Research On Antecedents Of Grass-roots Employees’safety Behavior In Small And Medium-sized Enterprises

As the direct participants of production activities,grass-roots employees of small and medium-sized enterprises are key force to improve the current situation of work safety.As grassroots employees are limited by their own education level and work type,their safety behavior is susceptible to the impact of work characteristics,so it is necessary to further explore the impact mechanism of work characteristics on employees’ safety behavior to improve their safety behavior.Currently,the question of how to control the work characteristics of grass-roots employees to improve safety behavior has not been well answered.However,according to the job demands-resources theory,the influence of work characteristics on employee behavior results can be explained from the work level through two processes of strain and motivation.Therefore,based on the perspective of this theory,it is of great significance to study the work characteristic factors and mechanism of the safety behavior of grass-roots employees in small and medium-sized enterprises to improve the safety behavior of employees and the level of work safety.Based on the job demands-resources theory,this paper made an empirical study by combining the literature analysis of the work characteristics and safety behaviors of grass-roots employees in small and medium-sized enterprises.Firstly,the concept of safety behavior was defined through literature review,and according to the attributes of work characteristics,the safety behavior of employees was divided into two dimensions: safety task behavior and safety contextual behavior.Secondly,it identified the factors of work characteristics that affect the safety behavior of grass-roots employees in small and medium-sized enterprises,and put forward the hypotheses of the relationship between work characteristics and employees’ safety behavior.Then,it constructed the model of influencing factors of grass-roots employees’ safety behavior in small and medium-sized enterprises under the psychosocial safety climate.Thirdly,the scale was designed in strict accordance with the scale development procedure,the initial scale was designed with reference to the existing related achievements,and the formal scale was formed by pretest and trial test.Then,using 558 valid samples collected from formal questionnaires,Mplus software and structural equation model method were used to empirically examine how job demands and resources affect employees’ safety behavior through the dual process of strain and motivation,and the moderating mechanism of psychosocial safety climate.Finally,according to the empirical test results,suggestions were put forward to improve the safety behavior of grassroots employees in small and medium-sized enterprises.The main conclusions are:(1)Among the two types of work characteristics that affect the safety behavior of grass-roots employees in small and medium-sized enterprises,job demands include safety risk,work overload,role ambiguity and role conflict,and job resources include safety equipment,safety support,safety knowledge and safety culture.(2)In the direct effect relationship,job demands negatively affect employees’ safety behavior,while job resources positively affect employees’ safety behavior.(3)In the mediating effect relationship,job burnout and safety motivation play a mediating role between job demands,job resources and employees’ safety behaviors respectively.(4)As for the moderating mechanism,firstly,in the process of strain,the psychosocial safety climate negatively moderates the mediating role of job burnout between job demands and employees’ safety behavior.Secondly,in the process of motivation,the psychosocial safety climate only negatively moderates the mediating effect of safety motivation on job resources(safety equipment,safety support,safety culture)and safety task behavior,as well as the mediating effect of safety motivation on job resources(safety equipment,safety culture)and safety contextual behavior.(5)Small and medium-sized enterprises should strengthen the work characteristics control and grass-roots employees’ emotional management,and form a good safety motivation incentive process and psychosocial safety climate,so as to realize the improvement of the work safety level of grass-roots employees.