SafetyInsights.org

This explored the relationship between Participative decision making (PDM) and Upward Voice (UV), & how trust in leadership and nuclear safety climate affect the relationship.

UV facilitates listening to employees` judgements, worries or concerns of problems before they cascade & emphasises employee contribution to safety, rather than seeing them as sources of failure.

PDM refers to “leaders’ encouragement and use of team members` input when making decisions” (p3). It’s hypothesised that PDM may encourage UV, where employees voluntarily communicate suggestions or concerns to someone higher in the organisation. PDM is thought to increase trust in leadership as it “provides clues on benevolence, goodwill and positive intentions” (p4), also implying sharing power & responsibility with workers, who are then more likely to reciprocate.

Nuclear safety climate was targeted rather than “generic” safety climate, as they aimed to focus on industry-specific perceptions.

Data was collected from 495 workers at two nuclear power plants.

I think I did a poor job summarising this one & especially the relationships between factors. The paper is open access though, so you can freely have a read.

Results:

Expectedly, results show that PDM influences UV both directly & indirectly through trust in leadership. The magnitude of indirect effects of PDM on UV, via trust in leadership, depended on the level of nuclear safety climate.

The positive influence of PDM on UV was weaker for employees reporting higher safety climate, showing that climate can, in a sense, make up for weaknesses in PDM. Employees displaying low reported nuclear safety climate & low PDM displayed lowest levels of UV.

PDM benefits engagement in UV directly and via increasing trust in leadership.  Trust is said to “[mediate] the relationship between supporting leadership styles (e.g., participative, transformational or shared leadership), that cultivate social exchange relationships, and performance” (p5).

PDM may engender social exchange relationships which cultivate trust in leadership, and encourage employees to perform beyond their formal role obligations. The study findings suggest moving away from solely person-centred approaches (emotion, attitudes etc.) to include organisational context and leadership.

Authors note that policies and practices attempting to promote UV shouldn’t rely only on leaders because org. context is also relevant. Also, when direct supervisors don’t encourage PDM, a high nuclear safety climate may substitute for its positive effects.

Findings are related to Highly Reliable Organising (HRO). It’s said HRO research has rarely incorporated UV into their approaches, despite recognising “front–line employees’ suggestions, ideas, worries, and concerns are crucial to prevent safety degradation in HROs” (p12)

For operating in high-risk environments (e.g. nuclear), it’s said that an environment supporting UV may help overcome overconfidence on the robustness of technology, and thus allow companies to “challenge such assumptions and enables managers to be aware of safety challenges” (p12).

UV is also said to enable a more proactive approach to safety, allowing key decision makers to be aware of potential migration of system performance outside of safe envelopes.

Because of the cross-sectional study design, the causal relationships and direction can’t be assumed.

Authors: Inmaculada Silla ¹,Francisco J. Gracia ^1,* and José M. Peiró, 2020, Sustainability

Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093672