A dual perspective on risk perception and its effect on safety behavior: A moderated mediation model of safety motivation, and supervisor’s and coworkers’ safety climate

• Published in: Accident analysis and prevention 2020-01, Vol.134, p.105350, Article 105350
• Main Authors: Xia, Nini, Xie, Qiuhao, Hu, Xiaowen, Wang, Xueqing, Meng, Hao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accident Prevention - methods; Adult; Construction industry; Construction Industry - organization & administration; Female; Humans; Job demands; Male; Motivation; Occupational Health; Organizational Culture; Risk perception; Safety behavior; Safety climate; Safety Management - organization & administration; Safety motivation
• ISSN: 0001-4575; 1879-2057
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2019.105350

•Hindrance–challenge demands provide a theoretical perspective on risk perception.•Risk perception can be a job hindrance or a challenge depending on the context.•Construction workers view perceived risk as a hindrance preventing safety behavior.•Supervisor’s climate worsens the negative effect of risk perception on behavior.•Workers’ climate reverses the negative effect of risk perception on behavior. Previous studies have acknowledged the impact of risk perception on safety behavior, but were largely controversial. This study aims to clarify this conflict and the mechanism through which risk perception can have an impact on safety behavior. From the perspective of the dual attribute of the job demand concept in job demands–resources theory, we posit that risk perception can be considered as a job hindrance or a job challenge depending on the context, thereby resulting in a negative or positive impact on safety behavior, respectively. The current research context is the construction industry and the hypotheses were tested using hierarchically nested data collected from 311 workers in 35 workgroups. Risk perception was demonstrated to be a job hindrance exerting a negative impact on safety behavior and safety motivation mediated this effect. In addition, two dimensions of group-level safety climate––supervisor’s and coworkers’––were expected to alleviate or even reverse the detrimental effects of hindrance risk perception on safety motivation and on safety behavior via motivation. A moderation model and a first-stage moderated mediation model were established, respectively, for testing the moderating roles of safety climate in the relationship between risk perception and safety motivation, and in the indirect relationship of risk perception with safety behavior via motivation. Surprisingly, contrary to the hypotheses, when supervisor’s safety climate changed from a low level to a high level, the impact of risk perception on safety motivation changed from positive to negative, and the negative effect of risk perception on safety behavior via safety motivation was not alleviated but worsened. As expected, for workers in a positive coworkers’ safety climate, the negative effect of risk perception on motivation and the indirect negative effect of risk perception on behavior were both reversed to the positive. This indicates that coworkers’ safety climate helped to change perceived risk from a job hindrance to a challenge. This research contributes to workplace