Abstract
Safety is major concern for organisations, and research has shown that individual differences have important roles in determining safety related behaviours. However, there are still substantial gaps in the literature that could further understanding of why individuals behave unsafely. Research in the safety literature has been constricted by the conceptualisation of personality as a stable construct and by research methods that usually measure personality and safety behaviours in their broad forms. Furthermore, there is little research on other influential individual differences, such as intentions and decision-making processes, that may affect the relationship between personality and safety behaviours.
This thesis by publication aims to fill these gaps with three research papers on how personality and decision-making affects safety related behaviours. The first paper is a meta- analysis that examines relationships between the Big Five traits and specific safety related behaviours, such as rule violations, aggressive acts and compliance. It also examines personality facets, and traits not classified in the Big Five, and their effect on unsafe behaviour. Two observations were made during data collection of the meta-analysis: there were very few studies that researched the effect of decision-making processes on safety behaviours and no safety studies conceptualised personality as changeable, dynamic and reactive to workplace situations. Thus, the second paper constructed a safety decision making scale to make it possible for future researchers to test for relationships between safety decision making and behaviours. Finally, the third paper is a conceptual review that transfers knowledge of personality dynamics to the safety literature, to explain why individuals vary in their risk taking across different domains of risk, such as safety. The overall thesis contributes to the safety literature by providing depth in the exploration of personality and safety relationships, and by applying different perspectives of personality and decision making to explain safety related behaviours.