ENHANCING SAFETY BEHAVIORS – HOW TO HANDLE VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT

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ENHANCING SAFETY BEHAVIORS –

HOW TO HANDLE VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION IN

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Master Thesis MscBA, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

August, 2010

ANA - MARIA TONITA Student number: 1832581 Planetenlaan 693 9742 HX Groningen Tel: 06 81823275 Email: ana.tonita@gmail.com Supervisor University: Frouke de Poel

Supervisor field of study: Jan Politiek

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my university supervisor, Frouke de Poel for granting me her support in my research endeavors, as well as for her kind involvement and constant feedback.

Furthermore, this thesis was based on the internship that I carried out for 6 months at Arriva Netherlands, in the Social Safety department. It has been a great opportunity and I am very grateful to the company supervisor, Jan Politiek, who has taken a real chance with a non-Dutchie. I just hope he does not regret it! Also, I would like to thank him for his continual advice, encouragement and trust in my initiatives and abilities – it has made all the difference.

Special thanks go to Kim, my colleague both in the MSc program and in Arriva, who has helped me more than once in my struggles with the Dutch language and culture.

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ABSTRACT

Nowadays, violence and aggression is a “hot topic”, especially in what service organizations are concerned, as more and more workers are confronted with external offenders (clients or simply strangers). But what can employees do about it? The present study aims at giving companies appropriate tools in order to enhance the safety behavior of their employees. Through a self-report survey conducted among the bus drivers of the company Arriva Netherlands, the effects of safety training and safety climate have been investigated. The results bring forward the importance of a rather novel training style – namely, insight training. Through more motivationally oriented training employees can be made to take initiative in safety issues. Moreover, risk perceptions were found to moderate the relation between safety training and safe behaviors. Companies confronted with violence and aggression issues are thus encouraged to incorporate this kind of training in their personnel development plan and to act upon reducing the level of risk that their employees perceive in their work environment.

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INTRODUCTION

The workplace safety field is an area of high interest for practitioners, as a large number of disabilities and deaths occur daily due to issues concerning occupational safety (Christian, Bradley, Wallace & Burke, 2009). It is therefore normal that research has also taken a great interest in it, aiming at providing tools for improving the quality of life of employees (Christian et al., 2009). Thus, studies have been made on safety management in factories, manufacturing, nuclear reprocessing plants, gas or oil companies, construction, drink or food industry (according to review by Flin, Mearns, O'Connor & Bryden, 2000).

Social safety is a part of safety that deals with violence and aggression (in this research the terms will be used interchangeably). Violence is related to severe physical aggression which usually includes a high degree of dominance (Steffgen, 2008). Aggression is seen as any behavior that leads to either harming or offending another person, who has no intention of provoking or participating in such a situation (Baron& Richardson, 2004, as cited by Steffgen, 2008). Thus, social safety refers to incidents such as: verbal threatening, physical threatening, assault and vandalism. The scope of the present study will cover violence and aggression incidents in which the offender is either a client or a stranger (according to classification by Merchant & Lundell, 2001). Contrary to most studies in the field (Hirschfield & Newton, 2008; Smith & Clarke, 2000 etc.), which take a more criminological point of view to the matter, this research looks into a more behavioral approach: how can employees influence such issues?

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Referring to crime in public transport, Nelson (1997, as cited by Newton, Johnson & Bowers, 2004: 303) said that “the ultimate goal should be to make riders feel safe by ensuring that they are safe”. This can be extended to the majority of working environments, where employees, as well as customers, can be made to feel safe (enhancing subjective safety) by reducing the number of incidents (enhancing objective safety). The present paper will try to reflect on how companies can enhance the safety of its employees, by looking into the variables affecting this ultimate goal: safety enhancement.

Companies are confronted more and more with the question: What can we do in order to keep employees safe and minimize the costs associated with health and safety issues? (Kath, Marks & Ranney, 2010). One path of action focuses on the elimination of work hazards (Smith, Karsh, Carayon & Conway 2003 as cited by Ford & Tetrick, 2008: 1472). However, certain industries do not allow for the elimination of hazards as easily as others do (Ford & Tetrick, 2008). Public transport is such an example, especially with regards to violence & aggression issues. The offenders (which in this case are the hazards) cannot be controlled – they are usually members from the public, who can be influenced by education and enhancement of civic behavior. But results of actions oriented towards these purposes are difficult to evaluate and have a long-term outcome. Thus, the importance of focusing on educating employees and making them behave safely is even greater. Safety training and safety behaviors become essential concepts in this discussion.

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concept (Keren, Mills, Freeman & Shelley, 2009), making it a topic of great interest. Finally, no direct link has been established between safety climate and safety behaviors (Cooper & Phillips, 2004). Thus, the following research question ensues:

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In industries in which contact with the public is involved, violence and aggression can be inflicted towards property (vandalism) or towards a person (Smith & Clarke, 2000). In the latter case, there are two possible victims: the employee of the company, as well as the member of the public (customer), giving way to a double approach. In the first case, the alteration of the potential victim’s behavior (the employee) is essential for enhancing safety (Heinrich, 1941, as cited by Cuivenor & Else, 1997). In the second case, the behavior of potential victims (customers) can only be minimally influenced and so the company must keep the hazards in control by relying on its employees to behave safely (Cuivenor & Else, 1997). In both situations, the need to influence the behavior of employees is emphasized. Helping people behave safely leads to avoiding hazards and injuries (Ford & Tetrick, 2008).

However, in order to do this it is necessary to know the reasons for which people behave more safely in certain situations and more unsafely in others. While answering this question, Andriessen (1978) suggested that “someone will act unsafely when he does not know what a safe way is, and/or when he is not able to do it more safely and/or when he is not motivated to do it safely” (: 364). Hence, in order to cover these points and ensure a safe behavior, the literature agrees on two paths of action (Ford & Tetrick, 2008):

• Building in the employees the knowledge and skills needed to behave safely; • Enhancing employee motivation to behave safely.

Safety training serves both of the above purposes, and thus becomes a key issue in the enhancement of safety performance, which must be an important dimension in any company’s policy (Ford & Tetrick, 2008).

As explained by Hale (1984), training is regarded as being “any activity which aims to increase the capacity of a person to respond in ways appropriate to the situation facing them. This includes the capacity to respond more rapidly and the capacity to evaluate situations more effectively, as well as the capacity to respond in new ways” (: 19). Adding to this the fact that this capacity can be enhanced in the two ways mentioned previously, gives rise to two types of training that are taken into account in the present study:

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• Insight training – influencing “what the employee is willing to do” (Tronsmoen, 2010: 37).

Training has been used to influence the behavior of employees, making them act more safely (Vecchio-Sadus & Griffiths, 2004). The literature usually distinguishes between two aspects of safety behaviors, namely: carefulness and proactive behavior (Andriessen, 1978). The former one is also referred to as the conventional approach (Goldberg, Dar-El & Rubin, 1991) or as risk- oriented behavior (Senserrick & Swinburne, 2001) and it concerns actions that encompass personal risks, which could be avoided with some effort. Proactive behavior is considered to be a participative approach and it implies accepting common responsibility for whatever safety accidents may arise (Goldberg et al., 1991) and realizing that active involvement might reduce their occurrence. The same distinction appears in Griffin and Neal (2000, as cited by Ford & Tetrick, 2008).

Thus, the literature provides us with information on two types of safety training and two types of safety behaviors. But what do these more specifically mean and what is the relation between them? The present paper will try to answer this question by testing the hypotheses set forth below.

Building Safe Behavior through Safety Training

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to be negatively associated with injury incidents (Huang et al., 2006). The violence and aggression context was however mostly left unexplored. A first hypothesis thus ensues:

Hypothesis 1a: Procedural training will have a positive impact on carefulness related to violence and aggression issues.

As for the other part of employee behaviors, proactive behavior is mostly defined as “taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones; it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively adapting to present conditions” (Crant, 2000: 436). The importance of pro-activity has been emphasized lately, especially due to the nature of the 21st century, in which work changes are commonplace (Crant, 2000). Nowadays, even monotonous, routine jobs are being transformed and employees are given more freedom, autonomy and possibility to act, as they are expected to engage in broader work-roles (Parker, 2000). Especially in a safety related context, employee pro-activity is seen as leading to better risk management and to the decrease of injuries and property damage (Vecchio-Sadus & Griffiths, 2004).

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Hypothesis 1b: Insight training will have a positive impact on the pro-active behavior of employees regarding violence and aggression issues.

Importance of Organizational Context – Safety Climate

However, besides the training provided, a company influences its employees through other contextual factors (Crant, 2000). The human component of a safe work environment is deemed essential, as policies and procedures will only be successful in an environment that supports safety measures and initiatives (Kath et al., 2010). In this way, the safety climate comes into focus, as it is seen as an essential variable in any company’s efforts to enhance safety performance (Coyle, Sleeman & Adams, 1995). Thus, it is considered important to introduce in discussion the way the employees perceive the organization, which has been proven to have impact at a group and organizational level (Ford & Tetrick, 2008).

Starting from the ‘70s a lot of research has tried to give a clear definition of safety climate and to achieve a clear differentiation from safety culture, but consensus has not yet been reached (Keren et al., 2009). Approaches differ depending on the different organizational assumptions taken into account by researchers (Guldenmund, 2000). The present study takes the same view as Flin et al. (2000) who consider that culture “embodies values, beliefs and underlying assumptions” (:178), whereas climate describes the perceptions of employees of the organizational atmosphere. Thus, climate refers to perceptions, while attitudes are associated with culture (Guldenmund, 2000). This approach has been chosen due to Schnieder’s (1975, cited by Zohar, 1980) argument that assumes perceptions have a psychological utility. They serve as a frame of reference for molding employee behavior. Safety climate is defined as a ‘snapshot’ of safety culture (Flin et al., 2000), reflecting individual perceptions of the priority that the organization places on policies and practices concerned with safety issues (Ford & Tetrick, 2008).

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Thus, the present study takes the same view as the above cited research and proposes that safety climate has a positive influence on safety behaviors. It does so by creating the environment for the development of worker actions, setting the trend for what is allowed and what is not, and rewarding or punishing employee behaviors accordingly. Moreover, Hofmann, Morgeson and Gerras (2003) showed that workers were more likely to engage in safety behaviors in work contexts where a more positive safety climate existed. The present paper suggests a slightly different approach by examining the effects of two separate safety climate dimensions: perceived management attitudes towards safety and risk perception.

This approach is based on research by Zohar (1980), Coyle et al (1995), Flin et al. (2000) and Guldenmund (2007) who, basing it on factor analysis, have deemed them to be the most important dimensions for the concept. Furthermore, Williamson, Feyer, Cairns and Biancotti (1997) consider them to have the most practical importance. According to them, these dimensions show differences in the perceptions of employees, which are often outcomes of safety interventions- in this way practitioners are able notice the effect of their actions. Thus, perceived management attitudes towards safety is seen as the most important dimension by a majority of studies (72%) (Zohar, 1980; Flin et al., 2000). Management involvement is considered a major guideline for employees in shaping their behavior (Zohar, 1980). Risk perception is the second most researched dimension (67% - Guldenmund, 2007) and refers to the perceived level of risk associated with the workplace (Zohar, 1980; Flin et al, 2000). As the topic of interest is violence and aggression, it is important to find out how risky the employees perceive their job to be and whether this affects their ulterior behavior.

We expect management attitudes to have a positive impact on carefulness. This is based on the fact that employees will have a more pronounced will to enhance safety when they perceive it as a main preoccupation and point of emphasis of the managers (Christian et al., 2009). Kath et al. (2010) consider that in such a circumstance, employees will not only be more encouraged to apply existing rules and procedures, but will also persuade their colleagues to do so. In addition, Zohar (1980) found that management involvement was a characteristic of most low-accident companies.

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accidents than those who see their job as safer. This is due to the fact that the level of risk perceived by employees affects their way of managing the risk (McLain, 1995). When perceiving low risk levels, employees will be more willing to take action, as they believe the negative consequences not to be so big. High risk levels will most likely inhibit any kind of action. Thus, a negative relation will be expected between risk perceptions and proactive behavior. The second hypothesis of the study ensues:

Hypothesis 2: Safety climate is related to worker safety behaviors.

Hypothesis 2a: Perceived management attitudes towards safety have a positive impact on carefulness behaviors related to violence and aggression incidents.

Hypothesis 2b: Risk perceptions will have a negative effect on employee proactive behavior regarding violence and aggression incidents.

Moderator Effect of Safety Climate

Besides the direct relationship that safety climate is envisaged to have on safety behaviors, this study will also look into an indirect effect that perceptions of employees on safety issues is supposed to have (Seo, 2005), such as their impact upon the relationship between safety training and safety behaviors. This is most likely since these perceptions are used by employees as a frame of reference in all their activities (Zohar, 1980) and can also serve as a “powerful proactive management tool” in designing health and safety programs (Coyle et al, 1995). Therefore, when a positive safety climate exists within the organization, it is more likely that employees will respond positively to the training they receive.

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these rules will not be complied with and thus, the effect of the procedural training will be diminished. The employees will feel that the training received is mostly “words” and is not really meant or supported by other organizational actions.

On the other hand, risk perceptions are expected to moderate the relation between insight training and proactive behavior. Seo (2005) found indeed an indirect effect of perceived risk on unsafe work behavior. Furthermore, Williamson et al. (1997) show that the “personal motivation for safe behavior” (: 24) is affected by the risk justification factor. Thus, it is normal that when employees perceive their job as high-risk they will lose the motivation gained through insight training to get more involved. They will be guided by a minimizing the risk policy, and thus the effect of the insight training on employee pro-activity will be reduced. Hypothesis 3, with its two composing parts, thus emerges:

Hypothesis 3: Safety climate moderates the relationship between safety training and worker safety behaviors.

Hypothesis 3a: Perceived attitudes of management moderate the relationship between procedural training and carefulness. When management is perceived as more interested in safety issues, the effects of procedural training on carefulness will be enhanced.

Hypothesis 3b: Risk perceptions moderate the relationship between insight training and proactive behavior. When employees perceive their job as being high risk, the effect of insight training on proactive behavior will be diminished.

By adding up the hypotheses previously mentioned, the theoretical model illustrated below can be conceived (Figure 1), which will be used as a framework for the development of the present study. The following, more specific, sub-models (Figures 1a and 1b) will be empirically tested.

FIGURE 1 - Research Model

Safety Training Safety Behaviors

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FIGURE 1a – Sub- model 1

FIGURE 1b – Sub- model 2

H3a H2a H1a Procedural Training Carefulness Perceived Management Attitudes H3b H2b H1b

Insight Training _BehaviorsProactive

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METHODS

Procedure and Respondents

The sample consisted of 117 respondents, bus drivers from Arriva Nederland, specifically from the regions of Zuid-Holland-Zuid and North-Brabant (see Figure 2 for more details on the organizational context). The response rate was 14.5% (relative to the drivers hired in the two regions). 88% of respondents were male, and only 12 % female. The respondents were grouped in 4 age groups: 16 – 25, 26 – 40, 41 – 55 and above 56, in compliance with the internal classification of the company. The average age of respondents was 48.55 (SD = .89), with only 18% belonging to the first two age groups.

Most bus drivers’ education level is either Middelbare school (high school: VMBO- preparatory middle-level applied education or selective secondary education: HAVO- higher general continued education, VWO- preparatory scientific education) – 40% or Middelbare beroepsopleiding (tertiary education: MBO – middle-level applied education) – 41%. Most of the respondents have been bus drivers for more than 10 years, with 39% having even more than 20 years experience. As for tenure within the company, 99% of respondents have been driving with Arriva for less than 10 years (52% having less than 3 years experience with the company). This is explainable by the context of the industry (see Figure 2).

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The present study is based on data collected from bus drivers in the Netherlands, belonging to the company Arriva Nederland. The public transport industry has been chosen due to the increasing attention that violence and aggression has received in the media lately (Steffgen, 2008). It has gone so far, that in Arriva a special department has been created to deal with social safety issues and a platform among competitors has been created to discuss and share knowledge about the issue. Furthermore, the special context of the industry enhances the impact of violence and aggression incidents. The large accessibility of public transport (in the following referred to as PT) makes it a perfect target for criminals and it gives them the chance to target a large number of people.

Service Industry

The public transportation market in the Netherlands is partially regulated through the competitive tendering system. Starting from 2001, local authorities (meaning at province level and in some cases bigger urban areas) have the right to provide PT services by using competitive tendering in the selection of bus operators (Van de Velde, Veeneman & Schipholt, 2008). A “mathematical” award model is used: operators receive points on various criteria and the highest score wins (Van de Velde et al., 2008). This does not apply to the four bigger urban areas, where the operators are still state-owned. A particularity of the Dutch system concerns the financing. Local governments do not have their own taxes, so they receive transfers from central authorities which can be used only for PT. This practice makes the system focus on “maximizing supply and quality for the existing budget” (Van de Velde et al., 2008: 3). Concerning the violence and aggression topic specifically, funding differs from region to region, but is mainly received for specific plans developed by the company. The aims of the government when introducing this CT system have been to increase ridership, to lead to better cost- recovery, as well as to emphasize innovation and enhance service design (Van de Velde et al., 2008).

Arriva Nederland

Arriva plc is a British-based international public transport operator. It has bus and/or rail operations in Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. The company has entered the Dutch market in 1998 and has its headquarters located in Heerenveen. It runs bus and rail operations all over across the country, owning 8 concessions (15% market share). Two of the most important concessions are in the regions of Zuid- Holland- Zuid and North- Brabant, where the present study has been carried out.

Social Safety Statistics

Lately, violence and aggression issues have escalated. The yearly survey conducted in the Netherlands by the Transport Knowledge Resource Centre (KpVV- Hendriks, 2008) shows a 4%

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increase in the number of public transport personnel who have been subjected to violence and aggression, from 2006 to 2008. Moreover, according to the OV- Klantenbarometer performed by the same institution (KpVV- AGV Movares, 2009) people have rated PT with a 7.5 score on safety, on a scale from 1- 10. The score has been mostly constant since 2004, showing only a small increase over the years. In what employees are concerned, the number of drivers feeling very safe at work has been decreasing, from 52% in 2006, to 46% in 2008. The numbers show that even if passengers feel relatively safe while travelling, employees do not share the opinion and also objectively, safety issues have escalated lately.

Employees

Study participants were bus drivers. Due to the competitive tendering system used, most of them had been working as bus drivers for longer than they had been working for Arriva. The system implies that when a concession is taken over by another company, the employees also switch company so as not to relocate. The company has in total around 1400 bus drivers, of which 555 are located in Zuid- Holland- Zuid and 251 in North- Brabant.

Measures

Safety training. As mentioned in the Theoretical section, two aspects of safety training were

measured. Thus, Procedural Training was measured based on Glodberg et al.’s (1991) method. Respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all; 5 = Very much) to what extent training on certain safety related issues helped them in their job. This related to, for example, how much training on the appropriate procedure to follow in case of verbal aggression has been useful and comprised 6 items. In what Insight Training was concerned, since the concept is largely underdeveloped especially for safety issues, two scales were combined. Using also a 5-point Likert-type scale anchored by 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strongly agree, a combination of 7 items from the scales used by Zohar (1980) and Lu and Shang (2005) was achieved. A sample item would be to what extent bus drivers believe that investment in safety training is a worthy investment as it improves worker performance, or to what extent they think the design of the safety training received is good. The Cronbach alpha for Procedural Training achieved was .89 and for Insight Training .74.

Safety behaviors. In the case of the dependent variable, the level of safety behaviors that

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encounter certain situations in their working environment, giving rise to a scale composed of 9 items. For Carefulness (3 items) this might mean how often they get out of the booth when someone becomes aggressive or how often they handle incidents on their own rather than reporting them. For Proactive Behavior (6 items), sample items include how often safety incidents are reported or how often drivers notify that certain routes have become more dangerous. This variable reported a Cronbach alpha of .86, while Carefulness has a reliability coefficient of .77.

Safety climate. As previously presented, the safety climate concept was measured on the two

dimensions considered most relevant for this particular concept. To this purpose, the scale of Zohar (1980), comprising 12 items, was used. A 5-point Likert-type scale was also used, anchored by 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strongly agree. A sample item for Perceived Middle Management Attitudes (8 items) towards safety involved to what extent are depot managers willing to invest effort and money to improve the safety level. As for Risk Perceptions (4 items), drivers were asked to rate to what extent they are concerned about the risk level of their job. The Cronbach alpha for this variable was .77, while Management Attitudes reported an alpha of .87.

Control variables. Gender was included as a control variable, due to the fact that women

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Data Analysis

Factor analysis. Descriptive statistics were first analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis was

afterwards used in order to verify the hypothesized dimensions of the described concepts (the output can be seen in Appendix 1 and 2). As a result, only one item from one variable was deleted, as its loading was not high enough. This item pertains to Carefulness: item 2 - Listening to music or talking on the phone while driving. The Bartlett’s test for sub-model 1 gave a chi-square of 859.935 (df = 153, p=.00). Sub-model 2 gave a Bartlett’s test of 812.386 (df = 153; p=.00).

Regression analysis. The hypotheses set forth in the Theoretical Section of this paper have

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RESULTS

Table 1 provides the means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients for all the variables used in the model. As can be noted, a significant correlation (r=.38; p<.01) exists between age and bus driver tenure. This was to be expected as it is normal that older people will have more experience. However, since the correlation is not considered substantial (r>.60), the problem of multicollinearity can be left out. The same can be said about the relation between Management Attitudes and Procedural Training (r=.20; p<.05) and Proactive Behavior and Insight Training (r=.28; p<.01), which cannot be considered substantial. Furthermore, we notice significant correlations between Insight and Procedural Training (r=.41; p<.01), Management Attitudes and Insight Training (r=.38; p<.01), Carefulness and Risk Perception (r=.30; p<.01) and Carefulness and Proactive Behavior (r=. 55; p<.01). However, none of these correlations are substantial (all r<.60).

TABLE 1

Means, Standard Deviations and Inter- correlations

** Correlation is significant at p<.01 (2- tailed).

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* Correlation is significant at p<.05 (2- tailed).

As mentioned previously, two hierarchical regression analyses have been performed, in order to gain support for the two sub-models proposed.

Results Sub-model 1

The impact of Perceived Management Attitudes on the relationship between Procedural Training and Carefulness was analyzed. Thus, a direct and positive relationship is expected between procedural training, respectively perceived management attitudes towards safety, and employee carefulness (as stated in Hypothesis 1a and 2a). Further on, the effect that procedural training has on carefulness is expected to be higher when management is perceived by employees as giving high priority to safety issues (Hypothesis 3a). Table 2 below shows the results.

As can be seen, 4.6% of the variance in the model is explained by the control variables, which implies that they do not have a significant effect on the outcome. In step two of the regression, .20% of the variance is explained by the second model (n.s.), while the third step explains an additional 2.9%. This last result is marginally significant (p<.10).

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TABLE 2

Multiple Regression Analysis – Sub-model 1

Moderator Effect of Management Attitudes on the Relationship Between Procedural Training and Carefulness

Steps B Std. Error B

(Constant) 1.23 .54

Age .08 .13

Education .08 .12

Tenure bus driver .12 .07

Step 1

Gender -.02 .28

(Constant) 1.21 .54

Age .07 .14

Education .09 .13

Gender -.04 .29 Management Attitudes .05 .10 Step 2 Procedural Training -.01 .09 (Constant) 1.05 .55 Age .08 .14 Education .15 .13

Gender -.02 .29

Management Attitudes .03 .10

Procedural Training .02 .09

Step 3

Moderator Effect -.14^ .08

Note: R2 = 4.6 % for Step 1; ∆R2 = .20 % for Step 2 and ∆R2 = 2.9 % for Step 3 (p<.10)

***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; ^p<.10

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FIGURE 3 Post-hoc Probing Sub- model 1

0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 Low High

Proce dural Training

C a re fu ln es s Management Attitudes High Management Attitudes Low

Results Sub- model 2

In what follows, the results of the second hierarchical regression are shown (Table 3), which investigated the effect of Risk Perceptions on the relationship between Insight Training and Proactive Behavior. Hypothesis 1b was predicting a positive relationship between insight training and employee pro-activity in social safety issues, while a negative relation was expected between the mentioned outcome and employee risk perceptions (Hypothesis 2b). Also, Hypothesis 3b proposes the idea that when risk perceptions are high, the effect of insight training on pro-active behavior will be diminished.

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TABLE 3

Multiple Regression Analysis – Sub-model 2

Moderator Effect of Risk Perceptions on the Relationship Between Insight Training and Proactive Behavior

(Constant) 2.24 .55

Age .15 .14

Education .11 .12

Tenure bus driver -.00 .07

Step 1

Gender -.37 .29

(Constant) 2.17 .49

Age .13 .13

Education .16 .11

Gender -.27 .26 Insight Training .33 .09 Step 2 Risk Perceptions .30 .09 (Constant) 2.31 .47 Age .09 .12 Education .16 .11

Gender -.29 .25

Insight Training .38*** .09

Risk Perceptions .27*** .08

Step 3

Moderator Effect -.31*** .08

Note: R2 = 3.5% for Step 1; ∆R2 = 18.8% for Step 2 (p<.001) and ∆R2 = 9.1% for Step 3 (p<.001)

***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; ^p<.10

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FIGURE 4 Post- hoc Probing Sub- model 2

1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 Low High Insight Training P ro a ct iv e B eh a v io u r

Risk Perceptions High

Risk Perceptions Low

negative effect on the relationship between Insight Training and Proactive Behavior (b=-.31, p<.001). Thus, a great deal of support has been found for Hypothesis 3b, which was anticipating such an effect.

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DISCUSSION

The purpose of this study has been to understand what makes employees behave more safely in their work environment. Although a lot of research can be found on occupational safety referring to injuries provoked by negligence or working with dangerous equipment, fewer studies have focused on social safety (violence and aggression). However, news such as: “The whole of the personnel was put in strike…the reason…one of their colleagues was violently attacked by a user with a knife” (Tragno et al., 2007) are becoming too often and should be ignored no more. Due to the high importance and impact of social safety, the present research has chosen this context as its main developing point, especially as studies in the field have so far taken a more crime-related perspective and not necessarily a behavioral one. A large amount of papers present a criminological point of view, related to tracking the delinquents by data analysis (Hirschfield & Newton, 2008), setting up crime-prevention schemes (Newton et al., 2004) and investigating police involvement (Smith & Clarke, 2000). However, fewer studies take a more behavioral, human resource and more company interesting approach, investigating how employees can influence violence and aggression incidents. My goal has been to add to this part of research by understanding in what way employees can be helped to behave more safely, so as to enhance the overall safety performance of the company.

Findings

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work of researchers such as Barling, Loughlin and Kelloway (2002) or Brown, Willis and Prussia (2000), who claim that there is no direct link between safety climate constructs and employee safety behavior.

In my view these results can be best explained by the context of the public transport industry in the Netherlands (as can be seen in Figure 2). In each region the bus operator usually changes every 7 or 8 years and employees are confronted with a different management team and/or style. Thus, it might be that the drivers don’t really care about what the management says anymore. This impression was mostly confirmed by the semi-structured interviews held with depot managers and social safety coordinators, as well as bus drivers. Especially at the lowest levels, employees were not very interested in which company they are actually part of – “as long as you do your job well the company does not make much difference”. Although not formally part of this research, this kind of qualitative data was gathered so as to be better able to assist in the interpretation of the results obtained through quantitative means.

In addition to this, the government of the Netherlands already has in place a lot of safety regulations in what public transport is concerned (such as compulsory camera coverage or revenue inspectors, although these vary with each province). Therefore, management might be perceived as being preoccupied with safety when maybe not more than the legally necessary is actually done. In this case it is easy to imagine that drivers, after receiving the proper training on procedures and policies to follow in case of violence and aggression incidents, will not enhance their safety behavior considering that the mechanisms needed to support them are already in place. A sort of laziness might ensue as a result of the fact that they know management “took care of things”. If this is the case, it is then a matter of influencing the attitude, rather than the knowledge, of employees and making them realize that their behavior towards safety does influence things.

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risky. Sitkin and Weingart’s (1995) considerations have shown that risk perceptions have a negative relationship with risky decision making behavior. Considering that proactive behavior is defined as “challenging the status-quo”, the analogy is clear. Not many employees would engage in challenging behaviors when they perceive too high of a risk. This study confirms the validity of this finding also in a violence and aggression related context.

The anticipated moderator effect was also empirically supported, indicating that risk perceptions negatively influence the relation between insight training and proactive behavior (Hypothesis 3b). This was found especially significant for when risk perceptions are low, in which case insight training will have a greater impact. Goldberg et al.’s (1991) reasoning sustains this result. They state that when living in fear of threatening situations, employees search for methods to control that fear. This results in coping behaviors such as withdrawal and fatalism, which in no way will stimulate pro-activity. Thus, the previously elaborated reasoning according to which an environment characterized by a positive safety climate (in this case represented by low risk perceptions) will lead employees to enhance their participative behavior is confirmed. The safety level of the whole organization will in this way be improved due to workers communicating information about health and safety and making use of their rights and responsibilities as an employee (Burke et al., 2002).

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Practical Implications

The findings of the present study are most interesting for health and safety practitioners in industries dealing with violence and aggression, when the crime is committed by a stranger or by a client (according to classification by Merchant & Lundell, 2001). This means that the present research is useful mostly for service organizations, as contact with the public is a main characteristic of their job descriptions (Grandey et al., 2004).

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effect on the situation itself. However, through its findings, this study shows that it is exactly this perception that needs to be changed! Employees need to be motivated to act upon the issue, and insight training is the available tool for companies to implement this. As the findings show, its effect on proactive behavior is significant, no matter the level of risk perception.

Thus, two lines of actions can be taken towards this purpose, their effect being enhanced by a simultaneous approach. Firstly, efforts should be put into reducing the risk level of the job perceived by the employees. On this point, I believe management should have the key responsibility, being reinforced and supported by middle management. Though policies should be designed at the top, special attention should be given at lower levels to communicating them properly to employees. In order to reduce risk perceptions, a major obstacle should be overstepped, which is the fact that fear is a highly subjective feeling and that different people perceive it differently and react to it differently (Goldberg et al., 1991). However, one way to go about it is by increasing the threat assessment ability of employees. Fear will subside when workers will have an increased capacity to realize what is truly risky and to what degree it can do damage (Goldberg et al., 1991). A possible method of achieving this is through training on possible dangerous situations to be confronted with.

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Limitations and Future Research

What easily comes across as a limitation of my study is the fact that the data gathered belongs to a specific industry, in a country with particular regulations. Thus, although the present findings are very useful for any public transport operator working in the Netherlands, its generalizability remains to be proven. It would be interesting to see whether the findings still stand in other countries, respectively other industries. The study could be therefore replicated first in different national contexts – so as to see whether market regulation makes any difference in the approach that companies have towards violence and aggression incidents in public transport. A multinational organization will benefit highly from this by tailoring its safety policy to national culture, but also to regulation. Furthermore, the results would gain further strength if proven to work in other industries also. However, at least in what safety climate is concerned, it has been shown that particular industries attach particular factor structures to the concept (Cooper & Phillips, 2004). Hence, I consider it more fit to take first a cross-national perspective.

Secondly, the use of self-report questionnaires puts some strain on the objectivity of the data, as there is a great chance that respondents “twist reality” (Senserrick & Swinburne, 2001). In order to limit this effect people were asked to describe their work- behavior, rather than to rate it as being safe or not. However, it would be interesting to follow Cooper and Phillips’s (2004) suggestion and investigate the model by using a variety of safety performance outcome variables, and not depend only on self- report instruments. Furthermore, in order to minimize the effect of common method bias, no reverse coded items were used. Questions were all phrased positively and there was no information given to respondents on the concepts that were intended to be measured (Schwarz, Schwarz & Rizzuto, 2008). However, due to the fact that the questionnaire was applied at one point in time, there was no control on the social desirability of respondents’ answers or on how internal or external factors might have affected them.

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co-worker (Merchant & Lundell, 2001). Since the latter type does not enter the scope of this study, the concept of safety climate and its respective dimensions have been deemed more appropriate. However, it would be interesting to develop a violence climate tool for incidents committed by strangers and/or customers and to test the model using it. This would make the research on violence and aggression take a more thorough approach. Moreover, practitioners would benefit from having a more in-depth look at the mechanisms needed to properly deal with violence and aggression.

Last but not least, although my study has examined the impact that a certain type of training (respectively procedural or insight) has on safety behaviors, it says nothing about the most adequate training methods to be used. Practitioners would certainly be interested in knowing whether insight training is more effective when designed as an experience of a simulated accident or as a face-to-face training or as a video presentation, to name just a few possibilities (Hale, 1984). Of course in order to thoroughly determine training effectiveness pre- and post-training data would be necessary but the results are for sure worth the endeavor. Moreover, in this way the literature on insight training will be expanded and the concept better developed.

Conclusion

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 – Factor Analysis Sub-Model 1 – Perceived Management Attitudes, Procedural Training and Carefulness

TABLE 4 - Rotated Component Matrixa

Component

1 2 3

I inform my depot management about safety hazards .81 .04 .06

Our depot manager is well informed about safety issues in this depot

.80 -.03 -.05

Our management is well infromed about safety problems and it quickly acts to correct them

.68 .09 .16

The managers in this depot are willing to adopt new ideas for improving safety

.73 .05 -.15

The depot manager is willing to invest money and effort to improve safety

.66 -.12 .10

Our depot man views safety regulation violations very seriously even when they have resulted in no serious incident.

.76 .10 .03

Managers in this depot really care and try to reduce risk levels as much as possible

.64 .23 -.17

When a manager realizes that a hazardous situation has been found, he immediately attempts to put it under control

.56 .18 -.03

Training on procedures in case of verbal aggression towards yourself or a passenger

.04 .80 -.12

Training on procedures in case of physical aggression towards yourself or a passenger

-.05 .82 -.09

Training on procedures in case of vandalism -.00 .87 .10

Training on how to handle potential delinquents .04 .61 .00

Training on how to handle breaking of behavioural rules in the bus

.22 .83 -.08

Training on how to report aggression and violence incidents .23 .81 .19

Handling safety incidents on your own rather than reporting it to the traffic control room

.17 .00 .80

Listening to music or talking on the phone while driving -.17 -.20 .27

Not using the safety protocol/emergency protocol because you didn't know it or didn't know where to find it

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Not respected the safety rules and suffered in some way (you or a passenger)

-.01 .07 .82

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APPENDIX 2 – Factor Analysis Sub- Model 2 – Risk Perceptions, Insight Training and Pro- active Behavior

TABLE 5 - Rotated Component Matrixa

Component

1 2 3

The risk level of my job concerns me quite a bit .07 .10 .80

The safety problems in my job are very serious .11 .04 .72

My chances of being involved in a safety incident are quite large .30 -.19 .75 I am sure it is just a matter of time for me to get involved in a

safety related incident

.11 -.19 .68

The training on safety received really helps me both in my work and at home

.13 .64 -.15

The investment of money and effort in safety training programs is a worthy investment because it improves workers' performance on the job

.12 .39 .02

The efforts invested in organizing safety training programs really pay back to the company

.10 .74 .16

Workers who take safety training courses are less involved in incidents than those who don't

-.29 .60 -.06

Workers who take safety training courses are doing a better job than those who don't

.08 .48 .10

The design of safety training programs is good .17 .68 -.16

The safety programs really work in my workplace .18 .77 -.06

Safety training programs do apply to my workplace .17 .58 -.18

Report safety incidents to the traffic control room .70 .15 .09

Notify that a certain route is or has lately become more dangerous .75 .18 .01 Think actively about how violence and aggression can influence

your job

.79 .17 .17

Report safety incidents to your supervisor .82 .15 .06

Suggested ways in which to improve safety on a certain route or generally on the bus

.80 .03 .13

Talk with fellow workers about issues related to violence and aggression on your job

.68 .10 .27

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APPENDIX 3 – Simple Slope Analysis Sub-Model 1.

TABLE 6 - Regression Analysis ( SD = 1)

(Constant) 1.23 .54

Age .08 .13

Education .08 .12

Step 1

Gender -.02 .28

(Constant) 1.26 .55

Age .07 .14

Education .09 .13

Gender -.04 .29 Procedural Training -.01 .09 Step 2 Management Attitudes CV .05 .10 (Constant) 1.08 .55 Age .08 .13 Education .15 .13

Gender -.02 .29

Procedural Training -.13 .12

Management Attitudes CV .03 .10

Step 3

Note: R2 = 4.6% for Step 1; ∆R2 = .2% for Step 2 and ∆R2 = 2.9% for Step 3 (p<.10)

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TABLE 7 - Regression Analysis (SD = -1)

(Constant) 1.23 .54

Age .08 .13

Education .08 .12

Step 1

Gender -.02 .28

(Constant) 1.16 .56

Age .07 .14

Education .09 .13

Gender -.04 .29

Step 2

Management Attitudes CV below .05 .10

(Constant) 1.02 .56

Age .08 .14

Education .15 .13

Gender -.02 .29

Management Attitudes CV below .03 .10

Step 3

Note: R2 = 4.6% for Step 1; ∆R2 = .2% for Step 2 and ∆R2 = 2.9% for Step 3 (p<.10)

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APPENDIX 4 – Simple Slope Analysis Sub- Model 2

TABLE 8 - Regression Analysis (SD = 1)

(Constant) 2.24 .55

Age .15 .14

Education .11 .12

Step 1

Gender -.37 .29

(Constant) 2.47 .51

Age .12 .13

Education .16 .11

Gender -.27 .26 Insight Training .33 .09 Step 2 Risk Perceptions CV .30 .09 (Constant) 2.58 .49 Age .10 .12 Education .16 .11

Gender -.29 .25

Risk Perceptions CV .27 .08

Step 3

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TABLE 9 - Regression Analysis (SD = -1)

(Constant) 2.24 .55

Age .15 .14

Education .11 .12

Step 1

Gender -.37 .29

(Constant) 1.86 .49

Age .13 .13

Education .16 .11

Gender -.27 .26

Insight Training .33 .09

Step 2

Risk Perceptions CV below .30 .09

(Constant) 2.04 .47

Age .10 .12

Education .16 .11

Gender -.29 .25

Risk Perceptions CV below .27*** .08

Step 3