Linking empowering leadership to safety participation in nuclear power plants: a structural equation model.

INTRODUCTION Safety participation is of paramount importance in guaranteeing the safe running of nuclear power plants. METHOD The present study examined the effects of empowering leadership on safety participation. RESULTS Based on a sample of 495 employees from two Spanish nuclear power plants, structural equation modeling showed that empowering leadership has a significant relationship with safety participation, which is mediated by collaborative team learning. In addition, the results revealed that the relationship between empowering leadership and collaborative learning is partially mediated by the promotion of dialogue and open communication. CONCLUSIONS The implications of these findings for safety research and their practical applications are outlined. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY An empowering leadership style enhances workers' safety performance, particularly safety participation behaviors. Safety participation is recommended to detect possible rule inconsistencies or misunderstood procedures and make workers aware of critical safety information and issues.

[1]  David A. Hofmann,et al.  High reliability process industries: Individual, micro, and macro organizational influences on safety performance , 1995 .

[2]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[3]  Kevin C. Stagl,et al.  What type of leadership behaviors are functional in teams? A meta-analysis , 2006 .

[4]  Mark A. Griffin,et al.  Designing Healthy Work , 2003 .

[5]  Simo Salminen,et al.  Perceived Nuclear Risk, Organizational Commitment, and Appraisals of Management: A Study of Nuclear Power Plant Personnel , 1995 .

[6]  Jonathan A. Rhoades,et al.  The empowering leadership questionnaire: the construction and validation of a new scale for measuring leader behaviors , 2000 .

[7]  Theodore Panitz,et al.  Collaborative versus Cooperative Learning: A Comparison of the Two Concepts Which Will Help Us Understand the Underlying Nature of Interactive Learning. , 1999 .

[8]  Albert Frischknecht.  A Changing World: Challenges To Nuclear Operators And Regulators , 2004 .

[9]  Gordon W. Cheung,et al.  Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance , 2002 .

[10]  B. Schneuwly.  Cultural learning is cultural. [A commentary on Tomasello, Krugner and Ratner's "Cultural learning" Peer commentary by B. Schneuwly] , 1993 .

[11]  Kit-Tai Hau,et al.  Goodness of fit in structural equation models , 2005 .

[12]  Sharon Clarke,et al.  The Role of Leader Influence Tactics and Safety Climate in Engaging Employees' Safety Participation , 2006, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[13]  L. Cronbach.  Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests , 1951 .

[14]  G. Yukl,et al.  Leadership in Organizations , 1981 .

[15]  M. Browne,et al.  Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit , 1992 .

[16]  F. Chen.  Sensitivity of Goodness of Fit Indexes to Lack of Measurement Invariance , 2007 .

[17]  W. Bennis,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizations , 1966 .

[18]  Stephen J. Gerras,et al.  Climate as a moderator of the relationship between leader-member exchange and content specific citizenship: safety climate as an exemplar. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[19]  Zohar Dov,et al.  Safety Climate and Beyond: A Multi-Level Multi-Climate Framework , 2008 .

[20]  M. Browne,et al.  Automated Fitting of Nonstandard Models. , 1992, Multivariate behavioral research.

[21]  Inés Tomás,et al.  Leadership and employees' perceived safety behaviours in a nuclear power plant: A structural equation model , 2011 .

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

[23]  A Neal,et al.  Perceptions of safety at work: a framework for linking safety climate to safety performance, knowledge, and motivation. , 2000, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[24]  S. Clarke.  The relationship between safety climate and safety performance: a meta-analytic review. , 2006, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[25]  T. Beehr,et al.  Empowerment, span of control, and safety performance in work teams after workforce reduction. , 2001, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[26]  W. Borman,et al.  Expanding the Criterion Domain to Include Elements of Contextual Performance , 1993 .

[27]  K. Widaman.  Hierarchically Nested Covariance Structure Models for Multitrait-Multimethod Data , 1985 .

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

[29]  Stephen E. Condrey,et al.  Motivating Personnel at Russian Nuclear Power Plants: A Case-Study of Motivation Theory Application , 2005 .

[30]  J. S. Long,et al.  Testing Structural Equation Models , 1993 .

[31]  Dean Tjosvold,et al.  Flight Crew Collaboration to Manage Safety Risks , 1990 .

[32]  Francisco J. Gracia,et al.  Development and validation of the Team Learning Questionnaire , 2008 .

[33]  Marcel Simard,et al.  A multilevel analysis of organisational factors related to the taking of safety initiatives by work groups , 1995 .

[34]  K. M. Bartol,et al.  Empowering Leadership in Management Teams: Effects on Knowledge Sharing, Efficacy, And Performance , 2006 .

[35]  A. Erez,et al.  The nature and dimensionality of organizational citizenship behavior: a critical review and meta-analysis. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[36]  Rhona Flin,et al.  The role of management and safety climate in preventing risk-taking at work , 2007 .

[37]  A. Neal,et al.  The impact of organizational climate on safety climate and individual behavior , 2000 .