Safety climate in industrial organizations: Theoretical and applied implications.

A 40-item measure of organizational climate for safety was constructed and validated in a stratified sample of 20 industrial organizations in Israel. This climate reflects employees' perceptions about the relative importance of safe conduct in their occupational behavior. It can vary from highly positive to a neutral level, and its average level reflects the safety climate in a given company. It was shown that there is an agreement among employees' perceptions regarding safety climate in their company and that the level of this climate is correlated with safety program effectiveness as judged by safety inspectors. The two dimensions of highest importance in determining the level of this climate were workers' perceptions of management attitudes about safety and their perceptions regarding the relevance of safety in general production processes. It is proposed that organizational climate, when operationalized and validated as demonstrated in this article, can serve as a useful tool in understanding occupational behavior.