REPOSITORY > RESULTS

Abstract

Managers’ commitment to safety has been recognised as a focal concept that can play an important role as organisations strive to improve safety performance and prevent major accidents (Flin, 2003; Flin & Yule, 2004). When management is committed to safety, this shows employees that safety is an important value to the organisation (Laurent et al., 2018; Ye et al., 2020). Flin (2003) suggests that in addition to managers’ behaviours that demonstrate their commitment to safety, managers’ leadership styles should also be considered. However, the main question that remains to be researched is how managers can most effectively convey their commitment to safety to employees and through what mechanisms.
In the first part of the dissertation, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to better understand the research on safety commitment and leadership. The analysis revealed that the majority of publications were published after 2010, drawing a clear distinction between the two periods. The results showed that safety culture and climate, and leadership behaviours represented the main topics in both periods. We identified the main influx of knowledge from three major disciplines (i.e., safety science, management and organisation, and psychology), indicating the interdisciplinary nature of this topic. Based on the analysis, we were also able to discuss the direction in which research on this topic might develop.
To gain a deeper understanding of safety commitment and leadership, we conducted a systematic review, presented in the second part. The study enabled us to identify the theoretical foundations on which research on safety commitment and leadership is based and how the aforementioned concepts have been addressed in the literature. Moreover, we identified the main characteristic of the concept of safety commitment, the most frequently addressed antecedents (e.g., leadership), consequences (e.g., safety behaviour), and main issues and challenges that should be addressed in the future (e.g., levels of analysis).
In the third part, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study to examine how COVID-19 and its associated mitigation measures affected the process safety management in safety-critical organisations. The results of the study provided in-depth insight into how organisations adapted to the changed circumstances and what measures they implemented to maintain their operational activities. Further, we identified the main challenges organisations faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and the most important factors that enabled them to endure during these times of crisis. The study also revealed that managers played an important role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To examine the relationship between managers’ commitment to safety and employees’ perceptions of managers’ commitment to safety and the potential mediating effect of leadership style, we also conducted an explanatory quantitative study described in the fourth part of the dissertation. The study confirmed a positive and significant relationship between managers’ commitment to safety and employees’ perceptions of managers’ commitment to safety. Furthermore, we found a statistically significant difference between managers’ and employees’ perceptions. The results of the mediation analysis also confirmed that leadership style mediates the relationship between managers’ commitment to safety and employees’ perceptions of managers’ commitment.