Psychological factors as predictors of employees' attitudes towards work place safety in a public electricity company in South Africa

English: Research on the relationship between individual differences and work place incidents/accidents, including driver accident causation, originates from as early as 1917. In the 21st century this phenomenon continues to be a critical agenda for research internationally. In addition, a wide range of individual (e.g. intelligence, personality, stress) and organisational (e.g. leadership support, safety culture, job satisfaction) variables have been investigated as latent or observable predictors of causes of why employees engage in atrisk behaviour. Attitude towards work place safety is a well researched phenomenon in parts of the world other than South Africa. In addition, no research in South Africa has suggested a process depicting a combination of psychological factors that are related to employees' attitude towards work place safety. This study explored the influence of psychological factors on attitude towards work place safety. The aim of this study was two-fold: firstly to determine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between the predictor and criterion variables, and secondly through partial least square path modelling (PLS), to determine whether employees' attitude towards work place safety could be influenced by individual psychological factors. The study included intelligence, personality, burnout, work engagement, and sense of coherence as the predictor variables, and safety consciousness (safety control, risk avoidance, stress tolerance), driver attitude and quality orientation as the criterion variables measuring attitude towards work place safety. Based on the literature, the study suggested a model depicting a sequential process of interrelationship amongst the psychological factors and their relationship with safety consciousness, driver attitude, and quality orientation. To test the validity of the theoretical model, the current study used a sample of individuals that have been involved in a work place incident/accident or vehicle accident between 2006 and 2008. A sample of 279 employees from a public electricity company in South Africa participated in the study. The study applied both survey and statistical modelling methodologies to guide the research. Standardised questionnaires were used to measure the different psychological and safety attitudinal variables. The scoring and reliability analysis of the measurement instruments for intelligence and personality variables were conducted by service providers. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the burnout, work engagement, sense of coherence, and safety attitudinal constructs to determine the applicability of the factor structures to the current sample. The suggested factor structures were confirmed through confirmatory factor analyses with acceptable levels of fit. Hypothesis I was supported through correlation analysis, confirming that statistically significant path coefficients exist between the different variables. Furthermore, the results of the regression analysis suggested that 9 psychological factors explained 67% of the variance on safety consciousness, 5 psychological factors explained 53% on driver attitude, and 7 psychological factors explained 35% on quality orientation. The Partial Least Squares Modelling approach was used to evaluate the reliability of the psychological and safety attitudinal factors included in the measurement model (outer model), as well as the evaluation of the theoretical model (inner model) of the current study. Acceptable levels of fit were obtained which guided the process for the evaluation of the proposed model. In the evaluation of the pathways between latent constructs statistically significant path coefficients were found between (1) intelligence and driver attitude, (2) personality and burnout, (3) personality and sense of coherence, (4) personality and safety consciousness, (5) sense of coherence and burnout, (6) sense of coherence and work engagement, (7) sense of coherence and quality orientation, (8) driver attitude and safety consciousness, and (9) quality orientation and safety consciousness. Of importance is that only intelligence, personality and sense of coherence were found to significantly influence participant attitude towards workplace safety. Personality and sense of coherence moderated the effect of burnout experience, while sense of coherence contributed positively to experiences of work engagement. The path relationship between the safety attitudinal constructs with burnout and work engagement was non significant. The study suggested that the theoretical model requires further refinement as well as the testing of the model on a larger sample.