The Mediating Effect of Safety Culture on Safety Communication and Human Factor Accident at the Workplace

Abstract

Rapid development in industrialization and global economy has contributed to the increased number of workplace injuries and accidents. Nowadays, with the advancement and the reliability of technology, accidents caused by equipment and machinery failures seem to be on decline. However, human element tends to feature as a significant contributor to workplace accidents: statistical reports and evidence indicate that around 80 to 90 percent of work-related accidents can be attributed to human factors. Meanwhile, effective safety communication is believed to play a vital role in human factor accidents at the workplace. Effective communication among the workers and leaders is believed to help in the attenuating the risk of human factor accidents. Against this background, this research examines 394 sets of questionnaires with 89.14% response rate from respondents of manufacturing companies in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Based on the results, the interaction between safety communication and human factor accident is found to be significant.In addition, this study investigates the mediating effect of safety culture between safety communication and human factor accident. The results show that safety culture significantly mediates by the relation of safety communication and human factor accident.