Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91 – 102

www.elsevier.com/locate/jsr www.nsc.org

Safety climate in university and college laboratories: Impact of

organizational and individual factors
Tsung-Chih Wu a,⁎, Chi-Wei Liu b,c , Mu-Chen Lu a
a
Department of Industrial Safety and Health, Hungkuang University, 34, Chung-Chie Rd., Shalu, Taichung County 433, Taiwan, ROC
b
Department of Restaurant and Hotel Management, Hungkuang University, 34, Chung-Chie Rd., Shalu, Taichung County 433, Taiwan, ROC
c
Graduate School of Management, I-Shou University, 1, Section 1, Hsueh-Cheng Rd., Ta-Hsu Hsiang, Kaohsiung County 840, Taiwan, ROC
Received 10 April 2006; accepted 11 August 2006

Abstract

Introduction: Universities and colleges serve to be institutions of education excellence; however, problems in the areas of occupational
safety may undermine such goals. Occupational safety must be the concern of every employee in the organization, regardless of job
position. Safety climate surveys have been suggested as important tools for measuring the effectiveness and improvement direction of
safety programs. Thus, this study aims to investigate the influence of organizational and individual factors on safety climate in university
and college laboratories. Method: Employees at 100 universities and colleges in Taiwan were mailed a self-administered questionnaire
survey; the response rate was 78%. Results: Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that organizational category of ownership, the
presence of a safety manager and safety committee, gender, age, title, accident experience, and safety training significantly affected the
climate. Among them, accident experience and safety training affected the climate with practical significance. Recommendations: The
authors recommend that managers should address important factors affecting safety issues and then create a positive climate by enforcing
continuous improvements.
© 2007 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Safety culture; Safety climate; Laboratory safety; Accident experience; Safety training

1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Places like experimental laboratories, testing grounds, or
practice factories (referred to as experimental lab hereafter)
in universities and colleges are the arenas for students to
learn skills or verify scientific theories. In order to help
students learn the required skills or assist researchers to
obtain meaningful results, employers should also pay close
attention to the safety issues in the experimental lab, in
addition to emphasizing instruction or issues of experimental
lab management. Unfortunately, in Taiwan, accidents at
university and college laboratories is a growing problem.
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 4 2631 8652x4001; fax: +886 4 2631
9175.
E-mail address: tcwu@sunrise.hk.edu.tw (T.-C. Wu).
0022-4375/$ - see front matter © 2007 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2007.01.003
Some of the incidents even caused injuries and deaths to the
students or the instructors. For example, a graduate student
caught his body between the pillars of reinforced concrete
when he practiced inside a lab in National Chiao Tung
University and became disabled (Jiang, 1997). Another
undergraduate student was electrocuted when he was
practicing with electrical wires inside a lab in National
Huwei University of Science and Technology (Gau, 1998).
An associate professor touched a naked wire when he
supervised construction site in National Kao-Hsiung Normal
University, resulting to his death (Wang & Lan, 2000). Later,
a graduate student lost her eyes when she was conducting
chemical experiment in National Taiwan University of
Technology (Lin, 2004). In addition, safety deficiencies in
the experimental lab were also proposed by several reports
(Chern, Lay, & Wang, 2003; Shyu, 1998; Tsay, Su, &
Doong, 2000). These accidents and reports manifested the
importance concerning safety issues in an experiment lab.
92 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
“Three Safety Goals, One Status Promotion” is the
direction for future administrative policy presented by
the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan Taiwan
(CLAEYT, 2004a). This policy includes employment safety,
retirement safety, work safety, and the promotion of worker's
social status. To be specific, in order to ensure the workers'
safety, the main purpose of the policy is to continuously
reduce occupational accidents. Thus, the Labor Department
of Taiwan Government has demonstrated its ardent expec-
tation and emphasis on building a safety culture by
establishing an autonomous safety system in an organization
(CLAEYT, 2004b). In doing so, the culture of valuing
institutional health and safety will be cultivated. To sum up,
an organization can construct a positive safety climate and
then exhibit an outstanding safety performance by creating a
proactive safety culture. Accordingly, occupational disasters
will be reduced and then the goal of administration will be
accomplished.
Though many organizations have tried to improve
workplace safety using financial resources, their safety
performance only reached a “plateau stage.” The trend shows
that it is not very effective to use engineering measures to
solve problems related to behavior and management. On the
other side, the perception surveys may provide some
solutions to those problems, and the surveys are the first
step to understand and describe the behavior and manage-
ment factors (Baas, 2002; Bailey, 1993). Recently, due to the
observation of the plateau stage in the safety performance,
the ineffectiveness of engineering approaches to solve safety
issues, and the increasing medical and insurance costs
resulting from work related injuries, academic and practi-
tioners have tried to manage health and safety through the
perspective of applied psychology. A safety climate survey
was recommended as an important tool in evaluating safety
programs and improving safety performance (Krispin,
1997).
1.2. Defining safety climate and the factors affecting the
climate
1.2.1. The definition of safety climate
The quality of climate in an organization may affect the
performance of the organization. Under a positive organiza-
tional climate, with a kind and friendly atmosphere,
employees are more likely to exploit their potential; this
situation is beneficial for the organization to achieve its
objectives. On the other hand, employees' working motiva-
tion will inevitably be suppressed under an unhealthy
organizational climate, which will result in a poor perfor-
mance of the organization. Tagiuri and Litwin (1968) defined
organizational climate as “a relatively enduring quality of the
internal environment of an organization that is experienced
by its members, influences their behavior, and can be
described in terms of the values of a particular set of
characteristics of the organization.” Based on this concept,
it's clear that the organizational climate can be conveyed
through the organization's characteristics and can affect
worker's behavior.
Safety climate has often been considered as a sub-system
of the organizational climate and has impacted the safety
performance (Neal, Griffin, & Hart, 2000). The term “safety
climate” probably was first used by Zohar (1980). He defined
the climate as a summary of molar perceptions that
employees share about their work environment. Brown and
Holmes (1986) deemed that safety climate is a set of
perceptions or beliefs held by an individual or group about
a particular entity. In addition, many authors (e.g., Coyle,
Sleeman, & Adams, 1995; Cooper, 1998; Dedobbeleer &
Beland, 1991; Williamson, Feyer, Cairns, & Biancotti, 1997)
portrayed that the climate was focused on the members'
perception, attitude or belief regarding safety issues in the
organization. These issues are related to the working
environment or the organizational characteristics. Further-
more, Niskanen (1994) not only described the employee's
perception on organization's characteristics, but also illus-
trated the antecedents that affect their perception. He believes
that safety climate refers to a set of attributes that can be
perceived about particular work organizations and which
may be induced by the policies and practices that those
organizations impose upon their workers and supervisors.
On the other hand, except for the employees' perceptions of
the organizational characteristics, its findings are not
conclusive. Specifically, Glennon (1982) claimed that saf-
ety climate is employees' perceptions of the many character-
istics of their organization that have a direct impact upon
their behavior to reduce or eliminate danger. Diaz and
Cabrera (1997) considered that safety climate is a set of molar
perceptions, shared by individuals with their work environ-
ment, which are valid as references for guiding behavior in
the execution of tasks during day-to-day eventualities. By
synthesizing the above definitions of the climate, the authors
realize that most research only described organization
member's perception or attitude toward the organization's
characteristics or, at most, the antecedents or the consequence
of the climate. It seems that none of the definitions are able to
present both the cause and effect of the climate at the same
time. Therefore, the conceptual definition of safety climate in
this study is defined as employees' perceptions of safety
culture in the organization; and the perceptions, which are
influenced by the organizational factors and individual
factors, eventually affect employees' safety behaviors.
For a better understanding of the concept of safety
climate, the authors first needed to explore the various
dimensions of the climate. However, there is no consistency
among the existing research concerning the climate. As a
result, only few dimensions regarding work safety can be
identified (Brown & Holmes, 1986; Hayes, Perander,
Smecko, & Trask, 1998; Zohar, 1980). Particularly, by
analyzing the research on climate, Guldenmund (2000)
pointed out that there are four categories of employee
perception or attitude toward the organization and its
environment: (a) hardware, (b) software, (c) people, and
 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
(d) behavior. Hardware refers to the safety measures,
arrangements, and protective equipment; software refers to
safety procedures, training, and knowledge; people refers to
all the organization members; behavior refers to all the
conducts related to safety issues.
Zohar's (1980) eight dimensions covered the contents of
the four categories proposed by Guldenmund (2000). The
eight dimensions consisted of the importance of safety
training programs, management's attitude toward safety,
effects of safe conduct on promotion, level of risk at the
workplace, effects of required work pace on safety, status of
safety officer, effects of safe conduct on social status, and
status of safety committee. Nevertheless, the dimensions in
the follow-up studies were less comprehensive. For example,
the study by Brown and Holmes (1986) only included
dimensions regarding hardware and people, such as
employee perception of how concerned management is
with well-being, employee perception of how active
management is in responding to this concern, and employee
physical risk perception. In addition, the study by Dedob-
beleer and Beland (1991) only included dimensions of
people and behavior, such as management's commitment to
safety and worker's involvement in safety. Additionally, the
dimensions included in the study by Coyle et al. (1995) were
seven, including maintenance and management issues,
company policy, accountability, training and management
issues, work environment, policy/procedure, and personal
authority. These seven dimensions could be categorized into
the dimensions of hardware, software, and people, but with
the absence of the behavior dimension. The studies (Diaz &
Cabrera, 1997; Hayes et al., 1998; Varonen & Mattila, 2000;
Williamson et al., 1997) either left out the dimension of
people or missed the substance of behavior or hardware.
Therefore, to provide comprehensive dimensions of safety
climate, this study includes all four categories (i.e.,
hardware, software, people, and behavior). The operational
definition of the climate in this study refers to the scores
measured from the following five dimensions: chief
executive officer's safety commitment and action, manager's
safety commitment and action, employee's safety commit-
ment, perceived risk, and emergency response. To be precise,
executive officer's safety commitment and action, and
manager's safety commitment and action belong to the
dimension of people; employee's safety commitment
belongs to the abstract facet of behavior dimension;
perceived risk falls on the realm of hardware; emergency
response is on the safety procedure of the software.
1.2.2. Factors affecting safety climate
Hoy and Miskel (1982) asserted that organizational
climate was the result of organizational members trying to
reach a balance between the individual's needs and the
institution's expectations in a social system. In this vein, the
organizational climate in universities and colleges is the
result of the interaction between the principal, the faculty,
and staff to pursue both the educational goals and the
93
satisfaction of individual needs. Similarly, Diaz and Cabrera
(1997) also pointed out that organizational climate was the
product of the interaction between organizational factors and
individual factors. Given that safety climate is a sub-system
of the organizational climate, the study proposes that safety
climate may be influenced by organizational factors and
individuals factors.
Empirically, the finding of the study in manufacturing
industries by Wu and Kang (2002) indicated that a safety
manager (an item of the organizational factor) has a
significant effect on safety climate, besides the items of
individual factors like gender, age, title, accident experience,
and safety training. Furthermore, Wang's (2002) research in
telecommunication industries showed that the location also
has significant impact on the safety climate, besides the
individual factors such as gender, age, title, work site,
experience of accident, and safety training. Wu, Lu, and Lee
(2003) argued that organizational factors such as size,
ownership, safety manager, safety committee, and location
have significant impact on the climate. And the individual
factors such as gender, age, job tenure, accident experience,
safety training, and work site also have significant influence.
Based on the above studies, safety climate in an
organization is influenced by the organizational factors
such as size, ownership, safety manager, safety committee,
and location, as well as the individual factors, such as gender,
age, job tenure, title, accident experience, safety training, and
work site. Nevertheless, due to differences between
education industries and manufacturing industries or tele-
communication industries with respect to their character-
istics, there may be difference on the employee's perception
of safety climate. Thus, further research is warranted to find
out whether the factors influencing the climate in universities
and colleges are different.
1.3. Purpose and Hypothesis
Specifically, the major purposes of this study are:
(1) To explore the impact of organizational factors (size,
ownership, safety manager, safety committee, and
location) on five dimensions of safety climate (chief
executive officer's safety commitment and action,
manager's safety commitment and action, employee's
safety commitment, perceived risk, and emergency
response) in universities and colleges.
(2) To explore the impact of individual factors (gender,
age, job tenure, title, accident experience, safety
training, and work site) on five dimensions of safety
climate in universities and colleges.
This study aims to test the following null hypotheses:
H1. There exists no difference in safety climate between
universities with more than 300 employees and those
universities with less than 299 employees.
94 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
H2. There exists no difference in safety climate between
public universities and private universities.
H3. There exists no difference in safety climate between
universities with and without a safety manager.
H4. There exists no difference in safety climate between
universities with and without a safety committee.
H5. There exists no difference in safety climate among
universities in different locations.
H6. There exists no difference in perception regarding safety
climate between male employees and female employees.
H7. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate among employees of different ages.
H8. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate among employees of different job tenures.
H9. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate between employees with different job titles.
H10. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate between employees with different accident
experiences.
H11. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate between employees with safety training and
those without safety training.
H12. There exists no difference in perception regarding
safety climate among employees in different work sites.
2. Method
2.1. Population and sample
In October 2002 there were 139 universities and colleges
in Taiwan (Ministry of Education, 2002). The total number
of universities and colleges included in this study were 100,
after leaving out schools without experimental laboratories.
Among them, 31 were public schools (31%) and 69 were
private (69%). Categorized by their location, 47 schools
were located in northern Taiwan (47%), 20 schools in central
Taiwan (20%), and 33 in southern Taiwan (33%). The
personnel involved in this study were faculty, staff,
technicians, and janitors who were involved in the
experimental laboratories, testing ground, or practice
factories. In other words, any employee who was compen-
sated and worked in the above labs as part of his/her job was
included in the study. In early November 2002, 1,000
questionnaire packages were sent out to 100 universities and
colleges with 10 questionnaires for each school. Besides the
questionnaire, return postage, souvenir, and a letter indicat-
ing the purpose of the survey were included in the package.
Urged with the official document issued by the organization
that sponsored this research, 798 questionnaires were
received by the end of December 2002. The respondent
rate was 78%, after voiding 18 of them.
Table 1
Validity and reliability of the safety climate scale
Factors Eigen-values Accumulative explained Cronbach
variances Alpha
CSCA 7.530 16.37% .9612
MSCA 7.240 32.11% .9524
ESC 6.782 46.85% .9358
ER 4.732 57.14% .9222
PR 4.160 66.18% .8492
Total 66.18% .9516
Abbreviations: chief executive officer's safety commitment and action
(CSCA); manager's safety commitment and action (MSCA); employee's
safety commitment (ESC); emergency response (ER); perceived risk (PR).
2.2. Instrument
This research adopted a Questionnaire Survey to collect
data. The questionnaire (see the Appendix A) consisted of
two parts. The first part was general information, evaluating
organizational factors (i.e., size, ownership, safety manager,
safety committee, and location) and individual factors (i.e.,
gender, age, job tenure, title, accident experience, safety
training, and work site); the second was the “safety climate
scale,” developed by Wu and Lee (2003). The scale with
construct validity and reliability (see Table 1) was used to
measure the employee's perception of safety climate
including chief executive officer's safety commitment and
action, manager's safety commitment and action, employ-
ee's safety commitment, perceived risk, and emergency
response. The scale had 46 questions. Each question was a
complete narrative statement. Based on their actual experi-
ence and feeling, respondents rate each of the questions
using a five-point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree,
2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree).
2.3. Statistical procedure
The authors used the Statistical Package for the Social
Science (SPSS 8.0) as the statistical analysis tool. The
primary process was one-way MANOVA. Organizational
factors and individual factors were used in this study as
independent variables, and safety climate as the dependent
variable. Wilks' lambda (k) was employed to test the
significant effects of organizational factors and individual
factors on the whole safety climate. If the effects were
significant, one-way ANOVA was used to test the difference
among each dimension of safety climate, and Scheffe's
method for a posteriori comparison. Moreover, the level of
significance was set to .05 for every statistical analysis.
3. Results
3.1. General information
The first part of the questionnaire, general information,
includes organizational factors and individual factors (see
Table 2). Table 2 shows that percentages of the sample's
 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102 95

Table 2 dimensions: chief executive officer's safety commitment and

The sample's general information (N = 780) action, manager's safety commitment and action, employ-
Characteristics of respondents Frequency Percentage Valid ee's safety commitment, perceived risk, and emergency
percentage response. This indicates that the perception of chief
OF Size Below 299 210 26.9 27.7 executive officer's safety commitment and action, manager's
Above 300 549 70.4 72.3 safety commitment and action, and perceived risk fall
Total 759 97.3 100.0
between “neutral” and “agree.” On the other hand, the
Ownership Public 250 32.1 32.1
Private 529 67.8 67.9 perception of employee's safety commitment and emergency
Total 779 99.9 100.0 response was between “agree” and “strongly agree.” Among
Safety With 590 75.6 79.9 them, employee's safety commitment had higher mean,
manager Without 148 19.0 20.1 whereas chief executive officer's safety commitment and
Total 738 94.6 100.0
action had lower mean (see Fig. 1). The standard deviations
Safety With 606 77.7 92.0
committee Without 53 6.8 8.0 for these five dimensions were 0.77, 0.72, 0.50, 0.71 and
Total 659 84.5 100.0 0.61, respectively.
Location Northern 349 44.7 44.9
Central 177 22.7 22.8 3.2.2. Organizational factors affecting safety climate
Southern 252 32.3 32.4
Analyzed with MANOVA, the impact of the five
Total 778 99.7 100.0
IF Gender Male 523 67.1 67.5 organizational factors on the climate is displayed in
Female 252 32.3 32.5 Table 3. This table indicates that “ownership,” “safety
Total 775 99.4 100.0 manager,” and “safety committee” reached statistical signif-
Age Below 24 43 5.5 5.6 icance. However, “size” and “location” didn't. Therefore, the
25 – 44 561 71.9 72.7
hypothesis that there exists no difference in safety climate
Above 45 168 21.5 21.8
Total 772 99.0 100.0 between universities with more than 300 employees and
Job tenure Below 5 346 44.4 44.6 those universities with less than 299 employees, and the
Between 6 and 10 188 24.1 24.3 hypothesis that there exists no difference in safety climate
Between 11 and 15 133 17.1 17.2 among universities in different locations should be retained.
Above 16 108 13.8 13.9
Furthermore, conducting ANOVA to test the hypothesis
Total 775 99.4 100.0
Title Manager 174 22.3 22.8 that there exists no difference in safety climate between
Faculty and staff 589 75.5 77.2 public universities and private universities, the results reveal
Total 763 97.8 100.0 that chief executive officer's safety commitment and action,
Accident Experienced 56 7.2 7.4 and perceived risk reached statistical significance. Yet,
experience In-experienced 705 90.4 92.6
Total 761 97.6 100.0
manager's safety commitment and action, employee's safety
Safety Trained 620 79.5 82.0 commitment, and emergency response didn't. Regarding the
training Untrained 136 17.4 18.0 impact of different “ownership,” both chief executive
Total 756 96.9 100.0 officer's safety commitment and action, and perceived risk
Work site Laboratory 556 71.3 74.3 in private schools were higher than those in public schools.
Practice factory 160 20.5 21.4
As a result, this hypothesis should be rejected.
Testing ground 32 4.1 4.3
Total 748 95.9 100.0 Moreover, in the same way to test the hypothesis that
there exists no difference in safety climate between
Abbreviations: organizational factors (OF); individual factors (IF).
universities with and without a safety manager, the results

ownership (public school, 32.1%; private school, 67.9%) and

location (northern Taiwan, 44.9%; central Taiwan, 22.8%;
southern Taiwan, 32.4%) are very close to the population
(public school, 31%; private school, 69%; northern Taiwan,
47%; central Taiwan, 20%; southern Taiwan, 33%). This
result is very helpful for inference.

3.2. Safety climate in the laboratories

3.2.1. Central location and variation of safety climate

The employees' perception of safety climate in laborato-
ries in the universities and colleges is shown below. The
mean of total safety climate (TSC) was 4.00, and the
standard deviation was 0.54. Further, the means were 3.74,
3.85, 4.40, 3.96, and 4.21, respectively, for these five
Fig. 1. Safety climate in laboratories. (Key: chief executive officer's safety
commitment and action (CSCA); manager's safety commitment and action
(MSCA); employee's safety commitment (ESC); perceived risk (PR);
emergency response (ER); total safety climate (TSC)).
96 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102

Table 3
Summary of organizational factors affecting safety climate
OF Dimensions MANOVA ANOVA
Wilks' ∧ η2 Power F P Comparison
Size CSCA .999 .001 .072
MSCA
ESC
PR
ER
Ownership CSCA .958⁎⁎⁎ .042 .998 11.208⁎⁎⁎ .001 Private N Public
MSCA 2.654 .104
ESC .114 .735
PR 17.682⁎⁎⁎ .000 Private N Public
ER .137 .711
Safety manager CSCA .952⁎⁎⁎ .048 .999 19.885⁎⁎⁎ .000 With N Without
MSCA 5.471⁎ .020 With N Without
ESC .005 .945
PR 1.490 .223
ER 1.789 .181
Safety committee CSCA .953⁎⁎⁎ .047 .996 13.897⁎⁎⁎ .000 With N Without
MSCA 19.388⁎⁎⁎ .000 With N Without
ESC 6.151⁎ .013 With N Without
PR 3.619 .058
ER 24.004⁎⁎⁎ .000 With N Without
Location CSCA .978 .011 .805
MSCA
ESC
PR
ER
Notes: ⁎p b .05, ⁎⁎⁎p b .001.
Abbreviations: organizational factors (OF); chief executive officer's safety commitment and action (CSCA); manager's safety commitment and action (MSCA);
employee's safety commitment (ESC); perceived risk (PR); emergency response (ER).

show that chief executive officer's safety commitment and
action, and manager's safety commitment and action reached
significant level. Yet, employee's safety commitment,
perceived risk, and emergency response didn't. Regarding
the impact of different “safety manager,” both chief
executive officer's safety commitment and action, and
manager's safety commitment and action in universities
with a safety manager were higher than that without a safety
manager. As a result, this hypothesis should be rejected.
The hypothesis that there exists no difference in safety
climate between universities with and without a safety
committee was tested. The result reveals that chief executive
officer's safety commitment and action, manager's safety
commitment and action, employee's safety commitment, and
emergency response reached statistical significance, except
perceived risk. With respect to the impact of different “safety
committee,” chief executive officer's safety commitment and
action, manager's safety commitment and action, employ-
ee's safety commitment, and emergency response in
universities with a safety committee were higher than those
without a safety committee. Therefore, this hypothesis
should be rejected.
3.2.3. Individual factors affecting safety climate
By conducting MANOVA, the impact of the seven
individual factors on the climate is shown in Table 4. Only
two dimensions among them, “job tenure” and “work site,”
didn't reach a significant level, yet all the others, “gender,”
“age,” “title,” “accident experience” and “safety training,”
reached statistical significance. Accordingly, the hypothesis
that there exists no difference in perception regarding safety
climate among employees of different job tenures, and the
hypothesis that there exists no difference in perception
regarding safety climate among employees in different work
sites should be retained.
The researchers also used ANOVA to test the hypothesis
that there exists no difference in perception regarding safety
climate between male employees and female employees. The
results reveal that only emergency response reached a
significant level, and the other four dimensions (chief
executive officer's safety commitment and action, manager's
safety commitment and action, employee's safety commit-
ment, and perceived risk) didn't. Regarding the impact of
different “gender,” emergency response perceived by males
was higher than that perceived by females. As a result, this
hypothesis should be rejected.
Moreover, with respect to analyzing the difference of
“age” in each dimension of safety climate by the same
method, result reveals that all five dimensions, chief
executive officer's safety commitment and action, manager's
safety commitment and action, employee's safety commit-
ment, perceived risk, and emergency response reached
 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102 97

Table 4
Summary of individual factors affecting safety climate
IF Dimensions MANOVA ANOVA
Wilks'∧ η2 Power F P Comparison
Gender CSCA .983⁎ .017 .790 3.042 .082
MSCA 3.595 .058
ESC .043 .837
PR .000 .994
ER 7.676⁎⁎ .006 Male N Female
Age CSCA .943⁎⁎⁎ .029 .999 3.596⁎ .028 Above 45 N 25–44
MSCA 3.634⁎ .027 Above 45 N Below 24
ESC 5.327⁎⁎ .005 25–44 N Below 24, Above 45 N Below 24
PR 6.290⁎⁎ .002 25–44 N Below 24, Above 45 N Below 24
ER 17.835⁎⁎⁎ .000 25–44 N Below 24, Above 45 N Below 24
Job tenure CSCA .979 .007 .672
MSCA
ESC
PR
ER
Title CSCA .983⁎ .017 .796 2.443 .118
MSCA 7.014⁎⁎ .008 Manager N Faculty and staff
ESC 2.754 .097
PR 1.897 .169
ER 10.415⁎⁎⁎ .001 Manager N Faculty and staff
Accident experience CSCA .929⁎⁎⁎ .071 1.000 8.133⁎⁎ .004 In-experienced N Experienced
MSCA 3.540 .060
ESC 1.311 .253
PR 35.361⁎⁎⁎ .000 In-experienced N Experienced
ER .296 .586
Safety training CSCA .928⁎⁎⁎ .072 1.000 19.456⁎⁎⁎ .000 Trained N Untrained
MSCA 26.937⁎⁎⁎ .000 Trained N Untrained
ESC 21.779⁎⁎⁎ .000 Trained N Untrained
PR 6.249⁎ .013 Trained N Untrained
ER 47.657⁎⁎⁎ .000 Trained N Untrained
Work site CSCA .977 .012 .816
MSCA
ESC
PR
ER
Notes: ⁎p b .05, ⁎⁎p b .01, ⁎⁎⁎p b .001.
Abbreviations: individual factors (IF); chief executive officer's safety commitment and action (CSCA); manager's safety commitment and action (MSCA);
employee's safety commitment (ESC); perceived risk (PR); emergency response (ER).

significant levels. Further comparison on these five dimen-
sions against different ages shows difference existing for
each dimension. Therefore, the hypothesis that there exists
no difference in perception regarding safety climate among
employees of different ages should be rejected.
Next, regarding “title,” the results reveal that manager's
safety commitment and action, and emergency response
reached significant levels. The other three dimensions didn't.
Further comparison on these two dimensions with significant
effect against different titles shows a difference. Moreover,
both manager's safety commitment and action, and emer-
gency response perceived by the managers were higher than
that perceived by both faculty and staff. As a result, the
hypothesis that there exists no difference in perception
regarding safety climate between employees with different
job titles should be rejected.
Then, with respect to the difference of “accident
experience” in each dimension of safety climate, the results
show that chief executive officer's safety commitment and
action, and perceived risk reached significant levels. The
other three dimensions didn't. Further comparison on these
two dimensions against the accident experience shows a
difference. And both chief executive officer's safety
commitment and action and perceived risk perceived by
inexperienced accident employees were higher than that
perceived by experienced accident employees. As a result,
the hypothesis that there exists no difference in perception
regarding safety climate between employees with different
accident experiences should be rejected.
Finally, in terms of the difference of “safety training” in
each dimension of safety climate, the result reveals that all
five dimensions have reached significant levels. Further
comparison on these five dimensions against different safety
training shows the difference. All the five dimensions
perceived by trained employees were higher than that
perceived by untrained employees. Therefore, the hypothesis
98 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
that there exists no difference in perception regarding safety
climate between employees with safety training and those
without safety training should be rejected.
4. Discussion
4.1. Interpretation of safety climate
4.1.1. Total safety climate and the respective dimension of
safety climate
In all, regarding the whole perception of safety climate,
the mean score is 4.00, which is about “agree.” This is an
indication of a good safety climate. This result is similar to
the study conducted by Wu and Kang (2002). As to the
intensity of each dimension, the order is as follows:
employee's safety commitment, emergency response, per-
ceived risk, manager's safety commitment and action, and
chief executive officer's safety commitment and action. This
shows that the employees have stronger perception of
commitment to safety, and weaker perception of chief
executive officer's commitment and action to safety. This
may be related to familiarity (Robbins, 1993). Given that
familiarity is a factor affecting the selective perception,
employees have stronger perception of employee's safety
commitment, and emergency response because of their
familiarity with the two areas. On the other hand, provided
that employees are less knowledgeable on the manager's
safety commitment and action, and chief executive officer's
safety commitment and action, they have weaker perception
of these two subjects. This result supports the studies by Wu
and Kang (2002), and Wu et al. (2003).
4.1.2. The effects of organizational factors on safety climate
First, there was a significant difference in the safety
climate between public universities and private universities.
The organizational structure could be an explanation to this
result. Universities and colleges are non-profit institutions
with a static organizational structure. Under the condition,
employees have significant influence on school administra-
tion. However, their values and behaviors are often
inconsistent with the goals of the organizations they belong
to. The inconsistency is worse in public schools than in
private schools. Furthermore, regarding the relationship
between rights and obligations existing in the schools and
employees, public schools have looser control on their
employees than private schools. Consequently, private
universities and colleges have better safety climate than the
public ones. The result of this study supports the research
conclusion presented by Wu et al. (2003).
Next, there was a significant difference in safety climate
between universities with safety managers and those
without. Safety structure could provide explanatory power
about the finding. For the purpose of preventing accidents
and controlling loss resulting from the accidents, a safety
manager is one of the safety structures set up by the school.
In addition, the major role of a safety manager is to
communicate, develop, and monitor safety issues in the
organization (Cooper, 1998). Therefore, schools that
employed a safety manager probably have higher budgets
for safety issue. Furthermore, a safety manager may also be
given more safety authority to integrate instruction and
safety, providing a better safety climate. This result supports
the conclusion presented by Wu and Kang (2002) and Wu
et al. (2003).
A similar result was also found in the impact of “safety
committee” on safety climate. There was a significant
difference in safety climate between universities with and
without a safety committee. This result is also related to
safety structure. With the safety committee, both manage-
ment and employees are all involved in the process of safety
planning. This helps in communicating safety issues among
different levels in the organization and thus improves the
organization's safety climate. This result supports the
conclusion by Wu et al. (2003).
4.1.3. The effects of individual factors on safety climate
There was a significant difference between male and
female employees' perceptions regarding safety climate in
emergency response. Specifically, males have stronger
perceptions than females. This result may be associated
with spatial ability (Halpern, 1992; Maccoby & Jacklin,
1974). Industrial safety is an issue with dynamics and
complexity. Due to better spatial ability, males can
apprehend the safety climate under this kind of complex
working environment. Nonetheless, cautioned should be
used when interpreting these findings because there was an
interaction between gender and other individual/ organiza-
tional factors (McAndrew, 1993). Again, this result supports
the research presented by Wu and Kang (2002) and Wu et al.
(2003).
Next, there was a significant difference in perception
regarding safety climate between employees of various ages.
This result may be related to the employees' career
development (Super, 1957). According to Super's view,
one reaches the maintenance stage of his/her career at the age
between 45 and 64. During this period of time, the employee
is fully comfortable with the working environment, with
matured skills after long years of service. Those in the 25 to
44 age range are in the establishment stage of one's career.
The employees are familiar with the skill required and
working environment as years of service get longer. Below
the age of 24 is the exploration stage of one's career. Due to
shorter years of service, employees are not very skillful and
less familiar with the working environment. This finding also
supports the research conducted by Wu and Kang (2002) and
Wu et al. (2003).
Significant difference existed in perception regarding
safety climate between employees of various job titles.
Specifically, managers' perception was stronger than the
perceptions of faculty and staff. This may have connection
with attribution error (Cooper, 1998; DeJoy, 1994; Geller,
1998). The action of safety management mostly comes from
 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
attribution, and not from the real cause. When ascribing,
managers often attribute internal factors whereas the
employees often tend to external factors. O'Dea and Flin
(2001) argued that managers like to ascribe incident to
internal factors instead of external factors; the safety climate
survey conducted by Niskanen (1994) showed that there was
a difference in perception of safety climate between super-
visors and workers.
Significant difference existed regarding the perception of
safety climate between employees with several accident
experiences. And the perception of employees who didn't
experience accidents was stronger than the perception of
employees who experienced accidents. This result has to do
with the past experience (Robbins, 1993) or to attribution
error (Cooper, 1998; DeJoy, 1994; Geller, 1998). Experi-
ences prompt human being to pay more attention on certain
matters. Thus, workers who have experienced accidents or
disasters usually have stronger perceived risk (i.e., weaker
safety climate). On the other hand, workers experienced with
incidents often put the blame on unsafe environment or
condition instead of unsafe behavior. Williamson et al.
(1997) indicated that the employees who had experienced
accidents reported poorer safety practice in their workplaces.
This finding also agrees with the result of Wu et al. (2003).
Finally, there was a significant difference in perception
regarding the safety climate between employees with various
safety training. The perceptions of employees who received
safety training were stronger than the perception of employ-
ees who didn't receive safety training. This may be related to
behavior modification. Safety training can improve employ-
ees' safety behavior, and there is an interaction between
safety behavior and safety climate (French & Bell, 1995).
Accordingly, better safety behavior helps promote positive
safety climate. In addition, O'Dea and Flin (2001) proposed
that working safely becomes a habit instead of a procedure to
be followed after employees' behaviors changed. As a result,
the behavior modification also helps improve the safety
climate. Therefore, employees who received safety training
have higher perceived safety climate than those without
safety training. Krouse and Hidley (1989) supported that
safety training could improve workers' safety behavior in
manufacturing industry and transportation industry. They
attributed this to the fact that better safety behavior might
promote the safety climate in a better way. The survey
conducted by Hayes et al. (1998) found that workers who
had experienced safety training before starting new jobs had
better safety perception regarding the working environment
than those without any experience. This result also agrees
with the research results of Wu and Kang (2002), and Wu
et al. (2003).
4.2. The statistical significance and practical significance
Using one-way ANOVA, the test for different signifi-
cance can easily reach the significant level with large sample
size. Although some variables in the present study show
99
statistical significance on the safety climate, according to
Stevens (1992), on confidence intervals, effect size, or
association, practical significance needs to be considered. In
many studies, there was practical significance when the
association or the explained variance was more than 10%.
According to Cohen and Cohen (1983), the variance below
6% means the inter-correlation between variables is weak;
the inter-correlation is of medium level when the variance is
between 6% and 16%; strong inter-correlation exists when
the variance is above 16%. Therefore, both accident
experience (η2 = 7.1%) and safety training (η2 = 7.2%) have
statistical significance on the safety climate and also possess
certain degrees of practical significance. On the other side,
ownership (η2 = 4.2%), safety manager (η2 = 4.8%), safety
committee (η2 = 4.7%), gender (η2 = 1.7%), age (η2 = 2.9%),
and title (η2 = 1.7%) all show statistical significance but still
do not show practical significance.
4.3. Conclusion and recommendations
According to the results of this study, three of the
organizational factors (ownership, safety manager, safety
committee) and five of the individual factors (gender, age,
title, accident experience, and safety training) have statisti-
cally significant effects on the safety climate. In other words,
out of the 12 null hypotheses in this study, four hypotheses
should be retained, and all others can be rejected. Among
them, the effects of safety manager, gender, age, and safety
training on the safety climate support the research results of
Wu and Kang (2002) and Wu et al. (2003). Moreover, the
effects of ownership, safety committee, and accident
experience on the safety climate support the conclusion
presented by Wu et al. (2003).
The reason that the organizational factors can affect the
safety climate is due to the organizational structure and
safety structure. The reason that the individual factors can
affect the safety climate is due to the spatial ability, career
development, past experience or attribution error, and
behavior modification. However, this doesn't mean it has a
practical value in regard to the industrial safety issue, even
though the result showed statistical significance. Based on
the present study, both experience of accidents and safety
training show practical difference on the safety climate.
As a result, managers of the organization should pay close
attention to these important factors that can influence the
safety climate. Actions of improvement based on these
factors will facilitate creating a positive safety climate. To
conclude, universities and colleges should continue to
enhance their safety management and facility in order to
provide a safer working environment, and then minimize the
employees' risk exposure and reduce the occurrence of
accidents and disasters. This will also help improve the
safety climate; in addition, building-up workers' safety
behavior by regular safety training can boost their emergen-
cy response, which helps promote positive safety climate.
Furthermore, factors that have effects on the safety climate
100 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102
are complicated. Organizational factors and individual
factors are part of them. Organizational leadership or safety
leadership also may have major influence on the safety
climate. Consequently, one can investigate the effect of
organizational leadership or safety leadership on the safety
climate in the future.
Acknowledgment
The National Science Council of the Republic of China
under grand NSC 91-2516-S-241-001 supported this re-
search. The support received was greatly appreciated.
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Appendix A. Questionnaire
General Information
1.What is the number of employees in this university
(Below 299/ above 300)?
2.What type of ownership is this university (Public/
private)?
3.Does this university employ a safety manager (Yes/ no)?
4.Does this university implement a safety committee (Yes/
no)?
5.What is the location of this university (Northern/ central/
southern)?
6.What is your gender (Male/ female)?
7.What is your age?8.How long have you been working for
this university?
9.What is your present job title (Manager/ faculty and staff)?
10.Have you experienced an accident (Yes/ no)?
11.Have you received safety training (Yes/ no)?
12.What site do you work (Laboratory/ practice factory/
testing ground)?
Safety Climate Scale
CEO’s safety commitment and action
1.He/she explicitly indicates to provide a safe working
environment.
2.He/she explicitly indicates to allocate resources to
improve safety facilities.
3.He/she explicitly indicates to employ full-time safety
manager.
4.He/she explicitly indicates that safety and instruction are
of equally important.
5.He/she often declares safety policy.
6.He/she frequently participates in safety committee.
7.He/she pays close attention to workers’ safety.
8.He/she frequently walks through the work place and
understands the safe condition.
9.He/she routinely checks the health and safety manage-
ment.
10.He/she frequently audits the safety management practice.
Manager’s safety commitment and action
11.He/she explicitly indicates to provide sufficient safety
facilities.
12.He/she explicitly indicates to inspect the safety facilities.
13.He/she explicitly indicates the importance of safety
training.
14.He/she explicitly indicates that safety and instruction are
of equal importance.
15.He/she pays close attention to workers’ welfare.
16.He/she often praises workers’ safety behavior.
17.H/she allows employees to involve setting safety goal.
18.He/she frequently communicates safety issues to em-
ployees.
19.He/she regularly provides employees with safety in-
formation.
101
20.He/she puts into practice the safety recommendations
proposed by employees.Employees’ safety commitment
21.You are willing to accept physical examination.
22.You are willing to participate in the safety training.
23.You are willing to obey the safety regulations.
24.You are willing to improve the safety of work place.
25.You are willing to propose your opinion regarding safety
improvement.
26.You are willing to practice self-inspection.
27.You are willing to wear personal protective equipment.
28.You are willing to enforce the standard operation
procedures.
29.You are willing to maintain the cleanness and order of
the work place.
30.You are willing to maintain the function of safety
facilities.Perceived risk
31.While working, it is very unlikely for you to fall off.
32.While working, it is very unlikely for you to get an
electric shock.
33.While working, it is very unlikely for you to be pinched
by a machine.
34.While working, it is very unlikely for you to expose
under extreme heat condition.
35.While working, it is very unlikely for you to get in
contact with hazardous materials.
36.While working, it is very unlikely for you to get in
contact with infectious materials.
37.While working, it is very unlikely for you to carry heavy
objects.
38.While working, it is very unlikely for you to sustain
extreme job pressure.
39.While working, it is very unlikely for you to encounter
harassment.
Emergency Response
40.You clearly know where the personal protective equip-
ment is.
41.You clearly know where the emergency switch of the
machinery is.
42.You clearly know where the fire extinguishers are.
43.You clearly know where the first-aid facility is.
44.You clearly know the route for the emergency escape.
45.You clearly know the proper procedures to handle
electric shock.
46.You clearly know the proper procedures when fire break
out.
Tsung-Chih Wu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial
Safety and Health at Hungkuang University, Taiwan. He holds a M.S. and a
Ph.D. in Industrial Education from National Changhua University of
Education, Taiwan. His main research interests are safety leadership, safety
culture and safety performance measurement.
Chi-Wei Liu is a lecture in the Department of Hotel and Restaurant at
Hungkuang University, and also a doctoral student in the Graduate School
of Management at I-Shou University. She holds a master degree in
Teaching English as a Second Language from Georgia State of University,
USA. Her research interests anchor in organization behavior and knowledge
management.
102 T.-C. Wu et al. / Journal of Safety Research 38 (2007) 91–102

Mu-Chen Lu is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial

Safety and Health at Hungkuang University. He received a Ph.D. in
Mechanical Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington, USA. His
research interests are indoor air quality, building ventilation, and the
application of computational fluid dynamics in the design of ventilation
system.