Pairing Organizational and Individual Factors to Improve Employees’ Risk Responsiveness

Scholars and practitioners have established various mechanisms and processes that help safeguard employee health and safety. Extant literature emphasizes the importance of training workers to respond to workplace hazards but often overlooks the influence of organizational factors on employees’ safety behavior. This study surveyed employees at a U.S. oil refinery to assess the influence of both individual and organizational factors on risk responsiveness—behaviors such as having safety conversations at work, possessing self-efficacy, and being willing to respond appropriately to risks. Drawing from prior health communication models, this study develops an integrated model of risk responsiveness. Results suggest that a combination of individual factors and perceptions of organizational information-seeking processes are better predictors of (a) risk-information-seeking behaviors, (b) safety self-efficacy, and (c) risk knowledge than individual-level factors or organizational processes alone. Furthermore, prior near prior near misses or injuries at work had no impact on any of the outcome variables.