Search

The present paper reports a series of studies conducted within aviation maintenance settings. The first study focussed on the link between safety climate, stress, and maintenance errors. The results suggested that safety climate does not have a direct effect on errors but has a strong indirect effect via psychological stress experienced by individual workers. A second study replicated this finding. A third study extended the model to include workplace violations and demonstrated that the link between violations and errors is not as strong as some might think. This third study also reinforced the causal chain running from safety climate, through psychological distress, to errors. At the same time, it showed a strong direct link between safety climate and violations. A fourth study has just been completed that introduced a variable labelled as Willingness to Report. Sections of the path model that were established in earlier studies received further support and a strong link was established between safety climate and Willingness to Report. The paper concludes with recommendations as to how these empirical findings can be used to support ongoing initiatives in safety training in high-risk industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is concerned with the human factors that contribute to violations in aviation maintenance. Much of our previous research in this area has been based on safety climate surveys and the analysis of relations among core dimensions of climate. In this study, we tap into mainstream psychological theory to help clarify the mechanisms underlying the links between climate and behaviour. Specifically, we demonstrate the usefulness of Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to understanding violation behaviours in aircraft maintenance. A questionnaire was administered to 308 aircraft maintenance workers. Constructs measured by the survey included perceptions of management attitudes to safety, own attitudes to violations, intention to violate, group norms, workplace pressures, and violations. A model based on the TPB illustrated hypothetical connections among these variables. Path analyses using AMOS 4.01 suggested some theoretically justifiable modifications to the model. Fit statistics of the revised model were excellent and R-Squared values for all endogenous variables were encouraging. The model highlighted the importance of management attitudes and group norms as direct and indirect predictors of violation behaviour. We conclude that the TPB is suitable for the analysis of this type of safety behaviour but that to be truly useful it should be extended to incorporate management attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]