Organizational culture, moral disengagement, and employees’ silence on work accidents

Moral disengagement (MD) was first introduced by Bandura (1990) to explain the psychosocial mechanisms by which individuals mitigate the moral consequences of harmful behaviors. Such mechanisms allow people to misbehave without feeling obliged to any kind of reparation in spite of the individuals’ moral standards that would normally serve to guide human conduct. Furthermore, these mechanisms are internalized during the socialization process that regulate moral standards of an individual. As such, MD is embedded and co-determined by culture norms (Bandura). Despite the flourishing literature on moral disengagement, to our knowledge, no study has yet explored the role of organizational culture as a predictor of moral disengagement mechanisms, which in turn enable conduct that is detrimental for safety at work, such as accident under-reporting behaviors. The present study seeks to address the problem of accident under-reporting, i.e., the silence of employees in reporting safety incide

Moral disengagement (MD) was first introduced by Bandura (1990) to explain the psychosocial mechanisms by which individuals mitigate the moral consequences of harmful behaviors. Such mechanisms allow people to misbehave without feeling obliged to any kind of reparation in spite of the individuals’ moral standards that would normally serve to guide human conduct. Furthermore, these mechanisms are internalized during the socialization process that regulate moral standards of an individual. As such, MD is embedded and co-determined by culture norms (Bandura). Despite the flourishing literature on moral disengagement, to our knowledge, no study has yet explored the role of organizational culture as a predictor of moral disengagement mechanisms, which in turn enable conduct that is detrimental for safety at work, such as accident under-reporting behaviors. The present study seeks to address the problem of accident under-reporting, i.e., the silence of employees in reporting safety incidents and accidents to their organization. In particular, this study seeks to explore the role of organizational culture as a predictor of moral disengagement mechanisms that may precede under-reporting. Toward these ends, we tested a structural model positing organizational culture typologies as predictors of moral disengagement, which in turn was expected to predict accident under-reporting. In doing so, we also assessed the psychometric properties of a newly developed organizational safety culture scale, the Job Safety - Intensity & Strength Organizational Culture Questionnaire (JS-ISOCQ), and a Job Safety Moral Disengagement scale (JS-MD), Method. Participants (N=1108) were recruited from numerous Italian industry sector organizations, which were at average or above risk of employee injuries; 75% were men. The average age was 41 (SD= 10.43). Each participant completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire and was guaranteed confidentiality. The 20-item self-report JS-ISOCQ measured five cultural typologies with regard to workplace safety. The scale is a new combined typing and profiling measure of organizational culture (Petitta, Barbaranelli, & Probst, 2012), developed in line with (a) Schein’s (1985) theory; (b) Enriquez’s (1970) typology of organizational cultures (autocratic, bureaucratic, clan-patronage, technocratic, and cooperative); and (c) Payne’s (2000) multidimensional model of cultural intensity. The response scale measured both cultural intensity and strength by having respondents indicate for each statement how many people from their organization: 1) manifest a positive attitude towards the situation, 2) engage in behavior that is in line with the situation, 3) attribute importance to the situation, and 4) consider the situation so fundamental as to take it for granted. A sample item is “With respect to strictly adhering to the rules and security procedures proposed by the organization” and response options ranged from 1=almost no one to 4=almost everyone. Moral disengagement in the application of workplace safety norms was measured by 12 item selected from the Job Safety Moral Disengagement scale (JS-MD; Barbaranelli & Perna, 2005). The scale is unidimensional and includes six MD mechanisms (moral justification; advantageous comparison; displacement of responsibility; diffusion of responsibility; distorting consequences; attribution of blame). A sample item is “Safety checks are useless, because most machines will eventually malfunction” and response options ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree. Unreported accidents and experienced accidents were measured using open-ended items adapted from Smecko and Hayes (1999), i.e., “How many accidents did you experience and NOT report to your employer in the past 12 months?” Accident under-reporting was then operationalized as the proportion of the total number of experienced accidents that went unreported to the organization. To avoid zeros in the denominator a very small constant (.00001) was added to the denominator. Due to high skewness and kurtosis, this variable was transformed using the reciprocal method (see Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Although this transformation reduced the non-normality of the variable, skewness and kurtosis remained high being respectively 3 and 9. This variable was then considered as “censored” in the following analyses. Although the workplace accident variables were self-report in nature, previous studies do indicate that self-report measures of accidents and unsafe behaviors are related to independent observations of these variables (Lusk, Ronis, & Baer, 1995). Results and discussion. A preliminary Confirmatory Factor Analysis examined the factorial validity of JS-ISOCQ and JS-MD with 6 latent variables (i.e., 5 cultural typologies and moral disengagement) measured by 32 observed variables. The CFA showed excellent indices: 2 (409, N=1108)=1,466, p<.001, RMSEA = 0.048 (.046; .051), CFI=0.95, TLI=0.94. A full Structural Equation Model was then performed, testing the aforementioned research hypotheses. The WLSMV method of estimation was used, which produces correct parameter estimates and goodness of fit indices in presence of censored variables. No direct effects were posited among the five culture variables and accidents underreporting. We posited then that all the effect of safety cultures on accidents underreporting was carried by moral disengagement. Mediation effects were estimated with bootstrap method. The model showed an adequate fit to the data: 2 (440, N=1108)=959, p<.001, RMSEA = 0.033 (0.030; .035), CFI=0.92, TLI=0.91. Technocratic Safety Culture exerted a significant and positive effect of .31 (p<.001) on MD, while Bureaucratic Safety Culture exerted a significant but negative effect of -.15 (p<.05). All other effects on MD were not statistically significant. MD exerted a positive significant effect of .29 (p<.001) on accident under-reporting. No indirect effect of safety cultures typologies on accident under-reporting were statistically significant with the exception of Technocratic Safety Culture, whose indirect effect was 0.09 (p<.01). Overall, the model explained the 14% of moral disengagement variance and the 9% of accident under-reporting variance. Together, the results support the validity of the JS-ISOCQ and JS-MD. Furthermore, the disentangling of five different cultural typologies demonstrated how distinct shared patterns of behavior (i.e., culture) shape MD and subsequent organizational outcomes. In particular, a context pervaded by bureaucratic norms (i.e., bureaucratic culture) discourages mechanisms of disengagement. Conversely, a technocratic culture wherein safety practices are followed only if they do not impede progress toward the achievement of desired production outcomes appears to be related to higher MD, and in turn an increase in employees’ silence in reporting of accidents. Implications for practice include managerial suggestions on how to mitigate these unwanted effects of production pressure and simultaneously encourage accurate accident reporting.