Six organizational safety climate scales: psychometric study and confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the psychometric properties and factorial structure of six Organizational Safety Climate self-administered scales. Organizational Safety Climate is operationally defined as the employees perception of management's satefy organizational initiatives, and is seen to affect their behaviour. Scales were Management Safety Policy (IES), Organizational Safety Structure (EOS), Safety Training and Information (FIS), Management Safety Response (RES), Co-workers Safety Response (RCS) and Management Safety Actions (AES). They were administered to a sample of 114 workers, belonging to companies randomly selected from the accident records of the Conselleria de Treball i Afers Socials, a Regional Government Agency. Reliability and homogeneity analyses were carried out, both on the overall scale and on the individual items, with, in general, satisfactory results. Both exploratory and confirmatory analyses for the goodness-of-fit to adequate structural models were done. Results of the criterial validity analyses offer empirical support for the hypotheses concerning the relationship among the different scales measuring Safety Climate, which can be considered an important precursorin the processes leading to accidentsin developed labourorganizations.