‘Chronic unease’ for safety in senior managers: an interview study of its components, behaviours and consequences

The high reliability literature describes a sense of chronic unease as supporting managers’ ability to deal with (safety) risks. This concept has been proposed to contain five components, namely the traits of propensity to worry, pessimism, and the cognitive abilities of requisite imagination, flexible thinking and vigilance. We study their applicability to senior managers’ experience of chronic unease and explore related behaviours and consequences. Semi-structured interviews (n = 27) were conducted with senior managers from the energy sector. Content analysis identified flexible thinking most frequently, followed by pessimism, propensity to worry, vigilance and requisite imagination. Experience additionally emerged as a theme. Sections that had been coded as flexible thinking were frequently also coded as a behaviour, suggesting it to be a partially observable response to chronic unease. Other behaviours that emerged as related to chronic unease were demonstrating safety commitment, transformational and transactional leadership styles, and seeking information. Chronic unease was described as having positive effects on safety, positive and negative effects on team interaction and negative effects on business and the managers’ personal outcomes. The findings indicate that the five components provide a basis for the measurement of chronic unease and suggest central behaviours and responses that should be considered in its future investigation.

[1]  N. McGlynn.  Thinking fast and slow. , 2014, Australian veterinary journal.

[2]  Patrick T. W. Hudson,et al.  A framework for understanding the development of organisational safety culture , 2006 .

[3]  Sharon Clarke,et al.  Safety leadership: A meta‐analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviours , 2013 .

[4]  Chapter 8 – Management commitment and leadership , 2003 .

[5]  Rhona Flin,et al.  “Danger—men at work”: Management influence on safety , 2003 .

[6]  Kathryn Mearns,et al.  Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features☆ , 2000 .

[7]  G. Guest,et al.  Data Reduction Techniques for Large Qualitative Data Sets , 2007 .

[8]  S. Tengblad,et al.  Is There a New Managerial Work? A Comparison with Henry Mintzberg's Classic Study 30 Years Later , 2006 .

[9]  R. J. House,et al.  Does Leadership Matter? CEO Leadership Attributes and Profitability under Conditions of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty. , 2001 .

[10]  Peter Herriot,et al.  The Content of the Psychological Contract , 1997 .

[11]  Jeremy M. Beus,et al.  Safety climate and injuries: an examination of theoretical and empirical relationships. , 2010, The Journal of applied psychology.

[12]  E. Kelloway,et al.  Development and test of a model linking safety-specific transformational leadership and occupational safety. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[13]  B. Lundman,et al.  Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. , 2004, Nurse education today.

[14]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Healthy Work : Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life , 1990 .

[15]  Kathryn Mearns,et al.  Skills, knowledge and senior managers' demonstrations of safety commitment , 2014 .

[16]  C. Stough,et al.  Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers , 2002 .

[17]  Gerry Stoker,et al.  Does Leadership Matter , 2007 .

[18]  Norbert Groeben,et al.  Dialog-Konsens-Methoden zur Rekonstruktion Subjektiver Theorien : die Heidelberger Struktur-Lege-Technik (SLT), konsuale Ziel-Mittel-Argumentation und kommunikative Flußdiagramm-Beschreibung von Handlungen , 1988 .

[19]  Andrew Hopkins,et al.  Management walk-arounds: Lessons from the Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout , 2011 .

[20]  Julian Barling,et al.  High-performance work systems and occupational safety. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[21]  John Bent,et al.  Flight Training and Simulation as Safety Generators , 2010 .

[22]  Jane Mullen,et al.  Divergent effects of transformational and passive leadership on employee safety. , 2006, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[23]  Robert G. Lord,et al.  Executive Leadership and Organizational Performance: Suggestions for a New Theory and Methodology , 1988 .

[24]  D. Zohar.  The effects of leadership dimensions, safety climate, and assigned priorities on minor injuries in work groups , 2002 .

[25]  F. Guldenmund.  The nature of safety culture: a review of theory and research , 2000 .

[26]  Gheordunescu Maria-Elena,et al.  STRESS IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2014 .

[27]  Jill C. Bradley,et al.  Workplace safety: a meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. , 2009, The Journal of applied psychology.

[28]  Andrew Hopkins.  Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout , 2012 .

[29]  J. Grimshaw,et al.  What is an adequate sample size? Operationalising data saturation for theory-based interview studies , 2010, Psychology & health.

[30]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty , 1982 .

[31]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .

[32]  B. Bass,et al.  Re‐examining the components of transformational and transactional leadership using the Multifactor Leadership , 1999 .

[33]  Theresa F. Rogers,et al.  Interviews by Telephone and in Person Quality of Responses and Field Performance , 1976 .

[34]  James T. Reason,et al.  Managing the risks of organizational accidents , 1997 .

[35]  Michèle Dupre.  Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage de : Andrew Hopkins, Disastrous decisions, The Human and organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout, CCH Australia Limited, 2012. , 2014 .

[36]  Delbert Miller,et al.  Qualitative Data Analysis Software , 2002 .

[37]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Practical intelligence : nature and origins of competence in the everyday world , 1986 .

[38]  J. C. Flanagan.  Psychological Bulletin THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE , 2022 .

[39]  M. Karir,et al.  The official report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission : executive summary , 2012 .

[40]  David Jones,et al.  Daedalus: Danger! Men at work , 2000, Nature.

[41]  R Flin,et al.  Leadership for safety: industrial experience , 2004, Quality and Safety in Health Care.

[42]  S. Elo,et al.  Qualitative Content Analysis , 2014 .

[43]  Hsiu-Fang Hsieh,et al.  Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis , 2005, Qualitative health research.

[44]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Managing the unexpected: Assuring high performance in an age of complexity. , 2001 .

[45]  K. Weick.  Organizational Culture as a Source of High Reliability , 1987 .

[46]  P. Hudson,et al.  Applying the lessons of high risk industries to health care , 2003, Quality & safety in health care.

[47]  Jan Francis-Smythe,et al.  The Role of Evidence in General Managers' Decision-Making , 2013 .

[48]  Ian Alexander,et al.  An introduction to qualitative research , 2000, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[49]  J. Reason,et al.  Combating omission errors through task analysis and good reminders , 2002, Quality & safety in health care.

[50]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Measure for Coding Data , 2007 .

[51]  H. Tohidi,et al.  Organizational culture and leadership , 2012 .

[52]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Managing the unexpected: resilient performance in an age of uncertainty, second edition , 2007 .

[53]  R. Flin,et al.  Chronic unease for safety in managers: a conceptualisation , 2014 .

[54]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[55]  E. Thompson,et al.  Reliability among Senior Managers of the Marlowe–Crowne Short-Form Social Desirability Scale , 2005 .