Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758

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Accident Analysis and Prevention

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Safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations: Antecedents and

consequences of safety behaviour
Beatriz Fernández-Muñiz ∗ , José Manuel Montes-Peón 1 , Camilo José Vázquez-Ordás 2
University of Oviedo, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Departamento de Administración de Empresas, Avda. del Cristo, s/n, 33071 Oviedo, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The occupational health and safety standard OHSAS 18001 has gained considerable acceptance world-
Received 29 March 2011 wide, and firms from diverse sectors and of varying sizes have implemented it. Despite this, very few
Received in revised form 8 September 2011 studies have analysed safety management or the safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations.
Accepted 14 October 2011
The current work aims to analyse the safety climate in these organisations, identify its dimensions, and
propose and test a structural equation model that will help determine the antecedents and consequences
Keywords:
of employees’ safety behaviour. For this purpose, the authors carry out an empirical study using a sam-
OHSAS 18001
ple of 131 OHSAS 18001-certified organisations located in Spain. The results show that management’s
Safety climate
Safety behaviour
commitment, and particularly communication, have an effect on safety behaviour and on safety perfor-
Structural equation modelling mance, employee satisfaction, and firm competitiveness. These findings are particularly important for
Communication management since they provide evidence about the factors that should be encouraged to reduce risks
and improve performance in this type of organisation.
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years the certification of management systems
has become fundamental to achieving competitiveness for firms
(Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2011), because firms’ long-term success
depends on their ability to improve their operations, re-organise
themselves, and meet the challenges that the rapidly changing
environment throws at them. This is why in the past few decades
a large number of standards have been designed to facilitate the
international exchange of goods and services and develop coop-
eration in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and
economic activity.
After the success of the standards for quality management
(ISO 9001) and environmental management (ISO 14001), and in
response to the demand for an occupational health and safety
management model that firms can easily integrate with these two
standards and that offers them the possibility of evaluating and
certifying their management system in this area (Vinodkumar and
Bhasi, 2011), the OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Assess-
ment Series) 18001 standard was created in 1998 when a group
of certifying bodies from 15 countries on 3 continents met to
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 985103704; fax: +34 985103708.
E-mail addresses: beatrizf@uniovi.es (B. Fernández-Muñiz),
jmmontes@uniovi.es (J.M. Montes-Peón), cvordas@uniovi.es (C.J. Vázquez-Ordás).
1
Tel.: +34 985104975; fax: +34 985103708.
2
Tel.: +34 9853704; fax: +34 985103708.
create the first global standard for certifying occupational health
and safety systems. The British Standards Institution officially pub-
lished OHSAS 18001 and it came into effect on 15 April 1999.
Since its publication OHSAS 18001 has gained considerable
acceptance worldwide and firms from diverse sectors and of vary-
ing sizes have implemented it. The demand has been such that
the standard has recently been revised, and its latest incarnation is
OHSAS 18001: 2007 “Occupational Health and Safety Management
Systems” (OHSAS Project Group, 2007).
The fundamental objective of this standard is to support and pro-
mote good practice in the area of occupational health and safety via
a systematic and structured management. But certification also has
implications for strategy and competitiveness because it enables
the organisation to guarantee to interested parties that it has an
adequate occupational health and safety management system. The
OHSAS specification is applicable to any organisation that wishes
to: (a) establish an occupational health and safety management
system to eliminate or minimise risk to employees and other inter-
ested parties who may be exposed to occupational health and safety
risks associated with its activities; (b) implement, maintain and
continually improve an occupational health and safety manage-
ment system; (c) assure itself that the system complies with its
stated occupational health and safety policy; and (d) demonstrate
compliance with this standard to others. In short, all organisations
that wish to implement a formal procedure to reduce the health
and safety risks to employees, customers and the general public in
their premises can adopt the OHSAS 18001 standard (Vinodkumar
and Bhasi, 2011).

0001-4575/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aap.2011.10.002
746 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
OHSAS 18001 offers numerous benefits to firms, since the stan-
dard facilitates the management of occupational health and safety
in firms operating in different geographic areas and the integration
of this management with systems for quality (ISO 9001) and the
environment (ISO 14001) already certified or implemented. OHSAS
18001 also reduces the potential for accidents and interruptions in
the production process, and improves the firm’s compliance with
legal obligations, its internal climate and image, and its overall per-
formance (Chang and Liang, 2009; Sánchez-Toledo et al., 2009). In
short, this standard can be seen as a strategic tool that firms can use
to improve their competitiveness and achieve a favourable position
in today’s global market.
Nevertheless, the OHSAS 18001 standard alone is not sufficient
for the firm to achieve all these benefits. Implementing OHSAS
18001 is only the first step towards the systematic and success-
ful management of safety work; it is not a cure for safety problems
(Ma et al., 2001). Firms must have a favourable safety climate –
i.e., a strong management commitment with the support of their
workforce – to be able to use this tool to efficiently manage their
production processes and strive to achieve the objective of all the
parties involved of zero accidents.
Despite the acceptance and importance of the standard world-
wide, the literature studying safety management variables and
safety climate in organisations with OHSAS 18001 certification is
minimal (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2011). Safety climate is a fre-
quently analysed concept in the occupational safety literature. A
number of studies find that a positive safety climate influences
safety behaviour and consequently reduces the number of acci-
dents and incidents (Clarke, 2006; Gittleman et al., 2010; Havold
and Nesset, 2009; Huang et al., 2006; Lu and Tsai, 2010; Silva et al.,
2004). But no-one has tested this relation in OHSAS 18001-certified
organisations, so what contributes to accidents or injuries in these
organisations remains unclear.
OHSAS 18001-certified organisations have a number of idiosyn-
crasies because they have gone through an external audit to
certify that they comply with the requisites of the OHSAS 18001
standard. Thus organisations with this certification have an ade-
quate safety management system in place to control occupational
risk (Chang and Liang, 2009) and have higher levels of manage-
ment commitment, safety training, worker involvement in safety,
safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures,
safety promotion policies and safety behaviour than non-certified
organisations (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2011). Consequently, these
organisations have a superior management of safety than non-
certified organisations and some of the relations found previously
in the literature between dimensions of safety climate, safety
behaviour and safety performance in non-certified organisations
may not be replicated in certified organisations.
Thus the study of the safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified
organisations is extremely interesting because it should shed light
on the practices that these organisations should encourage to
improve their safety, reduce their accident rates and move closer
to the objective of zero accidents.
In this context, the general objective of the current work is to
analyse the safety climate in OHSAS 18001-certified firms and its
relation with three measures of performance: safety performance,
employee satisfaction, and firm competitiveness. This objective
breaks down into the following subgoals: (a) identify the con-
stituent dimensions of safety climate in organisations; (b) analyse
the relations between these dimensions in OHSAS 18001-certified
organisations; and (c) analyse the effect of safety climate on
safety performance, employee satisfaction and firm competitive-
ness.
For this purpose, the authors first review the literature on safety
climate and then propose and test a model of causal relations using
a sample of 131 OHSAS 18001-certified firms.
2. Safety climate
The concept of safety climate was introduced by Zohar (1980)
to underline the importance of social and organisational processes
in the generation of accidents. Zohar defines safety climate as “a
summary of the beliefs and perceptions of the employees about
safety in the workplace” that can influence their behaviour. Later,
Dedobbeleer and Beland (1991) define safety climate as “molar
perceptions people have of their work settings particularly with
respect to the interest and actions of management in the field of
safety and on their own participation in preventing risk in the work-
place.” Hofmann and Stetzer (1996) agree, defining the climate
as perceptions about the management’s commitment to safety
and the workers’ involvement in safety-related activities. Many
authors consider the safety climate to be related to workers’ atti-
tudes, perceptions and beliefs about the importance of safety in
their workplaces (Cooper and Philips, 1994; Coyle et al., 1995;
Williamson et al., 1997). Niskanen (1994), in turn, stresses the
antecedents of safety climate when he defines it as a set of attributes
about work in organisations that can be perceived and that can be
induced by the policies and practices that organisations impose on
their workers and supervisors.
Safety climate is regarded as an important antecedent of safety
in the workplace (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2009), since it refers to
all the attitudes and perceptions that the employees have about the
values, beliefs, norms, practices, procedures and initiatives in the
area of safety (Silva et al., 2004; Yule et al., 2001). These attitudes
and perceptions are valid as references to guide behaviour in the
execution of their daily tasks (Isla and Díaz, 1997; Meliá and Sesé,
1999), and can reduce or eliminate danger (Glennon, 1982).
In the past two decades a large number of empirical studies
on safety climate have aimed to identify its dimensions and its
relation with safety performance (Coyle et al., 1995; Dedobbeleer
and Beland, 1991; Gittleman et al., 2010; Mearns et al., 2003; Silva
et al., 2004; Zohar, 1980). Many authors have stressed the impor-
tance of safety climate, but they have not reached a consensus
about the constituent factors of the concept or about which fac-
tor has the most effect on the accident rate (Flin et al., 2000; Lin
et al., 2008; Mearns et al., 2003). Both the theory and the research
have advanced, but a comprehensive theory and a unanimously
preferred measurement approach are still lacking (Guldenmund,
2000; Wu et al., 2007). The most common way of evaluating atti-
tudes and perceptions in various sectors is via self-administered
questionnaires (e.g., Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991; Lu and Tsai,
2010; Lu and Yang, 2011; Wu et al., 2007).
Zohar (1980) was the first to propose an instrument to mea-
sure safety climate. This scale consists of 40 items, and according
to it, safety climate has eight dimensions: importance of safety
training, management attitudes towards safety, effects of safe con-
duct on promotion, level of risk at workplace, effects of work
pace on safety, status of safety officer, effects of safe conduct on
social status, and status of safety committee. Subsequent studies
– fundamentally exploratory analyses – aim to identify the criti-
cal dimensions of safety climate (e.g., Brown and Holmes, 1986;
Cabrera et al., 1997; Cooper and Philips, 1994; Coyle et al., 1995;
Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991; Glennon, 1982; Isla and Díaz, 1997;
Mearns et al., 2003; Meliá and Sesé, 1999; Niskanen, 1994; Varonen
and Mattila, 2000; Williamson et al., 1997). Authors have reviewed
these studies to seek similarities between them (Flin et al., 2000;
Guldenmund, 2000). But the large number of inconsistencies and
the often idiosyncratic naming of the indicators make it difficult
to reconcile the various indicators of safety climate identified in
previous work (Wiegmann et al., 2002). Dedobbeleer and Beland
(1998) find that only two factors coincide in all the studies: man-
agement commitment and workers’ involvement. Flin et al. (2000)
conclude that the most commonly measured dimensions relate
 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
to management, safety systems, and risk, followed by work pres-
sure and competence. Guldenmund (2000) finds that the most
frequent dimensions are related to the management, risk, safety
arrangements, procedures, training and work pressure (Flin et al.,
2000). Wiegmann et al. (2002) identify five global components or
indicators of safety climate: organisational commitment, manage-
ment involvement, employee empowerment, reward systems, and
reporting systems.
In the present study the authors focus on five aspects of safety
climate. They chose these dimensions empirically on the basis of
both the importance attributed to them by researchers, as discussed
above, and their relevance to the Spanish context. The dimen-
sions are: (a) management’s commitment; (b) safety behaviour and
employee involvement; (c) incentives and rewards systems; (d)
communication and information systems; and (e) work pressure.
3. Proposed conceptual model: hypotheses
Although no consensus exists about the dimensions that make
up safety climate, the conceptual models in previous studies are
quite similar. The current authors start from past research on safety
climate in non-certified organisations to propose a set of hypothe-
ses and build a model of causal relations. They test this model to
assess to what extent the findings obtained in non-certified organi-
sations can be generalised to OHSAS 18001-certified organisations.
Authors regard the elements of safety climate as predictors of
unsafe behaviours or accidents in a large number of structural mod-
els (Brown et al., 2000; Cheyne et al., 1999; Lu and Tsai, 2010;
Thompson et al., 1998; Tomas et al., 1999), and a consensus is
developing that a favourable climate is essential for workers to
do their jobs safely (Clarke, 2006; Mearns et al., 2003). Less clear
are the antecedents that help generate this favourable climate – a
fundamental question in view of the implications for intervention
strategies.
A large number of studies stress management’s commitment to
safety as an essential element of the firm’s safety climate and as
an extremely important factor in achieving a good safety perfor-
mance (Cheyne et al., 1998; Cohen, 1977; Dedobbeleer and Beland,
1991, 1998; Donald and Canter, 1994; Fleming et al., 1996; Flin
et al., 2000; Gordon et al., 1996; Hale et al., 1997; Niskanen, 1994;
O’Dea and Flin, 2001; Ostrom et al., 1993; Pidgeon, 1991; Simonds
and Shafari-Sahrai, 1977; Smith et al., 1978; Yule et al., 2001; Zohar,
1980, 2000). This commitment is reflected in managers’ knowledge
of the existing problems, their conviction that the firm can achieve
high levels of safety (Cohen, 1977; Simonds and Shafari-Sahrai,
1977; Smith et al., 1978), their ability to demonstrate a lasting pos-
itive attitude towards safety, and their ability to promote safety
actively at all levels in the organisation.
Managers’ attitudes affect their decisions, which affect the firm’s
safety priorities and policies, and these, in turn, affect employ-
ees’ working conditions. These attitudes and decisions can also –
directly or indirectly – affect workers’ attitudes and consequently
their behaviours (Rundmo and Hale, 2003). Nevertheless, Kletz
(1985) considers that the right words in a formal declaration
of principles are not enough to change workers’ behaviours and
reduce accident rates; visible acts are required from the manage-
ment. An organisation that is committed to safety must dedicate
maximum efforts to ensuring that every aspect of its operations
is routinely evaluated and adjusted if necessary to improve safety.
The development and implementation of safety activities require
that the organisation provide appropriate resources and enough
support (Eiff, 1999).
Managers should demonstrate their commitment through their
behaviours and the firm’s management practices so that the work-
ers can perceive it (Griffin and Neal, 2000; Hofmann et al., 1995).
747
It is through their participation in daily safety-related operations –
rewarding or punishing workers’ behaviours, transmitting infor-
mation, or giving priority to safety over productivity – that the
managers communicate an attitude of concern for safety to their
employees, and this attitude will subsequently affect the extent
to which the employees comply with operational rules and safety
practices (Eiff, 1999; Flin et al., 2000; Rundmo and Hale, 2003). Con-
ceivably then, the greater the managers’ commitment to safety, the
more workers are encouraged to carry out safe practices, the less
work pressure is evident, and the greater the flow of communica-
tion.
Hypothesis H1a. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, the
management’s commitment to safety has a direct, positive effect
on incentives for safety behaviour.
Hypothesis H1b. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, the
management’s commitment to safety has a direct, negative effect
on work pressure.
Hypothesis H1c. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, the
management’s commitment to safety has a direct, positive effect
on communication and the transmission of information.
The aim of incentives, rewards and recognition is to modify the
ideas and values and the practices carried out in order to achieve
safety behaviour (Eiff, 1999; Glennon, 1982; Lee, 1998; Reason,
1990; Vredenburgh, 2002; Wiegmann et al., 2002; Zohar, 1980).
Incentives, via a properly designed safety program, reinforce infor-
mation about risks, and hence can reduce the number of unsafe
acts that lead to injuries and motivate employees to participate
actively in the decision-making processes. Incentives should aim
to prevent accidents and not punish wrong-doers after accidents
happen (Peavey, 1995). A critical characteristic of incentives sys-
tems is that they must be highly visible within the organisation
(Vredenburgh, 2002). Participants must understand that the incen-
tives programme is designed to be carried out. Thus they must
understand how management will measure and assess their actions
and behaviours (Halloran, 1996). At the same time, a strong organ-
isational support is necessary so that workers perceive that the
organisation values their contribution to safety (Haines et al., 2001).
Regular communication about safety issues between managers,
supervisors and employees is an effective practice for improving
safety in the workplace (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2010). Indeed,
various authors argue that the level of communication in the
organisation affects the workers’ behaviour (Cohen, 1977; Cox and
Cheyne, 2000; Mearns et al., 2003; Vredenburgh, 2002).
Work pressure, which includes excessive workload, mandatory
work pace and time pressures, is a constituent factor of safety cli-
mate for some authors (Diaz and Cabrera, 1997; Niskanen, 1994;
Zohar, 1980), and a determinant of workers’ safety behaviour in a
large number of studies (Brown et al., 2000; Hofmann and Stetzer,
1996; Seo, 2005). Work pressure probably leads to increased psy-
chological stress among workers (Karasek and Theorell, 1990),
which may, in turn, increase the probability of engaging in unsafe
behaviours or errors. Thus perceived work pressure mediates the
effect of perceived safety climate on unsafe work behaviour (Brown
et al., 2000).
Employees’ safety behaviour is fundamental for the firm’s tech-
nical system to work properly. It is important to understand that
appropriate behaviours include not only workers complying with
the firm’s procedures or rules, but also when workers clearly under-
stand their critical role in the promotion of safety, in other words,
when they participate actively and are involved in the drawing
up of instructions and rules for the job, after management has
given them the authority. Workers will be more committed to
occupational health and safety if they are actively involved in
the decision-making and problem resolution (Vecchio-Sadus and
748 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
Griffiths, 2003), have an important voice in the safety decisions,
have the power to initiate and achieve safety improvements, con-
sider themselves to be responsible for their own actions, and are
concerned about their organisation’s safety performance. Thus,
according to Neal et al. (2000), it is possible to differentiate between
two types of employees’ safety behaviour: safety compliance
and safety participation. Safety compliance refers to employees’
behaviour that increases their personal health and safety, while
safety participation refers to the behaviour that increases the health
and safety of co-workers and supports their organisation’s objec-
tives and goals (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2010).
Thus incentives, communication and work pressure will affect
employees’ safety behaviour. The following hypotheses reflect
these relations, as well as the indirect effect of management’s com-
mitment on employees’ safety behaviour:
Hypothesis H2. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, incen-
tives and rewards have a direct, positive effect on employees’ safety
behaviour.
Hypothesis H3. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, work
pressure has a direct, negative effect on employees’ safety
behaviour.
Hypothesis H4. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, commu-
nication has a direct, positive effect on employees’ safety behaviour.
Previous research shows that employee involvement and safety
behaviour correlate with accident rates at statistically significant
levels (Brown et al., 2000; Donald and Young, 1996; Eiff, 1999).
When employees have attitudes and behaviours that are proactive
towards safety, apply preventive measures correctly and partici-
pate actively in safety decision-making and activity, the result is a
better risk management and a reduction in injuries, illnesses and
material damage. In fact, the more conscious workers are of the
importance of safety for avoiding injuries and the more they par-
ticipate actively in drawing up work instructions and proposing
preventive measures, the more likely they will be to adopt them and
consequently the safer their behaviours will be. The result will be a
reduction in the number and seriousness of injuries and incidents
that cause significant material damage.
Similarly, delegating power to the workers and allowing them
to participate actively in improving their working conditions make
workers more ready to accept ownership of and responsibility for
safety (Williamson et al., 1997), which, in turn, raises the workers’
safety motivation and satisfaction (Simard and Marchand, 1997).
On the other hand, the employees are the best placed to make
suggestions about how to improve their own working environment
(Vredenburgh, 2002), and safety measures implemented with the
cooperation of the workers that must adopt them are more likely
to be effective and meet the specific needs of the post. Thus com-
pliance with the safety rules, the contribution of suggestions for
improvement and the delegation of power to the worker allow
employees to do their work better (Cohen and Cleveland, 1983),
and to reduce errors, defects and interruptions to the production
process, which generates higher worker productivity and a higher
quality of the products and services offered to the customer. The
result is an improvement in customer satisfaction, and in the firm’s
image, reputation, and ultimately, competitiveness (Fernández-
Muñiz et al., 2009).
Hypothesis H5a. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations,
employees’ safety behaviour has a direct, positive effect on safety
performance.
Hypothesis H5b. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations,
employees’ safety behaviour has a direct, positive effect on
employee satisfaction.
Hypothesis H5c. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations,
employees’ safety behaviour has a direct, positive effect on firm
competitiveness.
Finally, workplace accidents lead to a deterioration in the inter-
nal relations in the organisation, increase conflict and diminish
workers’ morale, motivation, and identification with the owners
and managers, which can lead them to quit the firm (Fernández-
Muñiz et al., 2009). Moreover, the world of work increasingly
involves the production of knowledge and services rather than
goods (Baker and Green, 1991). Knowledge is becoming a criti-
cal factor in organisations. These changes make it clear that health
and safety in the workplace is advantageous not only for employ-
ees but also for entrepreneurs, because it is clearly beneficial to
keep workers healthy and productive – workers who are difficult
to replace because they possess specific knowledge or skills. In
fact the loss of human resources when workers are taken away
from the productive process because of accidents in the workplace,
whether temporarily or definitively, represents an important cost
to the firm. Part of their knowledge and experience cannot be sub-
stituted because it is tied to individuals’ particular characteristics
and potential (Bestratén et al., 2003).
In addition, occupational accidents cause interruptions in the
production process, which generate financial and opportunity costs
(Andreoni, 1986; Brody et al., 1990; Grimaldi and Simonds, 1989;
Heinrich, 1959), and reduce the quantity and quality of the produc-
tion, with a consequent decline in the firm’s productivity (Hunter,
1999). Accidents can also adversely affect the firm’s image and
reputation (Smallman and John, 2001), provoking a severe deteri-
oration in its public relations. This has occasionally led consumers
to boycott certain brands or firms accused of anti-social behaviour
(Fernández-Muñiz et al., 2009). Serious accidents are a source of
adverse publicity that can have negative commercial consequences,
which some authors label “social sanctions” (Gunningham, 1999).
Improving the firm’s safety performance can therefore improve
both worker satisfaction and firm competitiveness. Higher worker
satisfaction with the organisation can, in turn, improve workers’
commitment and loyalty to the firm and hence increase productiv-
ity and competitiveness. The final set of hypotheses of this work is
as follows:
Hypothesis 6a. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, safety
performance has a direct, positive effect on employee satisfaction.
Hypothesis 6b. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, safety
performance has a direct, positive effect on firm competitiveness.
Hypothesis 7. In OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, employee
satisfaction has a direct, positive effect on firm competitiveness.
Fig. 1 shows the conceptual model of this research, with a
schematic representation of the proposed relations between man-
agement’s commitment, safety behaviour, and performance.
4. Methodology
4.1. Sampling technique
In order to achieve the proposed objectives and test the above
hypotheses, the authors carried out an empirical study using a
target population of all organisations located in Spain, whether
Spanish or non-Spanish, that possessed the OHSAS 18001 health
and safety certificate on 1 May 2008. To determine the size of
the population the authors accessed the websites of the main
certifying bodies. They identified 606 OHSAS 18001-certified
 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758 749

Safety
performance

Incentives
H5a
H1a H2 H6a

H5b
H1b H3 Safety Employee H6b
Management’s Work behaviour satisfaction
commitment pressure

H4 H7

H1c H5c

Communication Firm
competitiveness

Fig. 1. Conceptual model.

firms.3 Subsequently, in May and June 2008 the authors phoned
each of these firms. The authors identified themselves, briefly
explained the purpose of the call, and asked to speak to the firm’s
safety officer.
The authors chose the safety officer because this member of the
organisation has the most information about the specific practices
and procedures being carried out in the firm and has access to docu-
mentation concerning any harm done to workers’ health. Moreover,
the safety officer occupies an intermediate position between the
management and the workers, and since the aim was to mea-
sure information from both parties the authors considered that the
information coming from this informant would be less biased and
more accurate.
the certified firms from the sample. Table 1 shows the distribution
of the firms in function of firm size, sector of activity, ownership
and nationality of capital, target markets, possession of ISO 9001
quality certificate and ISO 14001 environmental certificate, and the
time organisations took to obtain their OHSAS 18001 occupational
health and safety certificate.
Medium-sized firms are predominant in the sample, since 52%
of them have between 50 and 249 workers, while 29% have less than
50 workers. Consequently, the great majority (81%) of the sample
firms are SMEs.
Table 1
Profile of sample firms (N = 131).

After reaching the safety officer the authors explained the reason Characteristics Frequency %
for the call and the objectives of the research, stressed the bene-
Size (no. employees)
fits of the study for the firm to encourage interest, and requested <50 38 29.3
that they collaborate by filling out a questionnaire, which would be 50–249 68 51.6
sent to them in the most convenient way for them: fax, or post. To >249 25 19.1
Sector of activity
incentivise response the authors guaranteed the confidentiality of
Agriculture & Mining 4 3.1
all the information provided and of the names of the participating Industry 50 38.2
firms, and offered to send the firms a report with the conclusions Construction 48 36.6
of the research at the end. Services 29 22.1
Through this process the authors identified 307 firms willing to Ownership of capital
Private 121 92.5
participate in the study. The authors then sent the questionnaires
Public 7 5.4
along with a presentation letter, which reiterated the objectives of Mixed 3 2.1
the study and reminded respondents of the importance of com- Nationality of capital
pleting and returning the questionnaire so the researchers could Spanish 102 78.1
Non-Spanish 18 13.5
complete their research.
Mixed 11 8.3
But not all the firms that had initially committed to partici- Target markets
pate in the study returned the questionnaire. Of the 307 firms that Local market (in Spain) 30 23.3
had initially agreed to participate, 131 completed and returned the Spanish market 55 41.9
questionnaire satisfactorily. The response rate considering only the International market 46 34.9
Quality certificate
questionnaires sent was 42%. Throughout the data collection pro-
Yes 127 96.9
cess the authors had the benefit of invaluable collaboration from No 4 3.1
AENOR (Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification), Environmental certificate
which helped them access a large number of firms. Yes 119 90.8
No 12 9.2
The authors included classification questions in the question-
Time taken to obtain OHSAS certificate
naire to identify the most important characteristics or profile of 6 months 34 25.8
12 months 75 57.3
18 months 11 8.1
3 24 months 7 5.6
The actual number of certified firms is much higher, since not all certifiers report
>24 months 4 3.2
the firms they certify.
 750
Table 2
Measurement scales of study variables.

Sources

Management’s commitment
Commit1 The managers do everything possible to avoid accidents Carder and Ragan (2003), Cox and
Commit2 The managers are aware of the main safety problems in the firm Cheyne (2000), Donald and Canter
Commit3 The employees are treated fairly when they report a work-related injury (1994), Grote and Künzler (2000),
Commit4 The employees believe that management values safe behaviour Mearns et al. (2003), Rundmo and
Commit5 The firm stops work if safety problems arise despite the economic costs Hale (2003), Vredenburgh (2002)
Commit6 The top managers frequently visit installations to observe the safety conditions and Wu and Lee (2003)

B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758

Commit7 Managers are frequently on site discussing safety issues face-to-face with employees
Commit8 Management considers safety to be profitable
Incentives
Incent1 The workers are praised or rewarded when they work safely Carder and Ragan (2003), Glendon
Incent2 Safe behaviour is an aspect to consider when promoting workers and Litherland (2001), Hayes et al.
Incent3 The workers are rewarded for their suggestions (1998), Meliá and Sesé (1999) and
Work pressure Vredenburgh (2002)
Pressure1 The workers face many pressures to finish work quickly Cox and Cheyne (2000), Glendon
Pressure2 The workers show stress and Litherland (2001) and Mearns
Communication et al. (2003)
Commun1 There is a good communication about safety issues that affect the employees in the firm Bentley and Haslam (2001), Cox
Commun2 The managers promote campaigns or talks periodically and frequently to transmit principles and instructions in the area of safety and Cheyne (2000), Donald and
Commun3 Managers give sufficient information to employees about changes in policies, work procedures or the production process before they occur Canter (1994), Glendon and
Safety behaviour Litherland (2001), Mearns et al.
Safety compliance (2003) and Meliá and Sesé (1999)
Behav1 The workers always comply with the safety rules and procedures although they make it harder to do their job Carder and Ragan (2003), Cox and
Behav2 The workers wear personal protection equipment despite the discomfort Cheyne (2000), Cox and Cox
Behav3 The workers report all incidents that affect their job (1991), Hayes et al. (1998), Mearns
Safety participation et al. (2003), Vredenburgh (2002)
Behav4 The workers are involved in the decisions affecting their safety, such as setting objectives and drawing up plans for improvement and Wu and Lee (2003)
Behav5 The workers participate in risk assessments, safety inspections and accident investigations
Behav6 The workers discuss the effectiveness of the management system in place and make suggestions about how to improve their working conditions
Performance
Safety performance
Perform1 Injuries to workers Terziovski et al. (1997) and
Perform2 Material damage Fernández-Muñiz et al. (2009)
Employee satisfaction
Perform3 Worker satisfaction
Perform4 Absenteeism
Perform5 Workers’ complaints about their working conditions
Perform6 Workers quitting the firm
Firm competitiveness
Perform7 Product quality
Perform8 Productivity
Perform9 Customer satisfaction
Perform10 Image and reputation
Perform11 Innovation
 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
The firms are distributed quite evenly among the sectors of
activity. Specifically, 38% of the firms belong to the industrial sec-
tor, 37% to construction, 22% to services, and only 3% to agriculture
and mining. The firms are overwhelmingly private (92.5%), with
Spanish capital (78%), and they target the Spanish national market
(42%) or international markets (35%).
Practically all the firms have the ISO 9001 quality certificate
(97%) and ISO 14001 environmental certificate (91%). Clearly, some
type of synergy exists between the three systems. Finally, the data
show that firms take approximately 1 year on average to obtain the
OHSAS 18001 certificate.
4.2. Measurement scales
The measurement scales of the concepts used in this work were
constructed following a multiple indicator approach. Thus each
concept was measured using various items or variables (Table 2).
This process for generating items involved successive stages. First,
the authors conducted an exhaustive review of previous research
on safety climate and safety management (Brown and Holmes,
1986; Bentley and Haslam, 2001; Carder and Ragan, 2003; Cooper
and Philips, 1994; Coyle et al., 1995; Cox and Cox, 1991; Cox and
Cheyne, 2000; Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991; DeJoy et al., 2004;
Diaz and Cabrera, 1997; Donald and Canter, 1994; Glendon and
Litherland, 2001; Grote and Künzler, 2000; Hayes et al., 1998; Lu
and Shang, 2005; Mearns et al., 2003; Niskanen, 1994; Rundmo
and Hale, 2003; Seo, 2005; Silva et al., 2004; Siu et al., 2004;
Vredenburgh, 2002; Williamson et al., 1997; Wu and Lee, 2003;
Zohar, 1980). This process provided a pool of items to measure the
concepts considered in this research.
After drawing up a preliminary list of items and a draft ver-
sion of the questionnaire, the authors refined the questionnaire
to eliminate redundant items. Various PhDs and senior professors
in management studies participated in this process, and a num-
ber of modifications were made to the initial items. Subsequently,
to ensure face validity, the authors organised a series of in-depth
interviews with senior safety professionals with a long experience
in the identification and control of occupational risks (Vinodkumar
and Bhasi, 2011). These interviews revealed the need to make fur-
ther modifications to some of the items. Finally, after selecting the
definitive items, the authors subjected the questionnaire to a pre-
test involving eight firms from different sectors and of different
sizes to check whether the respondents understood the questions
correctly, to add, eliminate, or modify items according to their
suggestions and comments, and to verify the applicability of the
questionnaire to Spanish firms. All items were worded neutrally
to avoid causing biases, and all were measured on 5-point Likert
scales (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither disagree nor
agree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree).
The performance indicators were measured subjectively. The
respondents had to report their degree of satisfaction with these
indicators on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “1 = very unsat-
isfied” to “5 = very satisfied”. The level of satisfaction with the
indicators was measured taking into account the trend followed
by them in recent years and the firm’s position with respect to
the sector average. Subjective indicators were chosen in view of
the managers’ refusal to provide objective performance data. Occa-
sionally, this refusal was due to managers’ ignorance of these data,
the firm lacking an adequate record of this information. At other
times managers were fearful of making their accident data pub-
lic because of the possible legal consequences. At the same time, a
large amount of empirical evidence has found a significant positive
correlation between objective and subjective estimations of per-
formance (Hansen and Wernerfelt, 1989; Lyles and Salk, 1997). The
Appendix A shows the format used in the questionnaire to measure
performance.
751
5. Results
5.1. Estimation of measurement model
The authors subjected the proposed scales to a process
of evaluation, focusing on the study of their psychometric
properties. Specifically, they analysed their dimensionality, exam-
ined the reliability of their composition and evaluated the content,
convergent and discriminant validity of each scale, following the
original proposals of Churchill (1979) and Anderson and Gerbing
(1988). For this purpose, the authors conducted principal com-
ponents exploratory factor analyses with varimax rotation, and
confirmatory factor analyses using structural equation modelling,
employing the statistics programs SPSS/PC version 18.0 for Win-
dows and EQS version 6.1 for Windows, respectively. Table 3
contains the means, standard deviations, reliabilities and inter-
correlations of all the measures.
5.1.1. Dimensionality study
The evaluation process began by carrying out a principal com-
ponents exploratory factor analysis, considering all the items
proposed for each dimension. This analysis reflected a scale compo-
sition in accordance with the starting assumptions, in other words,
it confirmed the unidimensionality of the factors management’s
commitment, incentives, work pressure and communication, the
bi-dimensionality of safety behaviour (safety compliance and
safety participation), and the tri-dimensionality of firm per-
formance (safety performance, employee satisfaction, and firm
competitiveness). Subsequently, the authors carried out first-order
confirmatory factor analyses on the proposed models for safety
climate – management’s commitment, incentives, work pressure,
communication, safety compliance and safety participation – and
firm performance – safety performance, employee satisfaction, and
firm competitiveness (Table 4). The resulting proposed measure-
ment models of safety climate and performance had an acceptable
model-to-data fit (Bentler, 1995; Hair et al., 1998). The chi-square
value of the safety climate model was 254.280 for 191 degrees of
freedom, and was statistically significant at p < 0.01, below the min-
imum level of 0.05. In contrast, the 2 of the performance model
was 52.573 for 40 degrees of freedom, and was not statistically sig-
nificant (p > 0.05). Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that
the chi-square is sensitive to sample size (Bentler and Bonnet,
1980). Consequently the authors also examined other indices in
each model. In both models, the RMSEA (root mean square error of
approximation) index is below 0.08, the BBNNFI (Bentler–Bonett
non-normed fit index), CFI (comparative fit index), and IFI (Bollen
fit index) are above 0.9, and the GFI (goodness-of-fit index) is
around 0.9. No consensus exists in the literature about the optimum
value of each of these fit indices, so the authors adopted the most
demanding and conservative position in this work. Other authors
have been less strict, and practically all the indices would have
reached the recommended levels if the current authors had done
likewise. For example, Dawes et al. (1998), Jöreskog and Sörbom
(1993) and Mueller (1996) consider that results above 0.8 are suf-
ficient for the GFI.
5.1.2. Reliability analysis
The reliability study indicates the degree of internal consis-
tency between the multiple variables that make up the scale,
and represents the extent to which the indicators or items of
the scale are measuring the same concepts. For the purpose of
guaranteeing the maximum reliability of the scales proposed, the
authors calculated Cronbach’s ˛ coefficient (Cronbach, 1951) and
the Composite Reliability Index for each 1-dimensional critical
factor identified in the previous section. As Table 3 shows, all the
unidimensional subscales present Cronbach ˛ coefficients greater
752 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758

Table 3
Means, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations.

Mean S.D. Cronbach ˛ MC IN WP CO SC SP SA ES FC

MC 3.97 0.72 0.862 –

IN 3.37 1.05 0.794 .417**
WP 2.66 0.92 0.626 −.286** .009
CO 3.72 0.82 0.812 .588** .479** −.278**
SC 3.34 0.81 0.783 .426** .252** −.207* .387**
SP 3.44 0.89 0.814 .492** .203* −.183* .531** .561**
SA 3.87 0.86 0.825 .073 −.035 −.226** .195* .247** .091
ES 3.70 0.65 0.772 .270** .151 −.364** .323** .296** .079 .402**
FC 3.97 0.57 0.784 .295** .123 −.267** .523** .357** .204* .373** .564** –

Abbreviations: management commitment (MC); incentives (IN); work pressure (WP); communication (CO); safety compliance (SC); safety participation (SP); safety perfor-
mance (SA); employee satisfaction (ES); firm competitiveness (FC).
*
Correlation is significant at 0.05 level.
**
Correlation is significant at 0.01 level.

than 0.7, considered to be an adequate level of reliability to test
causal relations (Nunnally, 1978), except the factor work pressure.
Nevertheless, the Cronbach ˛ for this factor exceeds 0.6, which
is acceptable in exploratory studies (Hair et al., 1998). Moreover,
Table 4 shows that the composite reliability index for this factor
exceeds Bagozzi and Yi’s (1988) minimum recommended level of
0.6, so the authors decided to retain work pressure.
5.1.3. Validity analysis
The authors verified the validity of the scales by considering
the content validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity.
The content validity can be accepted bearing in mind that the pro-
posed scales were designed following an exhaustive review of the
literature and subjected to a process of revision involving in-depth
interviews with senior safety professionals. The convergent valid-
ity of a concept evaluates the extent to which two measurements
of the concept may be correlated (Hair et al., 1998). Convergent
validity can be analysed by means of standardised factorial regres-
sion coefficients relating each observed variable with the latent
one (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988), in other words, by means of
standardised lambda parameters. A strong condition of convergent
validity is that those coefficients exceed 0.5 and are significant at
a confidence level of 95%, which requires values greater than 1.96.
The values of the coefficients and the t-values appear in Table 4.
All subscales fulfil both conditions, therefore confirming the con-
vergent validity of the proposed scales. The discriminant validity
indicates the extent to which two conceptually similar concepts
differ, and was verified by Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) method-
ology. This involves estimating the confidence interval around the
parameters that indicate the correlation between the six unidi-
mensional factors of safety climate on the one hand, and the three
unidimensional factors of performance on the other, bearing in
mind the value of these parameters and the corresponding stan-
dardised errors, to check that no interval includes 1.
Having tested the reliability and validity of the six safety cli-
mate scales and the three performance scales, the next step was to
specify a second-order confirmatory factor analysis to test whether
the dimensions safety compliance and safety participation form
part of the broader construct labelled safety behaviour. Table 5
describes the estimation of this model. The goodness-of-fit indices
show that the second-order confirmatory factor analysis improves
on the first-order confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, the
authors evaluated the resulting standardised lambda parameters,
and also the confidence intervals of the correlations between the
factors, in order to re-check the convergent and discriminant valid-
ity. Thus the test of the model uses five dimensions of safety
climate: management’s commitment, incentives, work pressure,
communication and safety behaviour, with this latter construct
being composed of the factors safety compliance and safety par-
ticipation.
5.2. Estimation of proposed structural model
To test the proposed model, the authors used structural equa-
tion modelling. This statistical technique, which is common in the
literature (Brown et al., 2000; Huang et al., 2006; Lu and Tsai, 2010;
Seo, 2005; Silva et al., 2004; Siu et al., 2004), allows authors to test
complex models of relations between variables considering all the
model relations simultaneously. The goodness-of-fit indices of the
proposed model may be considered satisfactory (Fig. 2), since they
are very close to the recommended values.
With regard to the hypothesis tests, the coefficients reflected
in the model confirm that management’s commitment has a
direct, positive influence on incentives and communication, and
a direct, negative influence on work pressure, providing support
for hypotheses H1a, H1b and H1c.
At the same time, the results show that communication has a
direct, positive effect on employees’ safety behaviour. In contrast,
the effects of incentives and work pressure on employees’ safety
behaviour are not statistically significant (t-values < 1.96). Thus the
authors can offer support for Hypothesis H4 but not for hypotheses
H2 or H3.
Safety behaviour has a direct, positive effect on all three
performance dimensions, namely safety performance, employee
satisfaction and firm competitiveness, which provides support for
hypotheses H5a, H5b and H5c, respectively.
Finally, the results show that safety performance has a direct,
positive effect on employee satisfaction, and employee satisfac-
tion, in turn, has a positive effect on firm competitiveness, but the
direct effect of safety performance on firm competitiveness is non-
significant. Thus the authors can offer support for hypotheses H6a
and H7 but not for Hypothesis H6b.
6. Discussion
A number of previous studies have tried to identify the factors
that improve safety and reduce occupational accidents in organi-
sations. But it is still not clear what contributes to the occurrence
of accidents or injuries (Lu and Tsai, 2010), particularly in organi-
sations certified in occupational health and safety (OHSAS 18001),
which have been the focus of very few empirical studies to date.
In the current work the authors analyse the safety climate as
a determinant of safety performance and firm competitiveness in
OHSAS 18001-certified organisations.
Authors have studied the relation between safety climate and
safety performance in different contexts (e.g., Cheyne et al., 1998;
Cooper and Phillips, 2004; Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991; Diaz
and Cabrera, 1997; Gittleman et al., 2010; Glendon and Litherland,
2001; Griffin and Neal, 2000; Lu and Tsai, 2010; Lu and Yang,
2011; Mearns et al., 2003; Neal et al., 2000; Niskanen, 1994), and
safety climate is recognised as an important determinant in the
Table 4
1st-order confirmatory factor analyses.

1st-order CFA for safety climate

Dimension variables Composite reliability index Standardised lambda parameters t-Values Dimension–dimension Correlation Confidence interval
F1: management’s commitment 0.863
Commit1 0.749 7.699 F1–F2 0.511 (0.329–0.693)
Commit2 0.628 7.748 F1–F3 −0.391 (−0.587 to −0.195)
Commit3 0.610 5.665 F1–F4 0.775 (0.641–0.909)
Commit4 0.691 7.967 F1–F5 0.547 (0.365–0.729)
Commit5 0.721 7.478 F1–F6 0.602 (0.458–0.746)
Commit6 0.538 6.589 F2–F3 0.024 (−0.240–0.288)
Commit7 0.627 9.051 F2–F4 0.637 (0.433–0.841)
Commit8 0.734 10.286 F2–F5 0.349 (0.135–0.563)
F2: incentives 0.797 F2–F6 0.268 (0.04–0.496)
Incent1 0.764 9.730 F3–F4 −0.387 (−0.623 to −0.151)

B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758

Incent2 0.748 10.226 F3–F5 −0.271 (−0.521 to −0.021)
Incent3 0.746 9.721 F3–F6 −0.265 (−0.517 to −0.013)
F3: work pressure 0.641 F4–F5 0.564 (0.400–0.728)
Pressure1 0.690 6.578 F4–F6 0.726 (0.574–0.878)
Pressure2 0.683 5.274 F5–F6 0.672 (0.532–0.812)
F4: communication 0.756
Commun1 0.720 9.123
Commun2 0.714 8.853
Commun3 0.704 9.190
F5: safety compliance 0.800
Behav1 0.844 10.457
Behav2 0.728 8.303
Behav3 0.690 9.404
F6: safety participation 0.815
Behav4 0.863 11.780
Behav5 0.731 9.25
Behav6 0.715 8.645
Results of model fit: S-B2 RMSEA = 0.050 IFI = 0.940
(191) = 254.280 BBNNFI = 0.925 CFI = 0.938
p = 0.001 GFI = 0.833
1st-order CFA for performance

Dimension variables Composite reliability index Standardised lambda parameters t-Values Dimensions correlation (confidence interval)

F1: safety performance 0.828

Perform1 0.866 10.628 F1–F2 0.499
Perform2 0.814 11.419 (0.301–0.697)
F2: employee satisfaction 0.777
Perform3 0.716 7.868 F1–F3 0.482
Perform4 0.685 9.634 (0.300–0.664)
Perform5 0.717 9.525
Perform6 0.609 6.569
F3: firm competitiveness 0.793
Perform7 0.723 9.641 F2–F3 0.709
Perform8 0.684 8.495 (0.555–0.863)
Perform9 0.582 6.205
Perform10 0.620 7.408
Perform11 0.681 8.506
Results of model fit: S-B2 (40) = 52.573 RMSEA = 0.049 IFI = 0.972 CFI = 0.971
p = 0.087 BBNNFI = 0.960
GFI = 0.921

Note: t-values above 1.96 indicate significant at 95% confidence level.

753
754 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758

Table 5
2nd-order confirmatory factor analysis for safety climate.

Dimension sub-dimension variables Standardised lambda parameters t-Values Dimension–dimension Correlation Confidence interval

F1: management’s commitment

Commit1 0.747 7.979 F1–F2 0.508 (0.326–0.690)
Commit2 0.628 7.950 F1–F3 −0.389 (−0.587 to −0.191)
Commit3 0.609 5.744 F1–F4 0.775 (0.643–0.907)
Commit4 0.691 8.274 F1–F7 0.698 (0.536–0.860)
Commit5 0.721 7.708 F2–F3 0.025 (−0.237–0.287)
Commit6 0.537 6.759 F2–F4 0.638 (0.438–0.838)
Commit7 0.626 9.209 F2–F7 0.360 (0.116–0.604)
Commit8 0.733 10.569 F3–F4 −0.380 (−0.616 to −0.144)
F2: incentives F3–F7 −0.320 (−0.586 to −0.054)
Incent1 0.765 9.669 F4–F7 0.801 (0.657–0.945)
Incent2 0.740 10.124
Incent3 0.753 9.878
F3: work pressure
Pressure1 0.682 6.441
Pressure2 0.691 5.222
F4: communication
Commun1 0.735 9.470
Commun2 0.693 8.692
Commun3 0.693 8.975
F7: safety behaviour
F5: safety compliance 0.779 6.666
Behav1 0.838 –
Behav2 0.732 9.124
Behav3 0.696 9.757
F6: safety participation 0.860 8.877
Behav4 0.865 –
Behav5 0.723 8.470
Behav6 0.712 8.789
Results of model fit: S-B2 RMSEA = 0.049 IFI = 0.942
(197) = 258.077 BBNNFI = 0.930 CFI = 0.940
p = 0.002 GFI = 0.830

Note: t-values above 1.96 indicate significant at 95% confidence level.

organisation’s efforts to enhance safety behaviour and prevent have in place a safety policy, a plan of activities and verification
accidents in the workplace. But very few studies have focused systems focused on reducing occupational risk.
on OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, which have already A large number of authors consider the safety climate – under-
implemented a health and safety management system and which stood as the set of perceptions shared by the employees about

Safety
performance

Incentives
-0.045 0.270 0.410
0.488 (-0.585) (2.687) (3.212)
(5.613)

0.335 0.151
-0.373 -0.122 (3.064) (1.460)
(-2.483) (-1.035) Safety Employee
Management’ Work behaviour satisfaction
s commitment pressure

0.864 0.555
(6.752) 0.192 (3.732)
0.816 (2.121)
(6.469)

Communication Firm
competitiveness

Results of Model Fit: χ2 (478) = 627.466

S-Bχ RMSEA= 0.049 IFI= 0.910
p=0.000 BBNNFI= 0.898 CFI= 0.908

Fig. 2. Results of proposed structural model. Note: t-values in parentheses. t-Value above 1.96 indicates significant at 95% confidence level.
 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
safety policies, procedures and practices – to be a multidimen-
sional factor that can have a positive effect on safety in the firm
(Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2009). But the existing research on the
climate lacks consistency (Wu et al., 2007). The literature review
for the current work allowed the authors to identify five key
dimensions of safety climate that the majority of the previous stud-
ies use: management’s commitment, workers’ incentives, work
pressure, communication, and employees’ safety behaviour.
The authors measured these dimensions using a total of 22
items. They subjected the measurement scales to a rigorous pro-
cess to confirm their reliability and construct validity. This process
revealed the bi-dimensionality of the concept safety behaviour,
which consists of safety compliance and safety participation. This
is in line with previous work (e.g., Neal et al., 2000; Vinodkumar
and Bhasi, 2010). For the current authors, the dimensions of safety
climate are interrelated, which led them to propose and test a
structural equation model. They drew the following conclusions
from the empirical study:
• Management’s commitment has a negative effect on work pres-
sure and a positive effect on incentives and communication. Thus
the more committed managers are to safety, the more likely they
will reward workers’ safety behaviour and transmit the informa-
tion workers need to be able to do their work with the maximum
safety, and the less pressures workers will face to finish their work
quickly.
• Work pressure has no effect on safety behaviour. The results show
a negative relation – as was expected – but this is not significant.
It should be borne in mind that the authors tested their model
using a sample of OHSAS 18001-certified firms. These firms have
gone through an audit process to verify their compliance with the
standard, which requires that safety be taken extremely seriously,
that managers be highly committed, and that workers be trained
in and conscious of safety issues. Thus OHSAS 18001-certified
firms apparently have less work pressure and their managers
are committed to and prioritise safety. Moreover, where these
pressures do exist the workers seem to put their safety before
production orders and know what to do in situations of risk. In
short, compliance with the rules and the active participation of
the workers do not depend on the work pressure exerted by the
managers in OHSAS 18001-certified firms. It would be interesting
to test this model using a sample of firms without OHSAS 18001
certification to determine if any differences exist in the relation
work pressure-safety behaviour between the two groups of firms.
• Likewise, and contradicting the hypothesis, incentives or rewards
have no effect on safety behaviour. In OHSAS 18001-certified
firms safety management seems to be integrated into the rest
of the organisation’s functions and the workers participate in
safety and comply with the rules and safety procedures willingly
rather than because of any reward or punishment that they might
receive. This result is in line with Vinodkumar and Bhasi’s (2011)
finding that safety promotion policies are not significant predic-
tors of safety behaviour in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations.
The result suggests that firms may use incentives or safety pro-
motion policies mainly to increase employees’ general awareness
about safety, and that these techniques may not be effective at
generating safety behaviour in these organisations, where this
awareness already exists.
• Communication about safety and the transmission of information
about the risks workers face, how to combat them and the pro-
cedures to follow do, in contrast, have a direct, positive effect
on safety behaviour. Consequently, open communication and
frequent interactions between employees and managers favour
safety behaviour. This result is consistent with conclusions from
previous research in other contexts (e.g., Cheyne et al., 1998;
Ciguralov et al., 2010; Griffin and Neal, 2000; Mearns et al., 2003).
755
Thus the more knowledge workers have, the better they use
safety mechanisms, which has positive repercussions for safety
compliance (Cheyne et al., 1998; Griffin and Neal, 2000). More-
over, open communication makes employees feel less nervous
about raising and discussing safety issues with their supervi-
sors (Ciguralov et al., 2010). Thus the greater the level of open
communication with a focus on problem-solving and learning,
the more workers become involved in safety management and
the more suggestions they offer about potential improvements
to their jobs, which implies a greater level of safety partici-
pation (Griffin and Neal, 2000). Thus, and in the same line as
Mearns et al. (2003), communication of health and safety issues
to the workforce can be viewed as a key stage of organisational
learning that proceeds from accident/near miss investigations,
safety audits or changes to procedures.
In short, according to the results of the current work the
only factor that has a direct effect on safety behaviour in OHSAS
18001-certified organisations is the fluid communication between
organisation members and the transmission of information to
the worker. That communication does, however, depend on the
level of commitment of the firm’s management. Thus manage-
ment’s commitment towards safety has an indirect effect on safety
behaviour via communication. According to this result, OHSAS
18001-certified firms can improve safety behaviour and encourage
more active worker participation by making every effort to improve
their communication, but at the same time they should not forget
managers’ important role in promoting that communication.
On the other hand, Wu et al. (2007) consider that the quality
of the climate in an organisation may affect its performance. In
firms with a positive organisational climate and a friendly atmo-
sphere, employees are more likely to exploit their potential, a
situation that helps the organisation achieve its objectives. In con-
trast, employees’ motivation will inevitably be suppressed in an
unhealthy organisational climate, which will result in a poor organ-
isational performance. The findings of the current study confirm
that theory by providing empirical support for the important role
of safety behaviour in the three measures of performance consid-
ered. The results show that the safer the employees’ behaviour, the
better the safety performance, the higher the employee satisfaction
and the higher the firm’s competitiveness.
Human action is critical for the firm’s technical system to work
properly. Although the firm may have in place the appropriate
technical measures to prevent workplace risks, workers’ actions
– conscious or unconscious – can generate unexpected outcomes.
Even if the safety procedures are optimal from the technical per-
spective, the accident rate may remain the same or fall less than
expected because the workers do not know about or understand
the safe procedures or because they consider them unnecessary. In
contrast, when workers carry out safety behaviour through their
compliance with safety rules and procedures and their personal
involvement in activities improving working conditions and in
drawing up and implementing the safety plan, the result is a better
safety performance, in other words, a reduction in the number of
accidents and incidents. Moreover, safety behaviour and involve-
ment in the firm’s safety improve workers’ satisfaction and reduce
absenteeism, because the workers feel an important part of the
organisation and that the organisation values their opinions and
contributions. Likewise, the results show that safety behaviour has
a positive effect on the firm’s competitiveness, which means that
the more involved workers are in the firm’s safety and the more
contributions they make, the fewer errors they will make, the bet-
ter the quality of the products, the better the service delivered to
the customer, and the higher their productivity. All this will have
positive repercussions for customer satisfaction and the firm’s rep-
utation and image, and ultimately its competitiveness.
756 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
In parallel, according to the results of this work the firm’s com-
petitiveness directly depends on the employees’ level of satisfac-
tion, because the more satisfied the employees are, the more identi-
fied with and committed to the organisation they will be, which will
clearly have positive repercussions for the firm. In turn, workers’
satisfaction is conditioned by the absence of incidents and acci-
dents. Although the results do not offer support for the direct effect
of safety performance on competitiveness, they do confirm the indi-
rect effect via employee satisfaction. This failure to support the
direct effect of safety performance on competitiveness may be due
to the fact that the study is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal.
Summing up, the OHSAS 18001 standard alone is not sufficient;
firms must have a favourable safety climate in place to be able
to use this tool to achieve the objective of zero accidents in the
workplace and improved competitiveness. The results of this study
show that safety behaviour has a critical role in achieving that
objective, and that the fundamental tool for achieving an increas-
ing involvement of these organisations’ workers is communication,
which is, in turn, conditioned by the level of management commit-
ment. The results of this study provide strong empirical support for
the proposed antecedents and consequences of safety behaviour in
OHSAS 18001-certified organisations. These findings provide valu-
able guidance for researchers and practitioners for identifying the
principal mechanisms by which they can improve safety in those
organisations.
In addition, the use of firm-level data is an important con-
tribution to the literature because most of the previous studies
use individual-level data, generally collected from employees. The
managerial perspective is also important as managers are respon-
sible for implementing safety policy and their experiences of
climate-like factors have implications for how they emphasise
safety in their own actions. But the study has assumed that firm-
level data have the same underlying structure as individual-level
data. It must be borne in mind that management groups, especially
superintendents and executives, tend to hold more positive views
about the safety climate in their organisation than the workers
(Gittleman et al., 2010). Thus the nature of the data could affect
the interpretation of the findings and could explain why some of
the hypotheses were not supported. This aspect requires further
investigation.
This work suffers from a number of limitations. First, although
the authors defined the constructs used in this research as pre-
cisely as possible, based on the available relevant literature, and
they carried out a meticulous process of generation and revision of
items, the measures developed should be understood as an approx-
imation to latent phenomena, which cannot be measured in full.
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the relations were eval-
uated from the perspective of the firm’s safety officer. Employees’
opinions were not taken into account, an aspect that would have
given a more complete picture of the results. Likewise, the study
focused on a particular moment in time, so it is cross-sectional
and not longitudinal in nature. The limitations detected in this
study indicate possible future lines of research. Thus, it would be
extremely valuable to obtain information on the employees, to
evaluate the effect that safety climate has on safety performance
and on employee satisfaction and motivation. Likewise, and due to
the time lag between improving working conditions and obtaining
superior performance, it would be interesting to use panel data to
attempt to confirm the causal relations detected. Finally, it would be
extremely interesting to evaluate the effect of organisational vari-
ables such as size, sector, ownership of capital and target markets
on safety climate and safety performance.
7. Conclusions
The results of this study provide strong empirical support
for two antecedents (communication directly, and management’s
commitment indirectly) and three consequences (safety perfor-
mance, employee satisfaction and firm competitiveness) of safety
behaviour in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations. The paper iden-
tifies five critical dimensions of safety climate. These dimensions
are interdependent, and so the authors proposed a structural equa-
tion model that examines the relations between management’s
commitment and safety behaviour and the three abovementioned
measures of performance.
This work provides support for the validity and reliability
of the five safety climate and three performance dimensions.
The test of the proposed structural model shows that in OHSAS
18001-certified organisations, safety behaviour depends directly
on the communication that exists in the firm and indirectly
on management’s commitment, given the effect of manage-
ment’s commitment on the communication transmitted to the
employees.
This research also confirms the important role of the employ-
ees in OHSAS 18001-certified organisations, not only in the
improvement of the firm’s safety performance but also in that
of its competitiveness. OHSAS 18001 certification is not there-
fore the end but the beginning of a stage in which organisations
can continue to improve their safety levels by establishing
channels of fluid communication. High levels of management
commitment are necessary for this to happen. This work pro-
vides interesting information for researchers and practitioners
since it identifies the main tool that needs to be used in
order to improve safety in OHSAS 18001-certified organisa-
tions.
Acknowledgements
This study has received support in the form of financing from
the following research projects:
- “La auditoría reglamentaria de los sistemas de prevención de ries-
gos laborales en España: Evaluación de resultados” (The mandatory
audit of occupational health and safety management systems
in Spain: Evaluation of results), financed by the Regional Min-
istry of Education and Science of the Principality of Asturias
(Consejería de Educación y Ciencia del Principado de Asturias),
Spain.
- “La cultura de seguridad como elemento clave para lograr entornos
de trabajo seguros y saludables” (Safety culture as key element to
achieve safe and healthy working environments), financed by the
Spanish National Institute of Health and Safety at Work (Instituto
Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo).
Also, sincere thanks are due to AENOR for their invaluable col-
laboration, and in particular to Health and Safety officer Mr. Agustín
Sánchez-Toledo Ledesma.
Appendix A. Format used in questionnaire to measure
performance
Please indicate your firm’s LEVEL OF SATISFACTION (1 = very
unsatisfied; 5 = very satisfied) with each of the following aspects,
bearing in mind the trend in recent years and the firm’s position in
comparison to the sector average:
 B. Fernández-Muñiz et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 45 (2012) 745–758
Very unsatisfied
1 2
Injuries to workers
Material damage
Worker satisfaction
Absenteeism
Workers’ complaints about their working conditions
Workers quitting the firm
Product quality
Productivity
Customer satisfaction
Image and reputation
Innovation
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