Leadership and Safety Climate |
INFORMATION SHEET
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Who is conducting the research |
Chief Investigator: Dr Darren Wishart Student Researcher: Mr Matt Saxinger School of Applied Psychology Griffith University Mt Gravatt Contact Phone: 37351206 Contact Email d.wishart@griffith.edu.au Matt.saxinger@griffithuni.edu.au GU ref no: 2020/358 |
Why is the research being conducted?
This research study is being conducted as student research by Matt Saxinger and will be under the supervision of Dr Darren Wishart. The research project is a requirement of the Honours Psychology course at Griffith University. The aim of research is to look at the influence leadership has on safety climate in an organisation. Safety climate is how an individual and group thinks and feels about policies, procedures and norms in their organisation (He et al., 2019). Safety climate is a strong indicator of work-related injuries and fatalities, which negatively impact over 107,000 workers each year. This is extremely important right now in the current climate with the corona virus, due to certain employees being in high risk jobs. Leadership plays a role in fostering a positive safety climate. With higher levels of transformational/transactional leadership, which is motivating and giving rewards to employees when they complete work tasks, positively influence safety climate (Antonakis et al., 2003; He et al., 2019; Hofman et al., 2003).). Furthermore, a high-quality leader member exchange relationship, which is how leaders communicate and the individual relationship they have with their employees, has been shown to positively influence safety climate. However, there is limited research on whether social identity leadership, how a leader identifies with and is envisaged by the workgroup, impacts safety climate (Hogg et al., 2012). Furthermore, how social identity impacts transformational/transactional leadership and leader member exchange. This involves gathering data on leadership and safety climate measures. By participating in this research, you will help to further that understanding.
What you will be asked to do
You will be asked to fill out an anonymous and confidential survey by answering a series of questions that should take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. The questionnaire will measure your perceptions of leadership and safety in your organisation.
The basis by which you will be selected
You must be currently working either full-time, part-time or as a casual for an organisation and not be self-employed.
The expected benefits of the research
The research is expected to increase the theoretical knowledge of leadership and provide information on what influence leadership styles play on each other and safety climate. Specifically, this will create a better understanding of how leaders should be trained to improve the safety climate in the organisation, which benefits not only the organisation but more importantly the employees.
Risks to you
All information collected via the survey is completely anonymous and confidential, therefore there is minimal foreseeable risk to participants. There are minimal risks to you and are no greater than those originally encountered in daily life. There will be contact details to the Griffith Psychology clinic at the end of the survey if you do require any further support.
Griffith Psychology Clinic
Opening Hours 8am – 5pm Monday – Friday
Ph: 1800 188 295
Email: ahreceptionteam@griffith.edu.au
Your consent and confidentiality
By completing the online survey, you are consenting to participate in the research. Your survey data is completely anonymous, confidential, and you will not be identifiable. The researchers will not be able to match survey responses to individual participants as no names of participants are being collected with the survey data this ensures all data will be presented in research publications in a way that will not identify individual participants or allow third parties to identify individual. All data collected for this study will be stored on Griffith University’s secure cloud-based storage system for a period of 5 years after completion of the project. The studies data will only be accessible by Dr Darren Wishart and Mr Matt Saxinger.
Your participation is voluntary
Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you are free to withdraw at any time by simply closing the web browser. Your decision to partake in the study who are employees across various government and non-government organisations will in no way impact upon your relationship with your organisation
Feedback to you
The overall findings and results of this research will be reported in an academic honours thesis and through a scientific journal paper. Participants can obtain a summary of results by contacting the researchers after November.
Questions / further information
Please contact any member of the Griffith Research team if you have any concerns or questions about this research.
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Dr Darren Wishart Griffith University Mt Gravatt, 4122, Australia Email: d.wishart@griffith.edu.au
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Mr Matt Saxinger Griffith University Mt Gravatt, 4122, Australia Email: matt.saxinger@griffithuni.edu.au |
The ethical conduct of this research
Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. If potential participants have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the research project they should contact the Manager, Research Ethics on 3735 4375 or research-ethics@griffith.edu.au.