Abstract
This study tested the contribution of trust between leaders and subordinates to safety. It is suggested that leaders who create a relationship of trust with their subordinates are more likely to create a safe working environment, and to achieve higher and stronger safety-climate perceptions among their subordinates. Hence, trust should be negatively related to injuries and positively related to safety climate. Questionnaires distributed among 2524 soldiers in three army brigades tested for trust and safety-climate variables and were then crossed with injury rate according to medical records at the platoon level of analysis (N = 105). Trust was found to be negatively related to injuries and positively related both to level and strength of safety climate. Furthermore, safety-climate level was found to mediate the relationship between trust and injury rates. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1288-1295 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Accident Analysis and Prevention |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2010 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Financial support for this work was provided by the Safety Research Unit, Ministry of Defense, Tel Aviv, Israel . I wish to thank all the soldiers and officers who participated in the study, Dov Zohar for his inputs on the research model, and Adi Luria for her comments on an earlier version of this article.
Keywords
- Injury rate
- Safety-climate level
- Safety-climate strength
- Trust
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Human Factors and Ergonomics
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
