Date of Award

12-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Legacy Department

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Committee Chair/Advisor

Britt, Thomas W.

Committee Member

Huang, Yueng-Hsiang

Committee Member

Moore, DeWayne

Committee Member

Sinclair, Robert

Abstract

The current study examined the role of co-worker support for safety within the broader context of perceived safety climate predicting safety behavior and outcomes for the mobile worker population of team truck drivers. Namely, the mediation, moderation, and incremental direct effects of co-worker support for safety were tested. The current study examined 366 team truck drivers from a single trucking company. Results indicated that co-worker support for safety did not moderate the relationship between safety climate perceptions and behavior and injury outcomes. However, co-worker support for safety did partially mediate the relationship between safety climate perceptions and safety behavior. Additionally, the model testing the 4-path mediation from organization-level safety climate perceptions ⇒ supervisor-level safety climate perceptions ⇒ co-worker support for safety ⇒ employee safety behavior ⇒ crash outcomes was significant. In a test of the incremental effects of co-worker support for safety, co-worker support was found to explain an additional 7% of the variance in safety behavior beyond the predictors of organization- and supervisor-level safety climate. Finally, tests of safety behavior and crashes between solo and team truck drivers were not significant. However, comparisons of the predicted outcomes at different levels of support did show differences between the two groups, although not always in the expected direction. Overall, the results show that co-worker support for safety is an important component in predicting employee safety outcomes. Future safety interventions may find usefulness in assessing and strengthening not only safety climate at the organization and supervisor level, but also the safety supportive behaviors of employees themselves.

Included in

Psychology Commons

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