Behavior-Based Safety Management and the decrease of work-safety tension: The impact of feedback and rewards as organizational measures to increase safety-related rule compliance.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Annette Kluge
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2011 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 186717763

Almost every incident report published by the Chemical Safety Board or the IAEA points to a) adequate operator training, b) missing, inadequate or not applied safety-relate d procedures and c) missing management attention with regard to safety and risk management. From our research perspective we investigate safety related rules that are not applied intentionally or are not applied correctly (e.g. ignoring the right timing for the implementation of steps). One reason for these kinds of rule violations is the work-safety tension which represents a conflict between the achievement of production goals and the achievement of safety goals. An increasing number of publications indicate that these conflicts lead to an increase of work around and corner cutting violations. Four research foci are addressed to reduce the work safe tension:1) The impact of result versus process feedback2) The impact of rewards for safety related rule compliance instead of the punishment of rule violations3) The impact of both safety related goals and production goals to reduce the work safe tension4) The impact of continuous versus clawback related rewards/punishment.The overall objective is to investigate measures which reduce the perceived work-safety tension and directs the attention towards both safety and production by applying the concepts of Behavior-Based Safety Management and Behavior Based Safety Incentive Programs. Seven hypothesis are formulated which are planned to be investigated in two experiments which are implemented in AWASim Annual: 1. Process-feedback to improve the skill (proficiency) to execute the safety relevant procedure leads to a higher number of rule compliances than feedback of results. 2. Rewards for rule compliances leads to a higher number of safety related rule compliances than penalties for rule violations.3. The number of soft violations (based on our previous research) is lower in the reward-for-compliance condition than in the penalty-for-violations condition.4. A reward system that incorporates the achievement of safety related and production related objectives reduces the number rule violations compared to the reward of production goals alone. 5. The bomb crater effect (see previous research) appears only in the punishment conditions. 6. A continuous reward for compliance leads to a higher number of rule compliances than a clawback provision at the end of the year. 7. A prepaid reward (with a clawback provision) leads to a lower number of rule violations than the reward-based clawback provision. The results of the proposed research project allow an enrichment and development of theory as well as a conclusion of practical implications in order to reduce safety-related rule violations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants