Study of the influence of employee safety voice on workplace safety level of small- and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract

Purpose To improve unsafe workplace of Chinese SMEs, this paper aims to use the multi-agent simulation experiment to reveal the relationship between employees’ safety voice and safety level of enterprises. Design/methodology/approach Through simulation of employees’ safety voice activities, enterprises’ production activities, enterprises’ safety activities, an experiment platform is built. The experiment introduces external variable of labor resource and sets four experimental situations considering whether labor resource is sufficient and whether employees’ value is significant. Findings The result shows that not all the employees’ safety voice can change small- and medium-sized enterprises’ safety level. When there is sufficient labor supply, employee safety voice cannot improve the safety level of enterprises; when there is short of labor and employee safety voice is strong, safety level can be effectively improved. When employees have the strikingly different value variance, safety voice of common employees cannot improve safety level of enterprises, but employee safety voice with high value can improve safety level. Originality/value This fully provides that under the circumstances of disappearing demographic dividend in China, improving employees’ safety awareness and reasonably using their safety voice can boost SMEs to enhance safety level.

Development and validation of employee safety voice scale in the Chinese organizational context

“…In a survey of bus drivers, Herachwati, Sulistiawan, and Alfirdaus (2018) found that safety voice negatively affected employee satisfaction with the company. The results of the experiment by Zhang, Mei, and Liu (2019) showed that safety voice could significantly enhance the safety performance of companies when there is a labor shortage or when employees have high values. Mathisen, Tjora, and Bergh (2022) analyzed questionnaire data from oil workers and discovered that safety voice significantly inhibited safety risk and personal injury.…”

CSR-related competitiveness and legitimacy in MSMEs

“…Among the former are consumers (Jenkins, 2006;Niehm et al, 2007;Perrini et al, 2007;Stubblefield Loucks et al, 2010;Youssef et al, 2018), large companies, public administrations, and the media. The latter agents include the entrepreneurs' values and search for the best possible results in terms of workplace climate, productivity, innovation, and management (Adams et al, 2016;Machová et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2019). Consumers expect companies to offer minimum levels of quality and to commit to ethical conduct.…”

How Safety Climate Impacts Safety Voice—Investigating the Mediating Role of Psychological Safety from a Social Cognitive Perspective

“…However, the current safety situation is still in an alarming state, in particular, the frequency of serious accidents and serious hazards. Safety accidents are harmful to organizations, so taking effective measures to reduce the accident rate is the top priority for an enterprise's development [1]. Safety voice is considered to be the antecedent that helps avoid accidents [2][3][4], and the importance of safety voice in organizations is becoming more and more prominent.…”