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Safety Science 46 (2008) 9921001

www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

The impact of work accidents experience on causal

attributions and worker behaviour
Sonia M. Pedroso Gonc!alves a,*, Silvia Agostinho da Silva a, Maria Lusa Lima a,
Josep L. Melia b
a

Centro de Investigac!ao e Intervenc!ao Social (CIS), Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE), Lisboa, Portugal
b
Universitat de Vale`ncia, Vale`ncia, Spain

Abstract
It has recently been suggested that the experience of work accidents is an important variable to be considered as a predictor of workers perceptions (e.g. causal attributions) and behaviours. Departing from the literature, this study has two
goals: (1) to analyse the relationship among work accident experience, causal attribution of accidents and workers behaviour; and (2) to test causal attributions as a mediating variable in the relationship between work accident experience and
workers behaviour. To test the stability of the results, the same analyses have been performed in two Portuguese organizations, one in an industrial context and the other in an R&D context. In the industrial organization, the sample is composed of 559 employees and in the R&D organization the sample is composed of 335 employees. Results show that work
accident experience is positively associated with external attributions and unsafe behaviours and negatively associated with
internal attributions. Moreover, the results reveal a complete mediation of the causal attributions in the industrial organization, although in the R&D organization the mediation was only partial.
! 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Work accident experience; Causal attributions; Safety behaviours; Unsafe behaviours

1. Introduction
Work accidents constitute an extremely serious problem in our society, given the important psychological,
health, social, economical and organizational consequences associated with them (International Labour Organization, 2003). This problem is reinforced by statistics, which reveal worrying numbers. Recent world data,
from 2001 (International Labour Office, 2005), indicates the occurrence of 268 million non-fatal and 351,500
fatal work accidents; in Europe the latest estimates, of the year 2003, allude to around 4.2 million work accidents resulting in more than 3 days of absence from work (EUROSTAT, 2005).
*
Corresponding author. Address: CIS/ISCTE, Edifcio ISCTE, Av. das Forc!as Armadas 1649-026 Lisboa. Tel.: +351217903079; fax:
+351217903962.
E-mail address: sonia.goncalves@iscte.pt (S.M.P. Gonc!alves).

0925-7535/$ - see front matter ! 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2007.11.002

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The last few decades have been marked by several multidisciplinary contributions to the prevention of work
accidents, mainly focusing on those factors that predict workers behaviours in relation to prevention and risk.
Scientific studies have focused their attention, primarily, on the role that human and management factors play
in safety (Hale and Hovden, 1998). The literature has suggested that several variables at an organizational and
group level, such as the organizational and group safety environment (e.g. Neal et al., 2000; Gonc!alves et al.,
2005, and at an individual level, cognitions such as risk perception, causal attribution, as well as personal accident experience (Cree and Kelloway, 1997; Melia`, 1998; Lima, 1999), have played an important role in predicting workers behaviours. Nevertheless, the analysis of the literature shows that the results of the studies
are inconclusive, and even incongruent in some situations.
The present study was developed with the principal concern of contributing to a better understanding of the
variables that predict workers behaviours in relation to safety, namely, to explore the role of personal accident experience and causal attributions.
1.1. Causal attributions
Many years ago, Heider (1958) called our attention to the fact that each of us, in the process of making
sense of our physical and social world, acts as a naive psychologist, trying to explain our actions and the
actions of others. By casual attributions he referred to the tendency of people to offer explanations by assessing the logical association between the cause and effect variables (Heider, 1958). The major contribution of
Heider was his crucial distinction between personal/internal and situational/external causes (Leyens and Yzerbyt, 1999), as two types of explanations for an event with very different consequences. For example, work accidents being explained as a result of the inappropriate behaviour or stupidity of a worker (internal explanation)
or as the consequence of a problem with machinery or noise in the work environment (external explanation)
lead to different approaches towards safety.
The literature on attribution (e.g. Nisbett and Ross, 1980; Jones, 1990; Melia` et al., 2001) suggests that
unexpected negative events generate a higher number of attributions. Work accidents fulfil this criterion,
and thus stimulate the search for a causal explanation (Melia` et al., 2001). According to Kouabenan
(2002), research on risk in general, and accidents in particular, elicits an intensive cognitive activity in people
aimed at finding reassuring explanations and gaining a better sense of control over the situation. This is one of
the functions of causal attributions, and one of the reasons why this process involves some systematic bias.
Some authors have described defensive attributions in the explanation of personal experience of accidents
linked with the fact that subjects, to protect their role in the situation, minimize their own responsibility
and maintain their self-esteem, tending to make more external causal attributions (e.g. Hewstone, 1989; Salminen, 1992; Kouabenan et al., 2001); what has been called the fundamental attribution error, refers to the fact
that observers tend to attribute events to the individuals involved in them, rather than to situational factors
(e.g. Hewstone and Antaki, 1990; Melia` et al., 2001). Moreover, according to Weiner (1985), the type of causal
attribution produced is connected to the expectations that influence future performance. Internal attributions
of failures, especially when they are also unstable and controllable (such as the attribution of an accident to
lack of care or lack of effort) are associated with a more persistent behaviour in future occasions; while
external attributions (such as bad luck or influence of others) and internal stable (such as I am a careless person) will lead to a lack of motivation to improve behaviour as it is seen as out of personal control. According
to Gykye (2003, p. 533), understanding the underlying causes of accidents provides knowledge that guides
the behaviour of workers. Nevertheless, no study has explored how causal attributions of work accidents
influence workers behaviours.
1.2. Experience of work accidents
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the accident proneness theory has suggested that work accident experience influences workers cognitions and behaviours. However, only a small number of studies have
explored how this variable influences workers perceptions and behaviours (Cree and Kelloway, 1997; Goldberg et al., 1991). For instance, in some studies, positive correlations were found between accident experience

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Work Accident
Experience

Causal
Attributions
- External
- Internal

Worker
Behaviour
- Safety
- Risk

Fig. 1. Model for worker behaviour and causal attribution.

and safety behaviour, suggesting that accident experience appears to result in more cautionary behaviour (e.g.
Laughery and Vaubel, 1989; Kouabenan, 2002).
These results, however, should be understood using models that explain why and when accident experience
gives rise to safety behaviours, since the cognitive approach suggests that accident experience influences workers evaluation and perception, which in turn influences peoples behaviour (Laughery and Vaubel, 1989).
Causal attributions can be one of those mediating variables, but studies that explore the relationship
between experience of work accidents and causal attributions of work accidents are even less frequent and
the results are not clear. For example, Kouabenan (2002), contrary to his predictions, found that accident
explanations were not affected by whether or not the person had been the victim of an accident in the past.
There are a small number of studies that have explored the personal work accident experience and until the
present work no study has focused simultaneously on workers unsafe and safe behaviours. Safety behaviour
refers to all safety performance in the workplace, which affects the probability of accidents, unhealthy and
other undesired results. Although the quality and level of safety behaviour at work is complex and multidimensional, the most relevant safety behaviours can be identified as safe behaviours, i.e. those behaviours that
contribute to reduce the probability of accidents, and unsafe behaviours, i.e. those involved in the increasing
of the risk or probability of accidents (Melia, 2007). There are some safe behaviours opposite and incompatible (e.g. use and not use a personal protective device), but many times employees perform some safe and
unsafe behaviours simultaneously, or nearly simultaneous. Our observations have taught us that unsafe
behaviours and safe behaviours are not necessarily incompatible with each other and they can co-exist. For
instance, it is possible to see a worker using his/her helmet and gloves (safe behaviour) and breaking safety
rules to get the work done faster (unsafe behaviour).
1.3. The present study
This study intends to contribute towards the clarification of the association between work accident experience and behaviours from a cognitive approach. Hence, departing from this literature and considering that
having experienced an accident will have an impact on individual behaviour, one theoretical model was tested.
The model hypothesizes a mediation effect, suggesting that the influence of workers accident experience influences causal attributions, which in turn influences workers behaviours (see Fig. 1). Moreover, this model
includes both external and internal attributions, as well as safe behaviour and unsafe behaviour.
From this general model, some hypotheses were formulated. Work accidents are expected to be positively
associated with external attributions and negatively associated with internal attributions. External attributions
are also expected to be positively associated with unsafe behaviours, while internal attributions are expected to
have a negative association, and the inverse correlation pattern is expected for the relation between attributions and safe behaviours.
2. Method
2.1. Sample
In the present study, the model has been tested in two samples from two different Portuguese organizations
with different contexts in the safety field: an organization from the industrial sector composed of 559 participants and an organization from the research and development sector composed of 335 participants. The
sample stratification was based on the relative size of the various departments in the companies, resulting

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in a random sample in which the various departments were represented proportionally. In previous studies in
these two organizations, it was possible to conclude that both are characterized by a low concern with safety.
In the first organization, an industrial company (IO), all the participants were men, and the majority
(60.0%) had ages between 31 and 50 years old. The majority (46.7%) of these participants had worked in
the company for more than 20 years, at all hierarchical levels, although the majority (76.3%) were operators.
In the second organization (R&D), a research and development organization from the services sector, the
majority of the participants were women (67.2%), with ages between 31 and 50 years old (53.3%) and with
more than 17 years of seniority in the organization (73.3%). An important characteristic of this organization
was that it did not have a safety department or a safety supervisor, and neither did it have any formal safety
norms.
2.2. Measures
In the two studies, all the variables were evaluated on the basis of a self-report questionnaire, using similar
scales.
2.2.1. Accident experience
This was measured by three questions that evaluated self-report of work accidents (e.g. How many accidents have you had in this company?, How many incidents have you had in the last 5 years?, How many
accidents with absence from work have you had in the last 5 years?). The responses to the three items were
merged to create four levels of gravity of work accident experience for each employee (the lowest level of work
accident experience: have never had accidents in this company, neither incidents or accidents in the last 5
years; the highest level of work accident experience: have had accidents in this company, incidents and severe
accidents in the last 5 years).
2.2.2. Causal attributions
The causal attributions were assessed by a method similar to that used in previous attributions studies (e.g.
Hofman and Stetzer, 1998; Kouabenan et al., 2001) with two scales, the external attributions scale focused on
the organizational environment (six items; e.g. The majority of work accidents that occurred in my company
are related with the lack of inspection from the governmental authorities; a10 = 0.76; aR&D = 0.75) and the
internal attributions scale focused on the workers (three items; e.g. The majority of work accidents that have
occurred in my company are related with the non-fulfilment of the rules of safety by the workers; aIO = 0.77;
aR&D = 0.76). These scales were confirmed in a principal component factor analysis. In each case, responses
were given along a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree), in which participants had to identify the causes of work accidents in their companies.
2.2.3. Workers behaviours
Workers behaviours were measured on the basis of two scales: safe behaviours (adapted from Neal and
Griffin, 2004) and unsafe behaviours (based on Rundmo et al., 1998). The division between safe and unsafe
behaviour was confirmed through a principal component factor analysis in both organizations. The safe
behaviours scale includes four items (e.g. I communicated the existence of dangerous situations in my workplace) with acceptable reliability levels (aIO = 0.74; aR&D = 0.46; In the last sample, the alpha value is low,
but the small number of items can partially justify this result. For this reason, homogeneity tests were performed, following Brigg and Cheek, 1986 recommendations. Inter-item correlations range from 0.17 to
0.25, with a mean value of 0.22, which is an acceptable value for an applied study). Unsafe behaviour was
measured with two items (e.g. I take risks to do the work faster; rIO = 0.25**; rR&D = 0.31**). In each case,
responses were given along a 7-point scale (1 = never, 7 = always).
3. Results
The results were obtained in three phases: descriptive statistics, correlation estimation and regression estimation to test the model.

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3.1. Descriptive statistics

The results obtained (see Table 1) reveal that the industrial organization is characterized by a low level of
experience of workplace accidents, higher levels of safe behaviours and low levels of unsafe behaviours. In
contrast, the results obtained reveal that the research and development organization is characterized by a
low level of experience of workplace accidents, lower levels of safe behaviours and unsafe behaviours. The
results show consistently that the participants make more internal attributions than external attributions to
explain the accidents that occurred in their organizations. Furthermore, it is possible to observe higher values
of safe behaviours than unsafe behaviours.
3.2. Correlations
The correlation matrix (see Table 2) in the industrial organization shows that work accident experience has
a positive correlation with external causal attributions (r = 0.247, p = 0.000, N = 396), unsafe behaviours
(r = 0.157, p = 0.001, N = 419) and safe behaviours (r = 0.106, p = 0.031, N = 415) and a negative correlation
with internal attributions (r = !0.112, p = 0.022, N = 414). Hence, the results reveal that the experience of
work accidents is significantly associated with external attributions (and less with internal attributions) and
both with more unsafe and safe behaviours. In the research and development organization the correlation
matrix (see Table 2) reveals that work accident experience has a positive correlation with external causal attributions (r = 0.171, p = 0.011, N = 223) and unsafe behaviours (r = 0.244, p = 0.000, N = 237) and a negative
correlation with internal attributions (r = !0.232, p = 0.000, N = 230). Considering the hypothesis stated, a
positive correlation was found in the two companies for the relationship between unsafe behaviour and external attributions, as predicted, but the negative association with internal attributions was only significant for
the Industrial Company. The pattern of results for safe behaviour is not the reverse for unsafe behaviour, and
the correlations are non-significant.
3.3. The test of the model mediation effect
The model was tested following the recommended mediation procedures proposed by Baron and Kenny
(1986), and reinforced recently by Frazier et al. (2004). According to this method there are four steps to
Table 1
Descriptive statistics and reliability values for the data collected in the two companies
Industrial organization

Research and development organization

Variables

SD

SD

Work accident experience

External attribution
Internal attribution
Safe behaviour
Unsafe behaviour

2.08
4.03
3.86
5.14
3.49

1.08
1.30
1.22
1.16
1.31

0.76
0.77
0.74
R = 0.25

1.68
5.08
3.63
4.37
3.05

0.99
1.41
1.55
1.61
1.63

0.75
0.76
0.78
R = 0.31

Note. M (mean); SD (standard deviation); a (Cronbachs alpha).

Table 2
Correlations among the variables in the two companies
Industrial organization
1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Work accident experience

External attribution
Internal attribution
Safe behaviour
Unsafe behaviour
*

Note. p < 0.05;

**

p < 0.01.

0.247**
!0.112*
0.106*
0.157**

0.016
0.171**
0.289**

Research and development organization

3

!0.061
!0.126**

!0.087

0.171*
!0.232**
0.118
0.244**

!0.053
0.006
0.330**

0.085
!0.023

!0.015

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997

establish that a variable mediates the relation between a predictor variable and an outcome variable. The first
step is to show that there is a significant relation between the predictor and the outcome (it is possible to see
this in the correlation matrix). The second step is to show that the predictor is related to the mediator. The
third step is to show that the mediator is related to the outcome variable. The final step is to show that
the strength of the relation between the predictor and the outcome is significantly reduced when the mediator
is added to the model. If the mediator variable is a complete mediator, the relation between the predictor
variable and the outcome variable will not differ from zero after the mediator variable is included in the model.
If the mediator variable is a partial mediator, the relation between the predictor and the outcome will be
significantly smaller when the mediator variable is included, but will still be greater than zero. In all steps
the demographic variables were controlled (tenure, work, occupational category and age), which means that
these variables are entered in the regressions, but due to reasons of space are not represented in the mediations
tables presented subsequently.
Considering the previous correlation matrix (step 1), it was possible to observe that in the research and
development organization the results show some non-significant associations, which do not allow us to test
the performance of the model. Specifically, safe behaviour was not statistically associated with any of the variables in the study. It is thus not possible to test the model in terms of safe behaviour prediction. The correlation between unsafe behaviours and internal attributions is not statistically significant, so it is not possible to
test the model that hypothesizes the mediation effects of these types of attributions, for this organization. In
the industrial organization it is not possible to test the mediator effect of internal attributions.

3.3.1. Mediation effect of external attributions

External attribution was the first mediator tested.
In the second step the effects of the independent variable (work accident experience) on the mediator was
tested for both organizations. In the industrial organization the results reveal that work accident experience
explains 14% of external attributions variance (F(5, 244) = 9.309, p = 0.000; b = 0.190, p = 0.003). In the
research and development organization it explains 2% of external attributions variance (F(6, 166) = 1.693,
p = 0.126; b = 0.188, p = 0.015).
In the third and fourth steps the effect of work accident experience and external attributions in the prediction of unsafe and safe behaviour was tested (see Table 3). In the industrial organization, it was not possible to
confirm the mediation model for safe behaviours. Nevertheless, results for unsafe behaviour revealed that
external attributions are a complete mediator, since the relation between the predictor variable (work accident
experience) and the outcome variable (unsafe behaviour) is no longer significant with the introduction of the
mediator variable in the model (external attributions). The proposed model was then supported only for
unsafe behaviours. This result confirms that work accident personal experience has an impact on workers
unsafe behaviour through external causal attributions.
In the research and development organization, only the prediction of unsafe behaviour was possible. External attributions are a partial mediator, since the relation between the predictor variable (work accident experience) and the outcome variable (unsafe behaviour) became more significant with the introduction of the
Table 3
Regression for predicting safe and unsafe behaviour: external causal attributions as mediator
Industrial organization

Research and development organization

Safe behaviour

Unsafe behaviour

DR2

FChange

1. WA

0.120
0.013
3.081
R2 adjusted = 0.002

2. WA
EA

0.096
0.124
0.013
R2 adjusted = 011

Note. *p < 0.001;

**

p < 0.05;

3.228

***

df
1241

1240

DR2

Unsafe behaviour
FChange

**

0.186
0.030
8.349
R2 adjusted = 0.095**
0.118
0.362*
0.110
34.400
R2 adjusted = 0.204*

df
1244

1243

DR2

b
*

0.271
0.071
R2 adjusted = 0.105*
0.211**
0.313*
0.092*
R2 adjusted = 0.185*

p < 0.01: WA (work accident experience); EA (external attributions).

FChange

df

13.245

1162

19.204

1161

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Table 4
Regression for predicting unsafe behaviour: internal causal attributions as mediator
Industrial organization, unsafe behaviour
DR2

b
1. WA
R2 adjusted = 0.089**

**

0.167

2. WA
IA
R2 adjusted = 0.087

0.164**
!0.029

Note. *p < 0.001;

**

p < 0.05;

FChange

df

0.025

6.923

1252

0.001

0.223

1251

**

* **

p < 0.01: WA (work accident experience); IA (internal attributions).

mediator variable in the model (external attributions). However, the b value is smaller with the inclusion of the
mediator variable.
3.3.2. Mediation effect of internal attributions
The second mediation effect that was analysed was the mediation effect of internal attributions.
In the second step the effects of the independent variable (work accident experience) on the mediator (internal attributions) for both organizations were tested. The results, for the industrial organization, reveal that
accident experience explains 6% of internal attributions (F(5, 253) = 4.436, p = 0.001; b = !0.097,
p = 0.131), while in the research and development organization it also explains 6% of internal attributions variance (F(6, 172) = 3.024, p = 0.008; b = !0.183, p = 0.014).
In the next step, the effect of work accident experience and the mediating role of internal attributions in the
prediction of unsafe and safe behaviours were tested (see Table 4).
In the industrial organization, since the internal attributions do not seem to have a significant association
with safe behaviour, the prediction of this type of behaviour was not performed. The results obtained for the
prediction of unsafe behaviour, in the industrial organization, revealed that the mediation model was not supported, as there is no relationship between internal attributions, the predictor variable (work accident experience) and the outcome variable (unsafe behaviour).
In the research and development organization it was not possible to test the mediation model, since the
association between the variables was not statistically significant.
4. Discussion of results
The current paper presents a study that aims to contribute to the understanding of work accident impact on
future behaviour and the role of causal attributions. This study is distinguished from previous research due to
the fact that it looks for behavioural consequences of work accident experience and causal attributions associated with work accidents. Trying to understand workers behaviours and identify their determinants is one of
the first steps to prevention.
This study had two objectives: (1) to analyze the relationship among work accident experience, causal attribution and workers behaviours; and (2) to test causal attributions as a mediating variable in the relationship
between work accident experience and workers behaviours. To test these relationships between variables a
study was conducted in two organizations.
The results consistently show, for both organizations, that work accident experience has a positive correlation with external causal attributions and unsafe behaviour. It is thus possible to say that greater work accident experience and higher external attributions related with organizations fault for accidents are associated
with higher unsafe behaviour. These results are consistent with Weiner (1985) predictions based on his motivational model; and following Kouabenan (2002) predictions, the results consistently show that work accident
experience influences causal attributions. Similar to the literature (e.g. Salminen, 1992; Kouabenan et al.,
2001) the participants of the present study tends to make more external causal attributions than internal attributions; this tendency may be explained as a defensive mechanism minimizing workers responsibility.

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In the industrial organization the results also reveal a negative association between unsafe behaviour and
internal attributions. However, in the research and development organization this association was not statistically significant. In relation to safe behaviour, although results revealed a positive association with work
accident experience and external attributions, the regression results did not confirm their predictive value.
Accident experience will probably change workers behaviour (both safe and unsafe behaviour), at least
during a certain period after the accident. This means that direct effects of accident experience and accident
severity could be detected if safe behaviours were registered at the appropriate time, but that would imply
a longitudinal study which was not done in this case.
From a cognitive approach, it is reasonable to expect that accident experience does not only affect employees behaviour, but also the interpretation that workers make about accidents, which consequently also affects
workers behaviours. Accordingly, our results (Fig. 2) consistently showed that external causal attributions
mediated the relationship between work accident experience and unsafe behaviour. The other associations
were non-significant. This complex set of relationships indicates that the specific characteristics of the organizational setting (for example, the organizations activity sector, the safety and preventive structures of the
organization or the demographic composition of the samples) may play an important role in this process.
Moreover, in this study, as both companies are characterized by a low level of experience of workplace accidents, few causal attributions or other effects can be envisaged. Besides, the R&D company also has low levels
of safe behaviour and unsafe behaviour so, definitively in the R&D organization safety is not a salient issue
and this makes it more difficult to observe causal attributions and their effects.
In addition, causal attribution related to work accidents is not a spontaneous process. It is also a matter of
training and information. A well-informed employee will rarely attribute accidents to only one cause. Barao
et al. (2006) revealed that workers belonging to companies with stronger positive safety cultures (e.g. with very
good safety training and communication) interpreted and explained work accident causes with a more complex approach, combining internal and external attributions. Therefore, causal attributions are not only a matter of an individual perception bias, they are influenced by the organizational context and the role safety plays
in this context. Safety culture and safety training will determine accident attributions and perhaps, the greater
the safety training of the employees the more accurate their causal attributions of an accident will be.
It is also important to stress that accident experiences may be very diverse quantitatively and qualitatively.
In this study, the measure used tried to merge quality and quantity, but it focused more on the quantitative
accumulation of accident experiences; perhaps the quality of the experience (i.e. the severity of the accident or
the severity of the social consequences, i.e. court processes) has more impact than the quantity. According to
literature review (e.g. Kouabenan, 1999), it is possible that the greater the severity of the accident the more
causal attributions are made.
In conclusion, results also suggest that safe behaviour and unsafe behaviour have different determinants;
and it seems to be easier to predict unsafe behaviour than safe behaviour. Work accident experience seems
to be a good predictor of unsafe behaviour, and this relationship is mediated by workers external attributions.
However, the reverse pattern was not found for safe behaviour. Moreover, although significant relationships
in five of the six regression equations for predicting safe and unsafe behaviours were found, the percentage of
variance explained by predictors was low, which suggests that there is still a long walk in the research in connection with predicting workers behaviours.

Work Accident Experience

St1: IO = .186**

St3: IO = .118

St1: R&D = .271*

St3: R&D = .211*

St2: IO = .190**
St2: R&D = .188**

External Causal
Attributions

St3: IO = .362*
St3: R&D = .313*

Worker Unsafe Behaviour

Fig. 2. Synthesis of the mediation effects (the steps of the analysis are indicated as St1St3). Note. Results above and below the lines
correspond to the Industrial Organization and the R&D company, respectively. *p = 0.001; **p = 0.05.

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5. Conclusion
Considering the knowledge accumulated in the literature, the results of these studies have some implications
for changing organizational behaviour. Work accident experience performs a central role affecting workers
perceptions and behaviours, suggesting that organizational learning from accidents can be important at the
individual level, especially if the attribution pattern is considered. This study enhances the importance of
focusing on the attribution of accidents in the workplace after an accident, and it suggests that unsafe and
safe behaviours should be considered as somewhat different realities.
The generalization of the conclusions of these studies should be contextualized, taking into consideration
some limitations of the current study. This is a cross-sectional study based on self-reported data, which means
that causality cannot be inferred and data may be biased. Some of the measures used should also be refined.
Moreover, the study focused on the observers point of view, but the participants had to explain the accidents
that occurred in their organization and not their own accidents. Some other contextual variables could also
have been useful to contextualize our results, namely, the organizational and group safe culture.
In future, research should continue to focus on the role of accident experience and its influence on how
people make sense of work accidents to increase its positive impact for safe and unsafe behaviour. A zero accidents goal is a difficult goal to accomplish but the study of accidents causes is essential for prevention. Learning from accidents and incidents is a social responsibility of all companies.
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted by the Centro de Investigac!ao e Intervenc!ao Social (CIS) Portugal and supported by the FCT-Portugal (PIQS/PSI/50070/2003).
Part of this paper was published earlier in Gonc!alves, S., Silva, S., Melia`, J., Lima, L., 2006. The experience
of work accidents: its consequences for cognition and behaviour. In: Guedes Soares, C., Zio, E., (Eds)., Safety
and Reliability for Managing Risk. London: Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 333339.
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