The Moderator Role of Safety Climate in the Relationship between Job Stress and Safety Performance: An Investigation in the Health Sector
Ferhat Ayyıldız, Duygu İrem ÇamThe relationship between job stress and task performance is frequently studied in the literature. However, it is seen that there are fewer studies examining the relationship between job stress and safety performance which has important outcomes such as life safety. Therefore, the first aim of the present study was determined as examining the relationship between job stress and safety performance. Although previous studies have demonstrated the effects of various individual and situational factors on the job stress-performance relationship, it is noteworthy that the moderator role of the safety climate has not been examined yet. In this respect, another aim of the study is to investigate the moderator role of the safety climate as a situational variable in the relationships between job stress and sub-dimensions of safety performance. The present study was conducted with employees from the health sector as it contains both the most stressful jobs and high level of safety performance expectation. In this regard, the participants of the present study consisted of 165 healthcare professionals (73.3% women, 26.7% men) reached within the borders of Istanbul and Kocaeli. These professionals work in various departments and different roles (doctors, nurses, technicians, physiotherapists, laborants) in 11 institutions including three public hospitals and eight private hospitals. Job Stressor Appraisal Scale, Safe Behavior Scale and Safety Climate Scale were used to collect data. The correlation analysis results demonstrated the negative and significant relationship between job stress and safety compliance and safety participation as sub-dimensions of safety performance. Furthermore, it was found that the relationship between job stress and safety participation was moderated by the safety climate. These results indicate that while work stress increases safety participation in a low safety climate, it decreases in a high safety climate. On the other hand, the moderator effect of safety climate was not found statistically significant in the relationship between job stress and safety compliance. These results were compared with other research results in the literature and the effects of measurement-related and environmental factors on the results were discussed.
İş Stresi ve Güvenlik Performansı Arasındaki İlişkide Güvenlik İkliminin Düzenleyici Rolü: Sağlık Sektöründe Bir İnceleme
Ferhat Ayyıldız, Duygu İrem Çamİş stresinin görev performansıyla ilişkisi alan yazında sıklıkla incelenmektedir. Ancak, can güvenliği gibi önemli çıktıları olan güvenlik performansının iş stresiyle ilişkisini ele alan çalışmaların çok daha az olduğu görülmektedir. Bu nedenle mevcut çalışmanın ilk amacı, iş stresi ve güvenlik performansı arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi olarak belirlenmiştir. Bu ilişkiyi inceleyen önceki araştırmalarda çeşitli bireysel ve durumsal faktörlerin bu ilişkiye olan etkisinin ortaya konulmasına karşın güvenlik ikliminin düzenleyici rolünün henüz incelenmediği dikkat çekmektedir. Bu doğrultuda çalışmanın bir diğer amacı, iş stresi ve güvenlik performansının alt boyutları arasındaki ilişkide durumsal bir değişken olan güvenlik ikliminin düzenleyici rolünün sınanmasıdır. Bir yandan oldukça stresli işleri barındırması, bir yandan da çalışanlardan yüksek düzeyde güvenlik performansı beklentisine sahip olunması nedeniyle mevcut araştırma sağlık sektöründeki çalışanlar ile yürütülmüştür. Bu doğrultuda araştırmanın katılımcıları İstanbul ve Kocaeli sınırları içerisinde ulaşılabilen 165 sağlık çalışanından (%73.3 kadın, %26.7 erkek) oluşmaktadır. Bu çalışanlar, üçü kamu hastanesi ve sekizi özel hastane olmak üzere 11 kurumun çeşitli departmanlarında ve farklı rollerde (doktor, hemşire, teknisyen, fizyoterapist ve laborant) görev yapan kişilerdir. Verilerin toplanmasında İş Stresi Değerlendirme Ölçeği, Güvenli Davranış Ölçeği ve Güvenlik İklimi Ölçeği kullanılmıştır. Korelasyon analizi sonucunda iş stresinin güvenlik performansının alt boyutları olan güvenlik uyumu ve güvenlik katılımı ile negatif yönde ve anlamlı ilişkilere sahip olduğu görülmüştür. Ayrıca iş stresi ve güvenlik katılımı arasındaki ilişkide güvenlik ikliminin düzenleyici rolü olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Buna göre düşük güvenlik iklimine sahip ortamlarda iş stresinin güvenlik katılımını artırdığı, yüksek güvenlik iklimine sahip ortamlarda ise azalttığı tespit edilmiştir. Diğer yandan, iş stresi ve güvenlik uyumu arasındaki ilişkide güvenlik ikliminin düzenleyici bir rol oynamadığı gözlenmiştir. Bu sonuçlar, alan yazındaki diğer araştırma sonuçları ile karşılaştırılmış, ölçümle ilgili ve ortamsal faktörlerin bu sonuçlar üzerindeki etkisi tartışılmıştır.
One of the main organizational variables affected by job stress is performance (Okutan & Tengilimoğlu, 2002). The previous studies mostly focused on task performance, but the relationship between job stress and safety performance has been less investigated. Safety performance is defined as the safety-related behaviors of individuals or safety outcomes (Christian, Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009). Neal, Griffin and Hart (2000), one of the researchers examining the structure of this type of performance, called the task-oriented part of safety performance as safety compliance and the contextual aspect of that as safety participation. Although there are inconsistent findings in the literature regarding the relationship between stress and performance, a negative effect was often found in studies conducted in the field (Muse, Harris, & Feild, 2003). Therefore, a negative relationship between job stress and safety performance is expected in the present study.
As a reason for the inconsistent findings in the literature, the moderator role of various individual traits in this relationship was examined and the role of factors such as age (Shirom, Shechter Gilboa, Fried, & Cooper, 2008), self-efficacy and control level (Kavanagh, 2005) was revealed. Although it has been stated that situational and environmental factors interact with individual factors in coping with stress (Parkes, 1986), the role of organizational variables in this relationship has not been examined yet. Based on these statements, it is expected that a safety climate which is defined by Zohar (1980) as the sum of the perceptions shared by employees about safety may affect this relationship. Furthermore, the negative effects of job stress on safety compliance and safety participation are expected to be stronger in environments with high safety climates.
Method
The present study was conducted in the health sector as it contains the most stressful jobs and attaches importance to the concept of safety. The participants consisted of 165 health professionals (73.3% women, 26.7% men) reached within the borders of Istanbul and Kocaeli. These professionals work in various departments and different roles (doctors, nurses, technicians, physiotherapists and laborants) in 11 institutions including three public hospitals and eight private hospitals. Data were collected by using the Job Stressor Appraisal Scale (Özalp Türetgen, Sertel Berk, Başbuğ, & Ünsal, 2012), Safe Behavior Scale (Dursun, 2011) and Safety Climate Scale (Türen, Gökmen, Tokmak, & Bekmezci, 2014).
Results
According to the results of the correlation analysis, job stress showed significant negative relationship with safety compliance (r (163) = -.38, p < .01), safety participation (r (163) = -.24, p < .01) and safety climate (r (163) = -.59, p < .01). In addition, positive and significant relationships were seen between safety climate and safety compliance (r (163) = .56, p < .01) and safety climate and safety participation (r (163) = .38, p < .01).
According to the results of hierarchical regression analysis, the moderator role of the safety climate in the relationship between job stress and safety compliance was not significant (R2 change = .00, B = -.12, β = -.05, t = -.77, p > .05). On the other hand, the safety climate has a moderator effect in the relationship between job stress and safety participation (R2 change = .04, B = -.49, β = -.21, t = -2.83, p < .01). When the direction of this effect is considered with slope analysis, it is seen that safety participation was negatively affected by an increase in job stress in the environments with high safety climate (simple slope = -1.148, t = -2.686, p < .05). However, it was positively affected by an increase in job stress in the environments with low safety climate (simple slope = 1.175, t = 2.501, p < .05).
Discussion
The previous studies in the literature have found that various stressors perceived at work have a negative impact on productivity (e.g. Wu, 2011; Yozgat, Yurtkoru, & Bilginoğlu, 2013) and contextual performance (e.g. Chen, 2009; Nisar & Rasheed, 2019). However, the present study has shown that job stress has a negative relationship between both taskoriented and contextual aspects of safety performance. As considered stressors include factors that may be related to both task performance and contextual performance, such as role and workload, insecure relationships, and organizational norms and practices, it is understandable that different aspects of safety performance were negatively affected by this stress.
Although providing a high safety climate improves safety performance (Rahlin, Mustafa, & Majid, 2016), the sources of stress in the workplace should also be regulated to maintain these positive effects. Otherwise, these factors lead to more disruptive effects and the benefits of a high safety climate are reversed. Although various benefits of organizational climate have been demonstrated (Brown & Leigh, 1996; Fu & Deshpande, 2014; Neal et al., 2000), the side effects on the perception of stress factors have been demonstrated for the first time in this study.
The previous studies have shown that individual variables such as emotional intelligence (Lu & Kuo, 2016) and core self-evaluation (Yuan, Li, & Lin, 2014) make individuals more invulnerable to stress in terms of safety performance. On the other hand, interestingly, the current study shows that the high safety climate makes individuals more vulnerable to the effects of stress on the contextual aspect of safety performance. These results indicate that inconsistent results in the literature may be based on environmental factors in studies conducted in different environments.