Open AccessThe Hierarchical Position and Length of Service as Determinants of Accidents Naive Explanations: A Study of a Romanian Enterprize
Author(s) -
Raluca Oprea Ciobanu,
Dongo Rémi Kouabenan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
psihologia resurselor umane
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.144
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 2392-8077
pISSN - 1583-7327
DOI - 10.24837/pru.v5i2.330
Subject(s) - fatalism , attribution , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , perception , psychology , context (archaeology) , scale (ratio) , applied psychology , geography , philosophy , theology , cartography , communication , archaeology , neuroscience
This article aimed at examining accidents' causal attributions by employees from a Romanian company according to their hierarchical position and their length of service. We particularly investigated how workers and their supervisors perceived risks and occupational accidents' causes. Participants were 114 employees, included 30 supervisors and 84 workers. They all belonged to the most exposed departments of the factory observed. The material used derived from the fatalism scale elaborated by Kouabenan (1998) and his risk perception and accidents' causal explanation scale (Kouabenan (1996). As far as possible we adapted this material to the Romanian context. The results showed that the employees had an accurate perception of the risks inherent in their work environment (pollution, occupational accidents, traffic accidents). There was no clear effect of the hierarchical position on causal attributions for the accidents. Both workers as well as their supervisors made more external attributions. However, workers held more fatalistic beliefs than supervisors. In the same way, the length of service didn't affect causal attributions for accidents, but affect the adherence to fatalistic beliefs. Less experienced employees believe more in fate than more experienced employees. All in all, the results of this study tend to confirm those of previous work (Kouabenan, 1996; Beauvois & Dubois, 1988; Yeray & Oskelys, 2001). Implications and possible preventive measures derived from these results were discussed.