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1、Effect of Individual Differences on Perceptions of Safety Culture Factors among Flight Attendants in a Taiwanese Airline of ChinaLEE Kaihui1, STEWART Margaret2 & KAO Lihua 3(1 China Airlines, Taiwan, China;2 Business TAFE School, RMIT University, Australia;3 College of Business, Chung Yuan Christian

2、 University, Taiwan, China)Abstract: The aim of the study was to identify significant factors of safety culture and compare differences in perception about these factors among different groups in a commercial airline in Taiwan of Chhina. A survey, adapted from Loughborough University Safety Climate

3、Assessment Toolkit (LSCAT) comprising general information and 30 safety culture statements, was distributed to 251 flight attendants. Eight factors were identified as significant: management commitment to safety, work environment, safety rule/regulation compliance, priority of safety, personal needs

4、 for safety, accident investigation, safety rules and procedures, and education and training. Results showed that there were significant differences among different sub-groups on five of the eight factors: management commitment to safety, work environment, rule/regulation compliance, priority of saf

5、ety, and education and training.Keywords: flight attendant; cabin crew; safety culture; safety climate; safety; safety management1 IntroductionAccording to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a higher occurrence of occupational injury and illness has been associated with flight atten

6、dants when compared to all other commercial air transport workers1. Many researchers have theorized that safety culture factors may predict safety-related outcomes and see it as a leading indicator of safety-related outcomes2. With this as the starting point, this study examines safety culture facto

7、rs and the differences between different groups: supervisor (i.e. purser or lead flight attendant) and flight attendant to determine differences in perception about safety culture.1.1 Safety CultureResearch on organizational culture gained much attention in the 1970s and 1980s and the term “safety c

8、ulture” first came to prominence after the 1987 OECD Nuclear Agency report into the 1986 Chernobyl disaster3. A good safety culture can be reflected in human behavior, perceptions and attitudes4. It is made up factors such as levels of senior management support, hazard identification, senior managem

9、ents willingness to accept criticism, safety communication, realistic and workable safety rules, good education and training5. Sumwalt, Vice Chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, defined safety culture simply as “doing the right thing, even when no one is watching” 6. Numerous def

10、initions and dimensions abound in the academic safety literature, but one of the most commonly used definitions of safety culture is from the UK Health and Safety Executive3:“The safety culture of an organisation is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and

11、 patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisations health and safety management.”A review of safety culture literature across a number of high reliability settings such as aviation, nuclear engineering, offshore oil production, petrochemical s

12、ector, construction, mining and manufacturing, shows that safety culture has been characterized as multi-dimensional7-9. Although several questionnaires to identify the most typically assessed dimensions have been developed by various researchers, there has been little agreement and no entirely cons

13、istent list of determinants that should be incorporated into safety culture8,9. However, even when the same questionnaire is used, as in research by Zohar (1980) and other researchers, different safety climate factor structures have been emerged10.1.2 Individual DifferencesIndividual differences can

14、 influence a workers safety behavior11. For example, Brown and Holmes (1986) explored differences in safety climate perceptions of employees with and without injuries10. They found employees with an injury perceived management to be less concerned and to take less action10. In 1992, Waring identifie

15、d differences among different groups due to varied daily work demands and experiences which can shape safety attitudes10. Rundmo (1993) undertook a survey to identify differences among different work groups12. Guest, Peccei, and Thomas (1994) concluded that UK rail workers with high accident rates b

16、elieved that they were more safety conscious than other workers10. Mason and Simpson (1995) and Budworth (1997) found differences between senior and junior employee within the same organization10. Cox and Cheyne (2000) have also identified significant differences in safety climate factor scores betw

17、een sub-groups within different organizations12.As to which individual differences are predictive, Flin and Mearns (1994) identified that individual characteristics (including experience, knowledge, attitudes to safety, etc.), job characteristics (work tasks, environment, job stress, etc.), and plat

18、form characteristics (safety culture, social support and safety management systems) could contribute to accidents and near misses12. Management may play a key role in influencing safety within an organization8,13. Other factors that can affect safety include an organizations procedures, selection, t

19、raining, and work schedules14.1.3 The Present StudyThis study chose different groups (such as female and male, supervisor and workers, senior and junior staff, and employees who had sustained injuries and those who had not) for analysis and briefly describes the effect of each individual demographic

20、 difference towards safety culture. As well, the present study is concerned with the development of a suitable measurement to determine whether differences among different flight attendants groups within a Taiwanese airline of China exist and to clarify benefits of conducting such comparisons.2 Meth

21、odologyThe list of questions in the current study is broadly based on a number of previous publications regarding safety assessment such as the Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit (LSCAT) developed by the Loughborough University in 1997, “Airline Safety Culture Index” by Edkins, “Aviation Safety Surve

22、ySafety Climate Factors” proposed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, in addition to items gathered from an extensive literature search and consultation with specialists for this study15. The survey was distributed to 251 flight attendants, and 237 usable samples were obtained. The questionna

23、ire consisted of two sections. The first part dealt with individual demographic questions concerning the respondents gender, age, tenure, job position (e.g. supervisor/purser and flight attendants), using a categorical scale. Part two dealt with the measurement of safety culture using 30 items. Resp

24、onses were recorded on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 5 for strongly agree to 1 for strongly disagree. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 16.0 (SPSS 16.0) was utilized in this study, and various tests including descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, reliability a

25、nalysis, mean analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed.3 Results and Discussion 3.1 Participants BackgroundTenure is an indicator of cabin crew working experience and their service qualification in this commercial airline company. Concerning tenure of the flight attendants, 26.6% of

26、 respondents worked with this airline less than five years. Thirty-nine percent of flight attendants worked with this airline from five to ten years. Thirty-three percent of participants are senior flight attendants and worked with this airline for over ten years. Regarding job position, almost 98%

27、of respondents in this sample were flight attendants and just over 2% were supervisors (pursers). Sixty-one percent of all respondents reported that they had been involved in an accident, incident, or near miss, as a result of their work as a flight attendant with this Taiwanese airline of China.3.2

28、 Factor Analysis and Reliability AnalysisThe Cronbachs Alpha of the initial 30 items was 0.87, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.851 and Bartletts test of Sphericity was significant, indicating that it was appropriate to apply the factor analytical technique to these data set

29、s. The underlying factors of safety culture were extracted: management commitment to safety (MC), work environment (which included physical workload, service versus personal safety role conflict, service area layout and equipment) (WE), safety rule compliance practices (RC), organizational priority

30、of safety (PS), personal needs for safety (PN), perceived efficacy of accident investigation personnel and processes (AI), the need to adhere to safety rules and procedures (SR), and education and training (ET). Eight factors accounted for 62.1% of the variance in perceived safety culture. All of th

31、e coefficient alphas for the perceptions listed in Table 1 were acceptable (all alpha 0.5). Performance scores of the eight testable factors were determined by calculating the mean of the respondents perception to the items in each scale. This airline appears to exhibit “middle-of the-road” safety c

32、ulture among flight attendants, with means scores (2.564) below the neutral point (mean score = 3.000) in most areas. The overall mean score implies that there is substantial room for improvement. An interesting finding is that the mean score of the factor of personal needs for safety is 4.504 which

33、 indicated that most flight attendants in the sample perceived safety as the most important thing in their mind. However, they held a negative opinion in regard to management commitment to safety, work environment, safety rule/regulation compliance, priority of safety, accident investigation, safety

34、 rule and procedure, and education and training with means from 2.147 to 2.859, and so identifying seven areas in need of improvement or further study.Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alphas for all factorsFactors/itemsN=237Cronbach Alpha, Mean scoresStandard deviationManagement c

35、ommitment to safety (MC)/100.8822.4450.957Work Environment (WE)/40.6642.1471.032Safety Rule/regulation compliance (RC)/40.7042.6841.048Priority of safety (PS)/30.6942.2840.970Accident investigation (AI)/20.8672.2741.210Personal needs for safety (PN)/20.6664.5040.683Safety rule and procedure (SR)/30.

36、5252.3440.940Education and training (ET)/20.5312.8591.031Overall Safety Culture / 300.8702.5640.9873.3 Sub-Group Differences in Safety CultureThis study was particularly interested in different safety culture between flight attendants of different tenure, job positions (supervisor/worker), and injur

37、y experiences. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test for differences among the independent groups. The difference of eight factors for these three sub-groups: tenure, supervisor/worker, and injury experience, are shown in Table 2. It was found that flight attendants did differ in the

38、se three sub-groups. Flight attendants with different lengths of tenure have significantly different perceptions of the factor WE work environment (F = 5.673, p0.05) and ET education and training (F = 4.464, p0.05). For example, in regard to work environment, there is a significant difference of opi

39、nion among senior flight attendants (mean score = 2.232), flight attendants whose tenure was between six and ten years (mean score = 2.152), and junior flight attendants (mean score = 1.917). Junior flight attendants have more negative attitudes to the factor of work environment. They strongly agree

40、 that cabin service targets conflict with safety measures, they arent given enough time to get the job done safely, and that sometimes cabin condition or galley equipment hinders their ability to work safely. Regarding education and training, junior flight attendants dont think that the company prov

41、ided enough training on safety issues. They thought that management placed a low priority on occupational health and safety training. Senior flight attendants, on the other hand, generally, have a more positive attitude towards safety compared to other flight attendants, particularly for the factors

42、 of “work environment” and “education and training”. These findings suggest that management should pay more attention to workplace safety and safety training and opinions of junior flight attendants. Another area of notable difference was between the supervisor group and flight attendants. The super

43、visor group had higher mean scores for the factors of management commitment to safety (mean score: 3.275 v.s. 2.430), work environment (3.125 v.s. 2.130), and priority of safety (3.333 v.s. 2.266) than the flight attendants group. The results partially support previous research by Fung et al. (2005)

44、 that supervisors were found to have more positive perceptions of safety practices than workers. The purser as a supervisor, has a responsibility to operate an open door policy on safety issues, to act decisively when safety concern is raised, and to give a high priority to the safety of flight atte

45、ndants. However, results for this sample of flight attendants showed they commonly think management has a low level of interest in their safety. In particular, the results shown in Table 2 indicate that the supervisor group and the flight attendant group have significant differences in the three fac

46、tors of management commitment to safety (F = 6.475, p0.05), work environment (F = 7.544, p0.01), and priority of safety (F = 7.911, p0.01).There were some significant differences between flight attendants who had experienced or not experienced injuries in the case of WE work environment (F = 6.658,

47、p0.05) and RC safety rule/regulation compliance (F = 6.377, p0.05). The positive safety perception on the factors of work environment (WE) and rule compliance (RC) for flight attendants group without injury is higher than that of flight attendants with an injury (mean score for WE: 2.300 v.s. 2.051;

48、 RC: 2.841 v.s. 2.586). The results, which show that workers who have had an accident or injury have more negative perceptions towards safety, are similar to research by Brown and Holmes (1986).Table 2 ANOVA test for the different groupsFactorTenureJob position (supervisor/worker)Injury experienceF

49、valuesSignificanceF valuesSignificanceF valuesSignificanceManagement commitment to safety (MC)0.1030.9026.4750.012*3.3140.070Work Environment (WE)5.7630.004*7.5440.006*6.6580.010*Safety Rule/regulation compliance (RC)2.5490.0801.3580.2456.3770.012*Priority of safety (PS)0.0680.9347.9110.005*2.7710.0

50、97Accident investigation (AI)1.1870.3071.1360.2881.1290.289Personal needs for safety (PN)1.7030.1840.1940.6600.2890.591Safety rule and procedure (SR)0.2790.7572.1820.1410.0020.963Education and training (ET)4.4640.013*0.3070.5801.9470.164* : p0.05, * : p0.014 ConclusionsA major finding of this study

51、is that flight attendants did differ in sub-groups, although the sub-groups only differed on five of the eight safety climate factors: management commitment to safety, work environment, rule/regulation compliance, priority of safety, and education and training. The results partially support other re

52、search that different groups within an organization can differ on dimensions of safety culture10-12. Practical implications are that management, specifically pursers, have an important leadership role in safety in firstly, recognizing there may be significant differences in perception about safety a

53、mong different groups, and secondly, targeting training and other interventions instead of a one size fits all approach. These findings provide valuable guidance for researchers, operators, and commercial airline senior managers.AcknowledgementsThanks go to all participant flight attendants of this

54、selected Taiwanese commercial airline of China, who spent time to complete the survey and provided their precious perceptions.References1 Kao L-H, Stewart M, Lee K-H, Using Structural Equation Modeling to Predict Cabin Safety Outcomes Among Taiwanese Airlines. Transportation Research Part E, Logistics and Transportation Review, 2009.45: 357-3652 Neal A, Griffin M A, Hart P M, The impact of organizational climate on safety climate and individual behavior. Safety Science, 2000, 34: 99-109.3 Cooper M D. Towards a model of safety culture. Safety Science, 2000, 36:111-13