Validation of a Chinese version of Zohar and Luria’s shortened safety climate measure

• Published in: Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) Vol. 42; no. 23; pp. 19740 - 19750
• Main Authors: Kao, Kuo-Yang, Hsu, Hao-Hsin, Li, Cheng-Hsien, Huang, Yueng-hsiang, Tai, Ning
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2023; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Evaluation; Occupational health and safety; Psychological aspects; Psychological tests; Psychology; Social Sciences; Validity; Work environment; Taiwan; Chinese safety climate measure; Safety climate; Safety behavior
• ISSN: 1046-1310; 1936-4733
• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-03113-y

Previous studies have shown that safety climate, as the perceived priority in organizations, is associated with occupational accidents and injuries. Although a few safety climate measures have been developed to meet the needs of different industries in Taiwan, a general safety climate measure in Chinese is still not available. This study aimed to examine the validity and reliability of a Chinese safety climate measure translated from a shorter version of (Zohar and Luria’s Journal of Applied Psychology , 90 (4), 616-628, 2005 ) safety climate measure. After excluding 35 invalid responses, 513 employees working in 61 teams in four companies from the transportation ( N  = 108), high-tech ( N  = 253), construction ( N  = 95), and manufacturing ( N  = 57) industries participated in the current study, with a response rate of 92.54% (out of 590 distributed questionnaires). The results showed that a Chinese version of (Zohar and Luria’s Journal of Applied Psychology , 90 (4), 616-628, 2005 ) shortened safety climate measure had high reliability and satisfactory validity with safety motivation, safety-specific transformational leadership, safety behaviors (criterion-related validity), and other safety climate measures (convergent validity) at the individual and team levels. Therefore, this measure can be used as a reliable and effective assessment tool for monitoring occupational safety across industries in Taiwan.