Chapter 9: We’ve Got (Safety) Issues: Current Methods and Potential Future Directions in Safety Climate Research

Safety has been the focus of much research over the past four decades, given the social and economic costs of unsafe work. For instance, the International Labor Organization (2009) estimated that approximately 2.3 million workers die each year due to occupational injuries and illnesses, and additionally, millions incur non-fatal injuries and illnesses. More recently, the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety (2016) estimated that US companies spend $62 billion in worker compensation claims alone.

In the Human Resource Management and related literatures (e.g., Industrial Psychology) safety climate has been perhaps the most heavily studied aspect of workplace safety (Casey, Griffin, Flatau Harrison, & Neal, 2017; Hofmann, Burke, & Zohar, 2017). Several meta-analyses have established that safety climate is an important contextual antecedent of safety behavior and corresponding outcomes (e.g., Christian, Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009; Clarke, 2010, 2013; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011). However, the research included in these meta-analyses varies considerably in several methodological and conceptual qualities that may affect the inferences drawn from safety climate studies.