Can Teamwork Promote Safety in Organizations?

Abstract

In this review, we conceptualize teamwork as the linchpin driving safety performance throughout an organization. Safety is promoted by teams through various mechanisms that interact in a complex and dynamic process. We press pause on this dynamic process to organize a discussion highlighting the critical role played by teamwork factors in the engagement of safe and unsafe behavior, identifying five team-level emergent states that enable effective teamwork and safety: psychological safety, team trust, collective efficacy, shared mental models, and situation awareness. Additionally, we consider foundational conditions that support team-driven safety, the development of safety culture, and the importance of team safety climate in shaping performance. We discuss leveraging teams to generate safety and identify directions for future research investigating the relationship between teamwork and safety. Overall, we submit that researchers and practitioners would benefit from taking a systems perspective of safety by integrating principles of team science to better understand and promote safety in organizations.

Using Carrots Not Sticks to Cultivate a Culture of Safeguarding in Sport

“…For example, athletic directors could recruit school-based teams to create a positive culture using a “ Safeguarding Checklist .” Modeled after the Army's “Trust Culture Checklist,” an example of a “Safeguarding Checklist” that could be used in sport is provided in Table 1 . Athletes are asked to answer questions about the culture, which includes team camaraderie (Salas et al, 2020 ) and supportive leadership (Komaki, 1998 ), as well as their sense of personal well-being (Quick and Tetrick, 2011 ). If coaches and others engage in healthy athlete-centered behaviors, while teammates watch out for one another, the culture should improve and athletes' welfare should thrive.…”

Entrepreneurial Skills to Be Successful In the Global and Digital World: Proposal for a Frame of Reference for Entrepreneurial Education

“…For this, it is necessary to operationalize knowledge, attitudes, and skills to act together, to achieve a common purpose, maximizing the potential of each individual in a durable and balanced way [1]. Entrepreneurs are distinguished by their ability to facilitate these processes, keeping in mind the development of projects through an entire network that makes it possible to be successful, being essential in the organizational culture [10,127]. In turn, networking consists of establishing a network of contacts, favoring the sharing of information and services between individuals and groups [128,129].…”

Non-Technical Skills in Social Networks: The Spread of Safety Communication and Teamwork in a Warehouse

“…A recent review highlighted that safety could not be achieved in organizations without efficient and effective cooperation of workers. According to the framework proposed by the authors, safety teamwork enhances safety performances of both individuals and teams through increased levels of safety participation and compliance (for a review, see [ 17 ]).…”