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Article Excerpt
Abstract
Modern American folklore describes independent owner-operator truckers as the last cowboys or frontiersman. If accurate, the individualistic nature of the independent trucker would mitigate the effectiveness of "corporate culture" in modifying behavioral intentions. The modern independent owner-operator exists in a unique environment characterized by high regulation and low supervision, with highly undesirable consequences for bad decisions. This study used owner-operators' perceptions of carrier safety climate and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991) to understand drivers' intentions to engage in potentially unsafe driving behavior. The relationships were tested with data from nearly 300 owner-operators who conduct national, regional, and local driving operations. Results supported the individualistic nature of owner-operators. Results also indicated that a carrier's use of supportive (versus directive) safety practices, combined with drivers' attitudes towards and perceived behavioral control of unsafe driving, significantly and directly influenced drivers' intentions to commit unsafe driving actions. These key findings inform carriers about adopting more resourceful safety training and awareness programs that provide drivers the necessary tools and skills to drive safely and avoid potential danger outside their control.
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Modern American folklore describes independent truckers (owner-operators) as the last cowboys or frontiersman (Ouellet 1994). Movies, songs, books, and TV shows have reinforced this perception. Some, however, claim there is no independence in independent trucking. In fact, owner-operators' work lives are dependent upon their carriers as well as shippers, customers, regulators, and law enforcement (Agar 1986). The modern independent owner-operator exists in a unique environment characterized by high regulation and low supervision, with highly undesirable consequences for bad decisions (Morrow and Crum 2004). Every day thousands of owner-operators fire up their self-owned rigs, hook up to trailers carrying thousands of pounds of cargo worth millions of dollars, and travel long distances at high speeds across an increasingly congested transportation network to deliver what millions of consumers and companies need. To paraphrase one driver in this study, "There's nothin' you have that wasn't brought by a truck." Consequently, independent drivers have an enormous responsibility to get themselves and their cargo to the destination quickly and safely. This environment suggests that a behavioral focus (versus technical, procedural, etc.) for the study of transportation safety would be particularly informative.
There are many factors that may interfere with motor carrier safety, and many of them have already received attention in the literature. Existing truck safety research has focused on issues such as fatigue, inattention, and age/ experience of the driver (Campbell 1991; Crum and Morrow 2002; Stutts and Hunter 2003); maintenance, age, and ergonomics of the vehicle; and the environmental conditions of the roadway, weather, and traffic density (Corsi, Fanara, and Jarrell 1988; Corsi, Fanara, and Roberts 1984). The resultant theoretical models suggest that the driver and vehicle interact with the environment, resulting in safe/unsafe operations. Others have investigated the role of contextual factors such as carriers' financial performance as a contributor to poor vehicle condition (Bruning 1989) and the effect of motor carrier industry segment (e.g., general freight versus private; short haul versus long haul) on environmental exposure to risk and safety performance (Moses and Savage 1996). There are indeed many competing pressures that influence a driver's focus on and attention to safety-related performance.
Aviation safety research has recognized the role of operator attitudes and behaviors as an important factor in safety outcomes (Hobbs 2004; O'Hare 2004; Wiegemann et al. 2004). While some work has extended these findings to motor carrier drivers, it is generally recognized that more work needs to be done in this regard (Corsi and Fanara 1988; Mejza and Corsi 1999; Mejza et al. 2003; Morrow and Crum 2004). Specific factors with regard to driver attitude and behavior have been identified and associated with safety outcomes (Crum and Morrow 2002; McElroy et al. 1993; Stutts and Hunter 2003), and work is continuing in this area (Kim and Yamashita 2007). It could be argued that the role of human attitudinal and behavioral disposition as a key factor in understanding and interrupting the chain of crash causation is a current frontier of both theory and practice in the discipline.
It is difficult to objectively and rigorously observe driving attitudes, intentions, and subsequent behaviors as they occur. While it is true that no driver would intend to commit acts that jeopardize the motoring public per se, the driver faces pressures and trade-offs regarding safety and productivity that may result in decisions being made that compromise the best behavior from a safety standpoint. The influences on a driver's behaviors on the road are complex and difficult to assess objectively, as are all human behaviors. This could be a reason why little research has been done in this specific area. Behaviors are normally assessed only after a safety failure has occurred, and intent is frequently analytically inseparable post hoc from behavior. Therefore, theory has been developed and tested with respect to various measurable constructs related to human attitude, intent, and behavior. The purpose of this investigation is to inform safety professionals on how concepts from the behavioral literature may be applied to this unique environment in order to help them improve driver decision making on the road.
Research in psychology and other fields has revealed that an organization's safety climate is linked to its employees' safety attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Rundmo 2000; Zohar 1980). Transportation researchers have applied the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen 1991) to understand and predict personal driving behavior (Parker et al. 1992; Warner and Aberg 2006) and, to a lesser extent, professional driving behavior (Newman, Watson, and Murray 2004). The current effort seeks to contribute to an understanding of these issues in the context of the commercial vehicle operator. The purpose of this study is to assess the influence of independent drivers' perceptions of carrier safety climate on their attitudes and behavioral intentions towards various unsafe driving actions.
The article is organized as follows: First, we develop the conceptual background and present our hypotheses. Next, we discuss our sample, data, analysis methods, and results. Third, we discuss our findings as well as the implications and limitations of those findings. Finally, we present opportunities for future research and final conclusions.
CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES
Organizational climate is defined as the shared perceptions of organizational members concerning policies, procedures, and practices (Reichers and Schneider 1990). Authors have defined multiple sub-types of organizational climate, to include safety climate (Zohar 1980). Studies have identified a direct relationship between safety climate and behavior (e.g., Mearns, Whitaker, and Flin 2003: Zohar 2000), but potential mediating factors exist. Zohar (2003) posits safety climate and behaviors are mediated by various behavior-outcome expectancies. Employees develop attitudes about the consequences of their behaviors and those attitudes affect behavioral intentions and future behavior.
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen 1991) also links expected outcomes and behaviors, and provides a sound framework to determine the extent to which perceptions of safety climate influence various safety attitudes and behaviors. This section introduces the safety climate concept, develops the safety climate-behavior relationship, presents the TPB in the context of driving safety, and highlights the linkages between the two models, respectively. The expected relationships are presented through hypotheses.
Safety Climate and Behavior
Safety climate concepts have been extensively explored in industries such as manufacturing, energy production, and health care. Safety climate was defined in the context of health care as "the shared perceptions of employees concerning the practices and procedures that the organization implements to eliminate or reduce the occurrence of accidental injury" (Naveh, Katz-Navon, and Stern 2005; 949). Most safety climate definitions are similar, but the nature of the safety climate construct itself is controversial (Griffin and Neal 2000). Nonetheless, strong evidence exists that safety climate and behavior are related.
Past research has found evidence for the safety climate-behavior relationship. Zohar's (1980) study found that safety climate was a characteristic of industrial organizations that was related to organizations' general safety levels. Mearns et al. (2003) found a similar association between safety climate and work-related accidents in thirteen offshore oil and gas installations. The authors found that communication of safety issues to employees and displays of management's commitment to safety via regular safety-related workplace visits were related to improved safety performance. Similarly, in the context of work-related driving, Wills, Watson, and Biggs (2006) found that climate perceptions relating to how fleet and driver safety issues are communicated throughout the organization, and management's commitment to fleet and driver safety were significant predictors of self-reported driver distraction and error.
Researchers have found evidence of complex dimensionality in their data. In some studies, this dimensionality was not strong enough to merit multi-factor analysis, and safety climate was treated as a single factor (e.g., Griffin and Neal 2000; Zohar 2000; Zohar and Luria 2005). For example, a sixteen-item organizational safety climate (OSC) scale produced three rotated factors in an industrial setting (Zohar and Luria 2005). However, substantial item cross loadings and high intercorrelations among factor scores lead those authors to treat safety climate as a single construct. Other contexts provided more powerful multi-factor dimensionality, and the data supported complexity of the safety climate construct (e.g., Glendon and Litherland 2001). Despite disagreement on the number of factors, there is general agreement that safety climate is best measured using employees' perceptions of management's attitudes and commitment to safety, the priority of safety within the organization (i.e., safety versus productivity), and the consistency with which safety is encouraged and practiced (Brown and Holmes 1986; Diaz and Cabrera 1997; Flin et al. 2000; Griffin and Neal 2000; Mearns et al. 2003; Naveh et al. 2005; Zohar 1980).
The current effort sought to explore the dimensionality question of climate in the owneroperator context. Evidence exists to suggest that perceived climate is multi-dimensional; characterized as being related to "active" versus "proactive" management practices (suggested by Zohar and Luria 2005). These practices inform employees of appropriate behavior and consequences for violations. Practices that encourage safety over productivity (or efficiency) are likely to produce positive perceptions of safety climate and safe behavior (Zohar and Luria 2005). Similarly, Griffin and Neal (2000) characterized management approaches as "compliance" (monitoring and control) or "participation" (learning and improvement) oriented. These studies suggest that the perception of climate is potentially differentiable between those management actions that focus on "directive" actions or policies ("active" or "compliance") and those that focus on "supportive" ("participative" or "proactive") actions or policies. This potential breakout of how safety climate is perceived by employees suggests a relationship between management policy and employee perception in these two areas. The way management programs are perceived as either "supportive" or "directive"...
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