v List of Tables Table 1: Safety Climate Studies by Country of Origin ....................................... 150 Table 2: Safety Climate Studies by Industrial Sector .......................................... 151 Table 3: Comparison of Internal Consistency and Validity between Trait and Factor Measures ..................................................................... 152 Table 4: NEO-PIR Trait Descriptors ................................................................... 153 Table 5: Safety Motivation Items from Griffin, Neal, and Colleagues ............... 155 Table 6: Study Measures ..................................................................................... 156 Table 7: Descriptive Statistics for Individual-Level Study Variables ................. 157 Table 8: Descriptive Statistics for Supervisor-Level Study Variables ................ 158 Table 9: Intercorrelations and Internal Consistencies for Workers (Level 1) ..... 159 Table 10: Intercorrelations and Internal Consistencies for Supervisors (Level 2) .......................................................................................... 161 Table 11: Predicting Workgroup Safety Climate with Proactive Personality and Organizational Safety Climate Perceptions: Hypothesis 1 ........ 163 Table 12: Predicting Workgroup Safety Climate with Altruism, Friendliness, and Cheerfulness: Hypothesis 2 ................................................................................ 164 Table 13: Predicting Workgroup Safety Climate with Agreeableness And Extraversion Traits: Research Question 1 ................................................... 165 Table 14: Predicting Safety Motivation with Four Big Five Traits: Hypotheses 3 and 4 .............................................................................................. 166 Table 15: Predicting Safety Motivation with Workgroup Safety Climate: Hypotheses 5 ....................................................................................................... 167 Table 16: Conscientiousness Traits Predicting Safety Motivation: Research Question 2 ............................................................................................ 168 vi Table 17: Agreeableness Traits Predicting Safety Motivation: Research Question 3 ............................................................................................ 169 Table 18: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness Factors Predicting Safety Motivation ............................................................................... 170 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Multilevel Model of Hypothesized Relationships ............................... 171 Figure 2: A Multilevel Safety Climate Model From Zohar (2003a) ................... 172 Figure 3: Neal and Griffin (2004) Framework for Conceptualizing Safety Climate and Safety Behavior .................................................................... 173 Figure 4: Path Model From Griffin and Neal (2000) Study 1 ............................. 174 Figure 5: Path Model From Griffin and Neal (2000) Study 2 ............................. 175 Figure 6: Path Model From Neal, Griffin, and Hart (2000) ................................ 176 Figure 7: Organizational Safety Climate as a Moderator .................................... 177 Figure 8: Basic Level 1 Path Model .................................................................... 178 Figure 9: Level 1 Mediation Model ..................................................................... 179 Figure 10: Study Model Showing Results of Hypothesis Tests .......................... 180 Introduction 1 Chapter I Introduction While occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities have long been a concern to organizations, they have become central organizational issues since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. In 2009 there were 3.28 million non- fatal occupational injuries and illnesses (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Of these injuries and illnesses, 965,000 resulted in lost days from work. The incidence rate for non-fatal injuries and illnesses was 3.6 per 100 workers, which is the lowest rate since 2003. Occupational illnesses were much less common than injuries accounting for slightly more than 5% of the 3.28 million non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses. In addition, there were 4,340 occupational fatalities in 2009, which represents a decrease from the 5,214 occupational fatalities in 2008. The Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety publishes the annual Workplace Safety Index which identifies the leading causes of the most disabling injuries in the United States, and estimates the direct costs of these injuries. In 2005, overexertion, falls, bodily reactions to slips and trips not involving falls, and being struck by an object accounted for nearly one-half of all disabling injuries (Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, 2008). The direct costs of these injuries was estimated at $48.3 billion. Indirect costs are difficult to calculate, but they are generally considered to be four times greater than the direct costs (Neville, 1998). If that ratio continues to hold, indirect costs of these disabling injuries would be approximately $193 billion in 2005. Liberty Mutual has also tracked changes in injury