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An investigation of safety training, safety climate and safety outcomes : A longitudinal study in a Malaysian manufacturing plant
Bahari, Siti Fatimah binti Binti
[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2011.
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ABSTRACTThe University of ManchesterSiti Fatimah BahariDoctor of PhilosophyAn Investigation of Safety Training, Safety Climate and Safety Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study in a Malaysian Manufacturing Plant2011Safety training and safety climate are widely researched topics in the area of safety management. Safety training, as one of the safety interventions, is believed to be an antecedent of safety climate improvement within organisations. The rapid advancement in the safety management field has also raised many questions, mainly regarding the roles of safety training and safety climate within organisations. Recent literature has viewed safety climate as a mediating variable between organisational policies and practices (such as safety training) and safety outcomes. Nevertheless, to date far too few attempts have been made to empirically study the impacts and influence of safety training on safety climate change and to subsequently improve safety outcomes over a period of time, especially in developing countries like Malaysia. To facilitate the expansion of current theoretical perspectives, the research attempts to improve our understanding of safety training’s impact on achieving a positive safety culture (via safety climate changes), particularly with regard to improved safety outcomes over a period of time. A quantitative approach, using a longitudinal panel design, was employed for the purpose of data collection. The results were based on two data collections carried out in a Malaysian manufacturing plant in 2008 and 2009. The response rate was 83 percent (N=330) in Time 1, 2008 and 98 percent (N=402) in Time 2, 2009. The findings of this study revealed that there was a significant improvement in all safety training impact subscales indicating that employees’ perceived their level of safety knowledge and skill transfer, safe work practices, and their understanding of safety and risk to all be higher in Time 2. The findings of this study also revealed significant improvements in the safety climate dimensions related to Management Attitude and Management Action, indicating that the management role has been viewed as crucial in improving and supporting employees’ and organisations’ safety. Over a period of time the positive correlation between safety training and safety climate became stronger with a significance difference of .005, where in Time 1, r=.740 and in Time 2, r=.745. This finding adds to the theoretical proposition that safety training is an antecedent to improving safety climate. Similarly, safety outcomes have significantly improved over a period of time and have a negative correlation with safety training and safety climate. Overall, the current study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of safety training impacts and its influence on safety climate, particularly with regard to the improvement of safety outcomes. However, this study has thrown up a number of questions that are in need of further investigation. The need for further research to investigate the effectiveness of specific safety training intervention with the addition of motivational factors, and its relation to safety climate over a period of time in various industries, remain crucial.