Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) recognises the importance of individual differences and contextual influences in the career decision-making process. In extending the SCCT choice model, this study tested the role of personality, social supports, and the SCCT variables of selfefficacy, outcome expectations and goals in explaining the career readiness actions of career planning and exploration. The authors surveyed 414 Australian high school students in Years 10, 11 and 12. Career exploration was associated with goals and social supports, whereas career planning was associated with self-efficacy, goals, personality and an interaction term for goals and social support that indicated that levels of planning were highest when social support and goals were highest. Implications for parents, teachers and guidance counsellors as well as recommendations for future research directions are discussed.

No abstract

Overviewing selected elements from the literature, this paper locates the notion of safety culture within its parent concept of organisational culture. A distinction is drawn between functionalist and interpretive perspectives on organisational culture. The terms 'culture' and 'climate' are clarified as they are typically applied to organisations and to safety. A contrast is drawn between strategic top down and data-driven bottom up approaches to human factors as an illustrative aspect of safety. A safety case study is used to illustrate two measurement approaches. Key issues for future study include valid measurement of safety culture and developing methods to adequately represent mechanisms through which safety culture might influence, and be influenced by, other safety factors.

No abstract

Despite the burgeoning number of studies examining stakeholder effects of crisis communication and crisis causes, the varied categorizations used, together with inconsistent findings, has meant that knowledge gaps remain. Specifically, existing studies have not established whether a significant hierarchy of best communicated accounts exist that minimize crisis impact on stakeholder reactions. In addition, whether different crisis causes have different emotional, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes still requires examination.Further, crisis emotion research has been limited and has predominantly investigated anger and sympathy, indicating the need to explore a greater variety of crisis emotions.This investigation of the impact of a hierarchy of five crisis communication accounts and four crisis causes on multiple stakeholder reactions elicited several key findings. Although "confession" was the most preferred crisis account, "no comment" was almost as successful in mitigating negative reactions. Counterintuitively, confession reduced responsibility judgments. No comment was second to confession in mitigating negative, and promoting positive, reactions. Further, company control of a crisis was found to be the single most powerful predictor of stakeholder reactions. Involvement elicited multiple positive and negative crisis emotions, while different emotion categories elicited different behavioral intentions. Attitude to the company also impacted behavioral intentions.2

No abstract

Effects of stress on driving performance can depend on the nature of driver's stress reactions and on the traffic environment. In an experimental study, we assessed multiple dimensions of vulnerability to driver stress by a questionnaire that was validated in previous field studies and related those dimensions to performance on a driving simulator. Results were broadly consistent with prediction. A dimension of habitual dislike of driving was associated with reduced control skills, greater caution, and disturbance of moods. A measure of aggressive driving predicted more frequent and more error-prone overtaking, which are effects attributed to the use of confrontive coping strategies in interaction with other vehicles. An alertness measure predicted speed of reaction to pedestrian hazards. This research has practical applications for system design, automated monitoring of driver performance, selection and assessment of drivers, and training.

No abstract