Examining employees’ safety behaviours: an industry-level investigation from Ghana

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine employees’ safety behaviours (ESBs) within the beverage manufacturing industry. It also assessed employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours. It further investigated the impact of organisational culture (OC) on ESBs. Finally, the study identified the likely determinants of ESBs. Design/methodology/approach A survey methodology was employed as an appropriate approach. In total, 197 valid questionnaires were retrieved from employees working in the beverage manufacturing industry. The questionnaires were processed for quantitative analyses to test the hypotheses. A simple regression analysis was carried out to assess employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours and to investigate the impact of OC on ESBs. Descriptive frequencies and percentages were used to identify the determinants of ESBs. Findings The results suggest that employees’ perception of their own safety behaviour was positive. OC was reported to have a strong positive impact on ESBs. Safe working conditions, job satisfaction and organisational leadership were identified as the key organisational determinants of safety behaviours among the employees. Research limitations/implications Interpreting these findings must be done with caution as the sample size was relatively small and solely obtained from four beverage manufacturing firms. Generalising the findings from this study must also be carefully done as the study is industry-specific and country-specific. Practical implications Besides the loss of talents through unsafe behaviours, accidents can hurt work performance, productivity and profitability of an organisation. Industry organisations and their managers can therefore implement perceptual, organisational and cultural interventions that reinforce appropriate safety behaviours among employees at the workplace. Social implications Understanding these cultural, perceptual and organisational perspectives on ESBs is not only a significant input for safety behavioural analysis and interventions but can also reduce the socioeconomic cost of unsafe and risk behaviours among employees at the firm, industry, national and global levels. Originality/value The empirical tests of employees’ perception of their own safety behaviours are heavily biased towards data originating from the developed country industry settings which suggest that the dynamics of ESBs in the less developed economies are likely to be unknown. This study is first to examine ESBs in a developing country beverage manufacturing industry setting.