Research purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which both employees and leaders in extreme environments perceive the same levels of safety participation. Furthermore, this study examines the association between empowering leadership and team performance as well as empowering leadership and safety participation. Research design, approach and methods This study follows a quantitative approach as its main purpose is to establish relationships between constructs. As such, correlations and multiple regression analyses were conducted. Convenience sampling was applied to obtain the data. Firefighters and their immediate line officers (lieutenants) were surveyed. Five fire departments in small to medium cities were chosen in the Great Lakes and south-eastern regions in the United States (US). Questionnaires were distributed to 263 firemen, of which 186 were firefighters and 78 were their line officers/lieutenants. Main findings Results indicated that a positive association does not exist between firefighters' perceptions of safety participation and their leaders' perception of safety participation when control variables are added. Therefore, no significant relationship exists between firefighters' perceptions of safety participation and their leaders' perception of safety participation. Furthermore, the results also showed a positive association does not exist between empowering leadership and safety participation when control variables are added. Consequently, no significant relationship exists between firefighters' reports of empowering leadership and lieutenants' reports of safety participation. Lastly, regarding empowering leadership and team performance, the results did not support a direct relationship between these two constructs. Limitations The results should be interpreted bearing in mind that they are applicable to the United States of America and may not be generalised to the South African context. Additionally, very little research has been conducted on empowering leadership and safety behaviour in extreme environments, and therefore the literature review was limited to other organisational environments. Lastly, only three cultural groups (White, Black and Hispanic) and only men participated in this study, so results may not be generalisable to other demographic groups. The study was only positioned in extreme environments, specifically in firefighting, therefore it is unclear whether the results can be generalised to other work environments. Future Research It is suggested that this study is replicated, firstly because little research has been done in extreme environments but, secondly, that it also be specifically replicated in South Africa. Indicated by the data, a lieutenant's age has a positive association with how he perceives his team's safety participation. This could be due to various reasons. For example, the more experienced the lieutenant the more comfortable he gets towards the extreme environment. Lastly, it is suggested that research is conducted to determine other leadership styles which could be effective in extreme environments. Conclusion Insight was given into the empowering leadership style in terms of team performance and safety behaviour. Furthermore, the relation between firefighters' perceptions of safety participation and their leaders' perceptions of safety participation was not confirmed. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Studien genomfördes hösten 2013 på ett logistikföretag i Sverige, med syfte att studera sä-kerhetsklimatets potentiella påverkan på medarbetarnas förhållningssätt till incidentrapporte-ring. Utifrån teorier om säkerhetsklimat skapades en enkät, innehållande ett urval frågor från samtliga av de sju säkerhetsklimatsdimensioner, som det nordiska frågeformuläret NO-SACQ-50 (Kines et al., 2011) innehåller. Dessa kompletterades med frågor som fokuserade på uppfattningen av incidentrapportering. Resultaten visar att säkerhetsklimatet påverkar uppfattningen av incidentrapportering, som chefer och medarbetare delar. Ju bättre klimatet är desto större blir benägenheten att ha en positiv uppfattning av incidentrapporteringen, även när man tar personlighetsdraget CFC (Consideration of Future Consequences) i beak-tande. Det finns inte heller några skillnader mellan chefer (N = 6) och terminalarbetare (N = 27) i detta avseende. Antalet antagna incidenter som sker på arbetsplatsen påverkar upp-fattningen av säkerhetsklimatet, som sedan styr förhållningssättet till incidentrapporteringen. Av de olika typer av säkerhetsbeteenden som tidigare forskning tagit upp, visade sig både safety participation (säkerhetsdeltagande) och safety compliance (regelföljande) ha kopplingar till incidentrapporteringsuppfattningarna. Safety participation har ett något star-kare samband än compliance. Slutsatsen blir att ledarskapsorienterade åtgärder rörande sä-kerhetsklimatet bör genomföras, för att åstadkomma en ökad incidentrapporteringsfrekvens. Då samplet var förhållandevis litet, bör generaliseringar göras med viss försiktighet. / <p>This quantitative study was conducted at a logistics company in Sweden, to investigate the potential effects of safety climate on incident reporting within the organization. A survey was performed, using several items from all of the seven dimensions from the Swedish ver-sion of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) by Kines and colleagues (2011). These items were then accompanied by some questions of our own regarding inci-dent reporting.</p><p>The results show substantial effects of safety climate on the way incident reporting was viewed by both workers and managers, even when taking the trait CFC into consideration. Furthermore, the amount of percieved accidents seems to have a negative effect on safety climate, which in turn affects the incident reporting attitudes. Two different sets of safety related behaviours (participation and compliance) was analyzed in relation to incident re-porting, and the results show that both types have significant correlations to incident report-ing, although participation behaviour seem to have the strongest linkage of the two. As the sample was rather small, generalizations should be done sparingly.</p><p>Program: Organisations- och personalutvecklare i samhället</p>