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Examination of Safety Climate, Affective Organizational Commitment, and Safety Behavior Outcomes Among Fire Service Personnel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2019

Todd D. Smith Open the ORCID record for Todd D. Smith [Opens in a new window]
Todd D. Smith*
Affiliation:
Indiana University School of Public Health – Bloomington, Department of Applied Health Science, Bloomington, Indiana
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Todd D. Smith, Indiana University School of Public Health – Bloomington, Department of Applied Health Science, 1025 E. 7th Street, Room 116, Bloomington, IN, 47405 (e-mail address: smithtod@indiana.edu)
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Abstract

Objectives:

This research aims to provide guidance on means to bolster safe and effective emergency response. Safe and effective performance among firefighters is key to protecting firefighters, to ensure mission completion, and to protect the public during emergency response situations. Although some studies have shown the impact of safety climate on firefighter performance, few studies have explored the impact of safety climate on affective organizational commitment and safety behaviors among firefighters, which are critical to more effective emergency response.

Methods:

Data collected from 349 career firefighters in the southern United States were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling to assess posited relationships in the proposed model.

Results:

This study confirmed a model that describes the relationships between safety climate, affective organizational commitment, and safety behaviors. Safety climate significantly predicted affective organizational commitment (P < 0.001) and affective organizational commitment was positively associated with both safety compliance (P < 0.001) and safety participation (P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

This study has implications for researchers and practitioners. Firefighters exhibit positive affective organizational commitment as a result of positive safety climate perceptions. This commitment is then associated with positive safety behavior outcomes, which bolsters personal safety and enhances the likelihood of safe and effective mission completion to protect the public.

Keywords

behavioremergencyfirefightersafety climate
Type
Brief Report
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 14 , Issue 5 , October 2020 , pp. 559 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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References

REFERENCES

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