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Organizational Safety Climate and Supervisory Layoff Decisions: Preferences Versus Predictions
Author(s) -
Probst Tahira M.,
Brubaker Ty L.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2007.00230.x
Subject(s) - layoff , productivity , organisation climate , production (economics) , organizational safety , psychology , safety climate , business , social psychology , operations management , marketing , organizational commitment , occupational safety and health , economics , organizational studies , unemployment , political science , microeconomics , economic growth , organizational engineering , law
The current research investigated the extent to which supervisors take safety vs. productivity into account when making layoff recommendations under conditions of differing organizational emphasis on safety vs. production. A laboratory experiment with 57 participants acting as supervisors manipulated the organizational climate to emphasize safety vs. production and the safety performance and productivity of 4 subordinates. Results indicate that layoff recommendations were influenced by the stated organizational climate. However, regardless of the stated organizational priorities, participants predicted that upper management's final layoff decisions would result in safe workers being laid off to a greater extent than productive workers. Implications of these results are discussed in light of organizational efforts to improve their safety climate and employee safety performance.