The Role of Safety Climate and Communication in Accident Interpretation: Implications for Learning From Negative Events

Abstract

If successful safety interventions are to be developed and implemented, the underlying causes of accidents must be accurately identified. Using two different samples and research designs, we investigated the influence of two contextual factors, safety climate and communication, on accident interpretation. The results for both samples indicated that contextual factors significantly influenced accident attributions. Implications for the implementation of change interventions and for organizations trying to learn from negative events are discussed.