Unlocking the mechanism of work environment on miners’ unsafe behaviors: A meta-analysis and system dynamics

Workers' unsafe behavior is the leading cause of accidents, yet prior research has paid limited attention to the influences and extent of the work environment on worker behavior. This study employs the SOR (stimuli-organism-response) theory and 24model to develop a comprehensive model that explains the miners’ psychological and physiological influences generated by diverse environmental factors, and the mechanisms leading to unsafe behavior. Besides, this study broadens the work environment into physical and humanistic environments. Then, a meta-analysis was conducted on the Chinese coal mining industry to test the hypotheses quantitatively. A total of 1075 studies were reviewed, yielding 84 mutually independent empirical studies covering 29,980 miners across 296 coal mines. Subsequently, a 12-month system dynamics simulation was performed based on the meta-analysis to simulate the dynamic changes in miners' individuals and behaviors under varying initial values of environmental factors. The meta-analysis results supported 9 hypotheses, which could explain the miners' unsafe behavior from the perspective of SOR theory. In particular, miners' dangerous psychological status has a negative impact on their physiological state. Moreover, the system dynamics outcomes indicate that under environmental stimuli, the progression of unsafe behavior exhibits a slow-to-fast trend. Ultimately, the study discussed the theoretical contributions of the literature and its practical implications for promoting workplace safety. •The environment-psychology and physiology states-behavior processes is proposed to intervene in unsafe behavior.•This study broadens the work environment into physical and humanistic environments.•The model is tested employing meta-analysis based on empirical researches which focused on Chinese coal miners.•The degree of influence of environmental factors and miners' unsafe behaviors is analyzed.•System dynamics is used to simulate the changes miners' unsafe behaviors under environmental influences.