Safety Science 50 (2012) 111

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Safety Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

Analysis of business safety performance by structural equation models

I.-Yuang Hsu a, Teh-Sheng Su a,, Chen-Shan Kao b, Yi-Liang Shu a, Pei-Ru Lin b, Jo-Ming Tseng a
a b

Institute of Safety and Disaster Prevention Technology, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taichung 40601, Taiwan, ROC Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National United University, Miaoli 36003, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Domestic safety performance, which has had gained increasingly greater importance in recent years, is the subject of many studies. However, studies on the application of the structural equation model (SEM) in systematic safety performance model tness verications remain scarce. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety performance with the aim at one private representative chemical and food company in Taiwan, for providing the strategy and improvement consult in safety management. In order to obtain the best-t safety performance model, the Amos 17.0 (Analysis of Moment Structure 17.0) was used to construct a series of SEM competition models to conrm the four various orientations of the safety performance model through the conrmatory factor analysis (CFA) method. The results showed that the rst-order multi-factor oblique model and second-order single-factor safety performance model were the best-t models. The results of this study will contribute to the related enterprises ability to assess the safety indicators and will also be an even greater contribution to the future development of enterprise security. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 17 March 2010 Received in revised form 26 November 2010 Accepted 15 April 2011 Available online 2 August 2011 Keywords: Safety performance Structural equation model Conrmatory factor analysis

1. Introduction Safety performance has been dened as the overall performance of the organization safety management system in safe operation (Wu, 2001). The safety performance measurement can be divided into three types (Wei, 2008): rst: the traditional type: incapacitating injury, disaster frequency and medical compensation rate; second: transfer type: disaster prevention analysis and safety target achievement rate; and nal: modern type: standards of active measurement of safety and health performance, such as audit frequency, audit assessment, identication and so on. The denition of safety and health performance is the overall operation performance of enterprise organization in safety and health management. The domestic and foreign study indicates that safety and health performance is closely related to the safety climate of organizational behavior (Wu, 2001; Markus and Michael, 2003; Mearns et al., 1998; Kristin et al., 2003; Neal et al., 2000; Stephen, 2007), which combined with the scientic approach can signicantly enhance the safety and health performance. Therefore, the prevention of occupational hazards not only starts from the improvement of equipment safety, but it must also implement effective safety and health management (Krause et al., 1999; Benavides et al., 2005; Fuller, 2005), pay attention to effective integration of safety and health and quality control (Manuele, 1995),
Corresponding author. Address: 666, Buzih Road, Beitun District, Taichung 40601, Taiwan, ROC. Tel.: +886 4 2239 1647x6855; fax: +886 4 2239 9934. E-mail address: tssu@ctust.edu.tw (T.-S. Su).
0925-7535/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2011.04.012

constitute a total Safety and Health Management System, and regard the good or bad of safety and health performance to be the key that will affect the performance of the organization (Gervais, 2003). Therefore, the safety and health performance can cope with the overall operational goals of the enterprise to establish the indicators for assessing the defects and gaps in the safety and health performance, and become the sub-system of the organizational performance. In an ideal business organization, the individual safety and health performance should be combined with the integration performance of the enterprise to integrate the power to achieve the goal of enterprise safety and health (Lust, 1996). The safety and health performance must go through the assessment system to convey the important messages of the internal safety and health (Steven, 1997). Aiming at the process of safety and health, the output produced is the safety and health performance of the specic objectives, and the results are quantied. The correct safety and health performance assessment indicators facilitate the continual improvement of all working processes of an enterprise. After the United Kingdom-based European countries began to promote the Occupational Safety and Health Management System and establish safety and health related performance indicators, other countries also followed suit (British Standards Institution, 1999; Standards Australia, 1997; AHSO, 1997; JISHA, 1997; AIHA, 1996; Redinger et al., 2002). The United States makes it a policy objective by taking this as a criterion to implement self-care system for business institutions (OSHA, 2003a,b, 2005), and year after year sets the occupational safety and health performance management indicators. Also, it is suggested that business institutions refer to the

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experience of the United States regarding the specic practices and content of the self-management system in the implementation of the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) (Su and Hsu, 2008). They comprise four parts: (1) Management leadership and employee involvement; (2) worksite analysis; (3) hazard prevention and control; and (4) safety and health training. The four important parts of self-management can be consolidated into organization-oriented, management-oriented, controloriented and behavior-oriented to enhance the companys safety and health performance and continue improvement through PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) of the management to strengthen the self-management of enterprises and enhance safety and health performance. Regarding safety and health aspects of the past, the problems faced included the performance assessment methods. The occupational hazards frequency or disasters severity rate is used to assess the safety situation of the company, department, or equipment environment that is often used at present in a passive management, and is still unable to clearly reect the issues, such as whether or not the overall Safety and Health Management Systems are effective, safety and health diagnosis is correct, safety and health system is able to effectively control the hazards, or safety and health management and plans are valid (Petersen, 2000; Wentz, 1999).

to assess the company departments safety and health situations (Chhokar and Wallin, 1984). These statistics as a passive indicator lack sensitivity and timeliness for the occupational safety and health management, and the accuracy of the validity is also questionable. More importantly, the risk exposure and risk-based management measures are often overlooked (Tsao, 1998; Wu and Kang, 2004). Thus, the various performance indicators covered under occupational safety and health management should be reasonable, feasible and appropriate. And they should cover the necessary information provided for the assessment of safety and health performance indicators. General occupational safety and health performance indicators can be divided into proactive, passive and a mix of the proactive and passive modes. In recent years, some ofcial or unofcial safety and health organizations in advanced countries, as well as multinational companies with good occupational safety and health performance, have been advocating for good occupational safety and health work. In addition to taking appropriate passive measurement tools, they must be strengthened to cope with the proactive type of performance measurements to be regarded as successful occupational safety and health management. 2.2. Active performance assessment measurement Proactive performance measurement involves implementing safety and health management business before the incident of accidental disasters, occupational diseases or losses in order to provide important information on the implementation effectiveness. Proactive performance measurement can check the conformity of pre-scheduled performance standards and achievement degrees of a specic safety and health performance objectives. Its main purpose is to encourage the good performance of safety and health through reward and not to punish failure. The purpose is oriented to nding and solving the problems in order to uphold the spirit of achieving performance targets and to continue improvement. Business institutions should build a comprehensive set of occupational safety and health management structures, so that management of all sectors can be properly authorized and take responsibility for monitoring and measuring whether their subordinates and themselves have achieved performance objectives and standards. By the strong operators safety and health commitment and through the layers of supervision operations the institutions and organizations function is reected. The managers in charge of safety and health performance standards planning should carefully monitor adherence to the standards of various detailed operations. The occupational safety and health performance standards in addition to direct control and supervision should include implementation of indirect supervision and management through the various department managers by checking the quality and quantity achievement rates of the safety and health operations, and demanding that managers or departments demonstrate whether or not the supervision of eld operations is working properly by way of monthly or quarterly reports of the objectives achieved. Regular inspections are made of monitoring operations and check the on-site compliance with safety and health performance management standards. Risky operations may require each management unit to set its own appropriate objectives, regularly review the amendment, assess all safety and health training needs of each unit and retain records, and try to meet all the training needs. At the same time, the job foreman, on-site maintenance personnel, safety and health representatives and other necessary personnel form the joint safety team should conduct systematic checks on the work site, plant and equipment to ensure the correct control and functioning of the hardware. In addition, they should implement environmental monitoring and health checks to

2. Safety performance applications 2.1. The occupational safety and health performance assessment The occupational safety and health performance assessment can provide operational indicators for the Safety and Health Management System (Stricoff, 2000). The assessment principles include: (1) By way of safety and health assessments, provide specic safety and health reference indicators, and through the indicators, identify the safety and health improvement situation. (2) Each safety and health performance assessment needs to be implemented by a relevant person in charge, and through the implementation of assessment, the attitude and capability of the working personnel can be obtained. (3) Each assessment process can provide a feedback mechanism that performs a reinforcing function for the good safety and health performance indicators. In addition, it can also amend the relatively undesirable safety and health indicators. An occupational safety and health performance assessment must be conducted in compliance with the specic safety and health performance indicators and be quantied to demonstrate its application value (Phillips and Williams, 1999). Such an assessment must feature the following: (1) clear assessment criteria; (2) not only contain writing information; (3) the specic standard procedures; (4) based on facts, may be repeated, and is not subjective; (5) the assessment should be easy to understand and must be related to the enterprise interests; and (6) the assessment must be relevant to the basic-level enterprise management units. The occupational Safety and Health assessment is the essential work in measuring the effectiveness of the business institutions in their implementation of various safety and health management measures. Experts suggest using the Safety and Health Management System (including the type of proactive monitoring of the Occupational Safety and Health Management System). Traditionally, occupational safety and health personnel use proactive monitoring of the Occupational Safety and Health Management System-based safety performance assessment methods. That is, the data of accidental events such as injury, disability, death, disease, etc., is used

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determine the effectiveness of industrial health control operations for the early detection of the source of health hazards. The line supervisor can directly conduct a systematic safety observation on the workers behavior and set up a safety coach system in order to correct unsafe behavior. The eld operation personnel may also implement safety observations on each other to nd the persons directly related to behavior risk control for the safety education training and equipment improvements. According to OHSAS18001 (OHSAS18001), BS8800 (BSI, 1996), ISO14000 (ISO, 1999a,b), ISO9000 (ISO, 1999a,b), and ILOOSH2001 (ILO, 2001) and the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, ROC (ITRI) Performance Measurement Technical Manual (Industrial Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2000), the active performance measurements should include the following matters: (1) degree of accomplishment of plans and objectives; (2) employees view of the degree of managements commitment to occupational safety and health; (3) whether a person in charge of safety and health is assigned; (4) whether safety and health experts are designated; (5) the degree and scope of inuence the safety and health experts have; (6) whether the security policy is announced; (7) whether the security policy is adequately advocated; (8) size of the safety and health training; (9) the effectiveness of safety and health training; (10) comparison of the number completed in the risk assessment and the required number; (11) the degree of risk control consistency; (12) the degree of laws and regulations consistency; (13) the frequency and effectiveness of senior supervisors safety and health operation inspections; (14) the frequency of employees suggestions on safety and health improvements; (15) employees attitude toward risks and risk control; (16) degree of employees understanding of risks and of risk control; (17) frequency of safety and health audits; (18) the time required for implementation of safety and health audit suggestions; (19) frequency and effectiveness of Safety and Health Committee meetings; (20) the frequency and effectiveness of safety and health briengs; (21) audit reports of safety and health experts; (22) the time required for the implementation of employees complaints or suggestions; (23) health testing information; (24) sampling report of personnel exposure under risk; (25) the degree of exposure in the workplace, such as noise, dust, smoke, etc.; and (26) situation of personal protective gear usage. The degree of supervision of Occupational Safety and Health Management and the depth of performance measurement are closely related to the level of risk of sustainable business management. Therefore, performance measurements should be based on the concept of cost-effectiveness and focus on items with the most effective safety and health results and the strongest risk control validity, such as the venue or premises of high-risk nature. More detailed or more frequent safety and health supervision will be required in the assessment of the measurement procedures and operations in order to effectively promote awareness, assessment and hazard control. 2.3. Assessment of passive performance measurement Traditionally, for business institutions to assess their safety and health performance, the majority base their assessment on the safety and health problems that have already taken place. This measurement method, including the comparison of the number of cases of disasters, damage, false alarms or occupational diseases with the corresponding target value preset and based on the results of the comparison, was made as a reference guide for improvement of the consecutive safety and health performance and direction of promotion. Such mode of using negative output in the number of occupational accidents and occupational diseases that occur as a measurement of the safety and health performance implemented is known

as a passive performance measurement (US Department of Labor, 2000; Asfahl, 1999). There are some limitations and shortcomings of passive performance measurements on the application in occupational safety and health management, such as the insufcient information of injury in business institutions. The rates of disasters and accidents and occupational diseases measured out may be low, and therefore real safety and health trends cannot be seen as a reference for the determination of safety and health management strategies. The incidence of some incidents may be low, but the consequences of the incident can be very serious. This low incidence in the number of incidents is not sufcient to represent their good safety and health management performance. And even if the low incidence indicates that the incident will occur after cumulative time, it does not guarantee its hazard risks have been effectively controlled and will not cause occupational injury, occupational disease or damage to property. For business institutions or the workplace with a low incidence of serious harm, the record of accidents over the years may become an unreliable and misleading indicator for safety and health performance. And there will be a temporal gap between occupational safety and health management and the occurrence of any occupational hazards. Many occupational diseases have a longer incubation period. It is not advisable to delay the assessment of the effectiveness of occupational safety and health systems till the occupational diseases have been identied. The results of most of the occupational health issues emerge after a very long time. Hazard assessment and hazard control need to be conducted. If all corrective improvement measures rely on the emergence of problems, there will be more personnel exposed under the hazards. Due to the long exposure, the consequences may be more serious, and the corrective improvement measures may be too late. Early assessments of continuous improvement of operation environment exposure is therefore required to identify high-risk groups for the implementation of environmental improvement to improve the quality of the work environment. According to OHSAS18002, BS8800, ISO14000, ISO9000, ILOOSH2001, and ITRI performance measurement technical manual, the passive performance measurement information should include the following matters: (1) unsafe behaviors; (2) unsafe conditions; (3) false alarm incidents; (4) accident that caused only property damage; (5) compulsory reporting of hazard events; (6) loss of work hours incidents; (7) signicant occupational hazard events; (8) the sick leave caused by occupational and non-occupational disease; (9) nearby residents or the mass protests; (10) the competent authority to correct cases; and (11) the competent authority disciplinary cases. 2.4. The combination of active performance measurement indicators and passive performance measurement indicators The Occupational Safety and Health performance measurement system of business institutions can also combine the active and passive performance measurement indicators for application in accordance with the following principles. Active performance measurements are used to examine the consistency of the institutional level of safety and health operations, such as identifying whether or not new personnel or personnel in post shift have participated in new personnel training; passive performance measurements used in the investigation, analysis and recording of the Occupational Safety and Health Management System deciencies are mainly based on the investigation of disasters and damages. Usually, it requires the use of active and passive performance measurement data as a common performance indicator to assess whether the safety and health performance objectives have been reached. Refer to the performance assessment inuential factors framework

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to the spirit of ISO 14031 standards for environmental performance assessment, including the occupational safety and health performance assessment indicators with the Occupational Health & Safety Condition Performance Indicators (OHSCPIs), Occupational Health and Safety Management Performance Indicators (OHSMPIs), and Occupational Health and Safety Operation Performance Indicators (OHSOPIs) (Lin and Chen, 2002).

The structural equation model has three major contents (Chiu, 2003): hypothesis testing, structural conrmatory and modeling analysis and comparison: (1) Hypothesis testing: Hypothesis testing is the primary content of the structural equation model. The researchers make their own assumption model and by way of hypothesis testing validate the relevance of the relationship between the physical model and individual variable. (2) Structural conrmatory: composed of a group of dimensions that cannot be directly observed and measured, but its existence is proved by statistical data obtained. This is also one of the main advantages of the structural equation model (Bollen and Long, 1993). The variables relationship is not simply variable inferences or discussion between variables relations, but also involves a latent cause and effect relationship and class issues. The inspection or verication of causality of structure in the scale depends on the nature and content of the variables claried beforehand, understanding the hypothetical relationship between the variables, and then putting forward a series of specic hypothetical structural relationships to seek a statistical verication. (3) Modeling analysis and comparison: to form the above explored hypothetical testing and structural conrmatory for a meaningful hypothetical model with a series of theoretical assumptions, and then through statistical procedures and t to serve as a model verication. In the comparison of competing hypothetical models, the main purpose is to compare which model can best respond to the appropriate true information.

3. Structural equation modeling (SEM) related discussion The Structural Equation model has many aliases, such as the Covariance Structure Analysis, Latent Variable Analysis, Conrmatory factor analysis (CFA), as well as the Linear Structure Relations (Hair et al., 1998; Chou, 2001; Chen, 2007). Chemical (Su and Hsu, 2008) and the food industries have been explored by safety performance in our earlier research. Many studies have not been clear yet about the composition of SEM. CFA is classied in both parts of rst-order multi-factor oblique model and second-order singlefactor safety performance model. First-order multi-factor oblique model is dened as only have the correlation without cause and effect between the factors, and which is described by curved line. As for the second-order single-factor safety performance model is dened as the factors have the joint effected by higher rst-order multi-factor, and each second-order single-factor have not jointed, but every rst-order multi-factor and second-order single-factor have the connected with error value. SEM has been pointed out as consisting of two natural features (Hair et al., 1998): (1) The majority as well as the estimation of the relationship between dependencies; (2) Possesses the ability to represent abstract concepts among the many relationships.

Table 1 A comprehensive compilation list of various researchers t indices. Three types assessment indicators Index referred to as Fit standards and applicability

Assessment of the overall model t

Chi-square test Absolute t index

v2 test
GFI AGFI RMR RMSEA SRMR ECVI

Incremental t indices

NFI NNFI CFI IFI RFI PGFI NCP AIC CN v2/df

P > 0.05, its value must be below the signicant level to illustrate the model explanatory power; it is more suitable for 100200 sample copies >0.9 or >0.8, indicating the ratio of the variance and co-variance in the original data to be explained by model, and the closer value is to 1, the higher the goodness-of-t of the model >0.9 or >0.8, GFI calculated according to the number of degrees of freedom, not affected by the complexity of the model <0.05, the smaller it is, the better the tness will be 60.05 good t, 0.050.08 not bad t, 0.080.10 moderate t, >0.10 bad t. It is not affected by sample size and the complexity of the model <0.05, the smaller, the better the model to t the observed value A good indicator for diagnosis of cross-validation of model, the smaller its value, the smaller the degree of volatility of model goodness-of-t and the better the hypothetical model will be >0.90, indicating the degree of improvement of model compared with nothingness >0.90, taking into consideration the impact of degree of freedom, the difference in the degree calculated is free from the impact resulting from the model complexity >0.9, indicating the degree of improvement of the model compared with nothingness, suitable for small samples >0.9, dealing with issues of NNFI uctuations and the sample size impact on NFI Index >0.9, when the data fully t model, the value is 1 >0.50, to illustrate the streamlining degree of the theoretical models As close to 0 as possible, indicating the model has a perfect goodness-of-t, suitable for comparison between models AIC value of theoretical model should be smaller than that of saturated model and independent model >200, to illustrate the relevance of the sample size <2 or <3, not affected by model complexity, but affected by the sample size The size of the path coefcient is the basis of the assessment. All the standardized path coefcients greater than 0.7 indicate the good measurement system. It can also be based on indicators such as structural reliability, extracted variance, etc. for the assessment The ratio for each endogenous variable to be explained of variance by other variable (referred to as explanatory power) R2. The bigger each R2 is, the better. In general, R2 more than 0.3 indicates good explanatory power

Parsimonious t indices

Measurement model assessment Structural equation modeling assessment

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The measurement model is designed to establish the relationship between measurement indicators and latent variables, primarily through conrmatory factor analysis to test the validity of the measurement mode. The structural model is designed to test the causal path relationship between the latent variables, mainly aiming at analysis of the path of latent variables for testing the t nature of the structural model (Wu, 2006; Chen, 2007). This study used Amos 17.0 (Analysis of Moment Structure 17.0) software package to conduct model Fittest, to dene the model strategy and the causal strength, causal direction, indirect relationship and direct relationship. 3.1. Structural equation model goodness-of-t verication SEM assumes that when each parameter in the hypothetical model has been successfully estimated, the assessment of the overall model can be conducted through a variety of statistical procedures Goodness-of-t index to assess (Chiu, 2003). The assessment process must be repeated to view the goodness-of-t Index, which shows the importance of analysis in the SEM Program. As regards the assessment indicators of model goodnessof-t, SEM mode must pass through the following three types of indicators to assess (Chen, 2007) whether or not each type to take 12 indicators is better: (1) The overall assessment of model goodness-of-t: with the chisquare value as the representative, the smaller the chisquare value the better. But the chi-square value is related to the degree of freedom, and therefore goodness-of-t assessment takes P value greater than 0.05 as basis for judging, and P value >0.05 means it is acceptable to this model. And there are other indicators of goodness-of-t. (2) Measurement model assessment: to measure the path coefcient as the basis for the assessment: if all standardized path coefcients were greater than 0.7, it means good measurement system. It can also use such indicators as structural reliability and extracted variance as the bases for the assessment. (3) Structural equation model assessment: For each endogenous variable by other variables to explain the variance ratio (referred to as explanatory power) R2, the bigger each R2 is the better. In general, R2 more than 0.3 means good explanatory power.

This study intended to implement six Fit index GFI, AGFI, RMR, RMSEA, CFI and v2/df as the SEM analysis of goodness-of-t assessment indicators. Table 1 is the summary of Fit index discussed by various researchers.

4. Study method Safety performance evaluation for both of private representative chemical and food company in Taiwan were carried out, with research framework (Su and Hsu, 2008) integrated the four important parts of self-management consolidated into four orientations including organization-oriented, management-oriented, control-oriented and behavior-oriented in order to enhance the companys safety and health performance. Based on the structural equation model to construct the relationship between the two dimensions, the research framework is as shown in Fig. 1. 4.1. Research hypothesis Based on the motivation of this study, aiming at safety performance to conduct structural model analysis, the research assumptions are as follows: (1) Safety performance can be composed of four dimensions which are correlated; (2) The four dimensions of safety performance can be explained with dimensions of a higher level. 4.2. The questionnaire design The safety performance questionnaire designed for this study (Su and Hsu, 2008) is based on the safety performance. The safety performance surface includes 31 items, which are taken as tradeoff questions of the hypothetical relationship, as detailed in Table 2: 4.3. Analysis method In this study, using the SPSS 12.0 and Amos 17.0 as the detection tools and targeting research purposes and research hypothesis, the following analytical methods are adopted to conduct data analysis. (1) Descriptive statistics analysis: By this analysis, a preliminary understanding of the basic features and characteristics of the sample structure was made. Quantied samples data were encoded, and the personal background variables as well as the mean of the various variables and the standard deviation on those subjects were analyzed. The low mean stands for disagreement with the response question, and the small standard deviation represents the high consistency with the view of the response question. (2) Reliability analysis: Reliability means measuring the reliability of the information, that is, a measurement tool (scale) is for the measurement of consistency or stability of the persistent psychological traits (attitude). The reliability of a scale is regarded high if consistency is created after the subjects of the same group were measured with the scale of the same nature and same purpose. The stability of a scale is regarded high if it results in little difference when subjects of the same group receive the same measurement of the same scale at a different time. Reliability analysis of this study is primarily Cronbachs a coefcient. Using Cronbachs a value to assess the consistency within the scale, the higher its value, the better the consistency within the scale. Coefcient a in the general study (Li, 2007) at least must be greater than 0.7, based on the documentation provided for the criteria assessment of a coefcient as shown in Table 3.

Safety performance

Organization-oriented

Management-oriented

Control-oriented

Behavior-oriented

Fig. 1. Research framework.

6 Table 2 The trade-off questions of the safety performance dimensions. Organization oriented 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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High-level commitment in the determination to support and a clear vision of leadership. To encourage employees including all workers and outsourcing work to participate in safety and health program setups. Senior managers to low-level employees to be given a clear responsibility and sufcient authority of safety and health. High-level executives and low-level employees are aware of safety and health representations. Publication of company safety and health policy and effective communication. To set up a clear safety and health program and objective. Periodic assessment and review of the safety and health program.

Management oriented

1. Implementation of vocational satisfaction survey and trend analysis. 2. The implementation of latent industrial health hazard assessment and operating environment measurement to understand the latent harm factor. 3. Use of new materials and equipment to identify hazard factors and preventive measures. 4. The use of work safety analysis and other methods, depending on hazard factors set out in the workplace safety and health objectives management program. 5. Regularly scheduled automatic checks of the workplace. 6. Set communication channel for employees to respond at any time to the latent hazards. 7. Disaster notication after analysis and improvement measures. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. The use of qualied professional safety and health personnel to implement improvement measures. For identied latent hazards, separately eliminate the source. The use of reliable and effective projects to improve the methods to control hazards. The use of job rotation and other administrative improvements to reduce exposure to hazard. The use of codes of practice and working methods to improve the specic action operations. The use of effective personal protective gear and rst aid measures to reduce the hazard. Implementation of the system of follow-up to improve the effectiveness. To implement the health and management system. To set emergency procedures and drills.

Control oriented

Behavior oriented

1. Training of management personnel at all levels of responsibility for safety and health. 2. High-level executives, line managers, line personnel, and manufacturers to be made aware of the disease related to harming the environment and work. 3. Employees learn work safety procedures are made aware of protection from hazard through the supervision. 4. Employees understand the proper use of protective gear. 5. For management, line supervisors and employees, manufacturers and visitors to understand and have the emergency response capabilities. 6. Familiarize with the emergency response work to undertake. 7. Employees fully understand the contents of safety and health self-management. 8. Employees participate effectively and take responsibility for safety and health.

(3) Factor analysis: factor analysis is a parsimonious information technology, mainly aiming at a smaller number of dimensions to render the original data structure to explain the complex phenomenon of relevant variables. As the factors cannot be observed directly, there is a random error in variables that is affected by the factors. This analysis is taken to assess the common basic factors of the scale in this study and explain the degree of variance. (4) T-test analysis: t-test analysis is used to test the expectation that two groups of data are equal to determine whether the signicances of the two groups of variables show consistency or not, and at the same time verify the signicant differences among the variables. (5) One-way ANOVA: one-way ANOVA is mainly to test whether the expectations of several independent groups are equal or not and to explore whether or not there are differences in the features in all dimensions of the different samples. By means of this analysis test, the differences between background variables groups of the organization members identify whether a signicant difference exists between specic groups or not. (6) Structural equation model (SEM) analysis: By means of this analysis, the state of matters is rendered in an objective manner by way of cause and effect hypothesis, and then veried with the quantied information. It covers all dimensions of development of the tests, such as project analysis, reliability estimation, validation, etc., and even theoretical validation. In this study, the Amos 17.0 package software was used to conduct the model goodness-of-t test and dene the strategy of model and the causal strength, causal direction, indirect relationship and direct relationship within. First, conduct a test of data t for measuring the model by conrmatory factor analysis in order to conrm whether the

observed variables can be effectively explained by latent variables; second, conduct the path analysis and goodness-of-t test for the structural model and to test whether the causal relationship between each latent variables is signicant or not. The structural model based on the results of the analysis has been adjusted where appropriate to be in line with the theories and to be an acceptable model statistically. 5. Results and discussion 5.1. The sample recovery prole A total of 458 questionnaires were sent out and a total of 380 questionnaires recovered. After excluding 10 invalid questionnaires, 370 questionnaires were valid. The valid recovery rate reached 80.8%, as shown in Tables 47. 5.2. Analysis of the situation of central tendency and dispersion of samples Regarding the perception distribution of factory employees in various dimensions of the safety performance, the higher the value
Table 3 Cronbachs a coefcient reliability standards comparison table (Li, 2007).

a Value range
1.00 > a P 0.90 0.90 > a P 0.80 0.80 > a P 0.70 0.70 > a P 0.60 0.60 > a P 0.50 0.50 > a P 0.00

Signicance Excellent Good Acceptable Questionable Poor Unacceptable

I.-Y. Hsu et al. / Safety Science 50 (2012) 111 Table 4 List of the research sample recovery prole. Representative number of sampling 458 The number of samples recovered 380 Recovery rate 83.0% Effective number of samples 370 The valid recovery rate 80.8% Invalid number of samples 10

Table 5 Scale of supervisors and non-supervisors attitude in the various dimensions of safety performance. Dimension name (n = 370) Supervisor (n = 104) Mean Organization oriented Management oriented Control oriented Behavior oriented The overall safety performance p < 0.05. p < 0.01. *** p < 0.001.
**

Non-supervisor (n = 262) Mean 3.5889 3.5567 3.6968 3.6685 3.6277 Standard deviation 0.73750 0.71643 0.69706 0.73117 0.68448

t Value

p Value

Standard deviation 0.68971 0.65170 0.63003 0.65990 0.62105

3.9794 3.8310 3.9588 3.9080 3.9193

4.652 3.388 3.330 2.903 3.771

0.000*** 0.001*** 0.001*** 0.004** 0.000***

Table 6 ANOVA of age in various dimensions of the safety performance. Dimension name (n = 370) Organization oriented Source of variance Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Sum of squares 7.018 196.072 203.090 4.458 179.396 183.854 3.548 169.434 172.982 3.289 184.991 188.281 4.441 163.951 168.392 Degree of freedom 2 366 368 2 366 368 2 366 368 2 366 368 2 366 368 Mean sum of squares 3.509 0.536 2.229 0.490 1.774 0.463 1.645 0.505 2.220 0.448 F testing 6.550 Signicance 0.002**

Management oriented

4.548

0.011*

Control oriented

3.832

0.023*

Behavior oriented

3.254

0.040*

The overall safety performance

4.957

0.008**

p < 0.05. p < 0.01. p < 0.001.

**

the better the effectiveness of the dimension, by the mean to respond to the perception distribution of the safety performance in a factory is expected. The following hereby integrates the perception distribution of employees of factories AC in various dimensions of safety performance in Tables 810. In a comprehensive comparison of the overall safety performance dimension of three factories, it can be seen that the mean of factories A and B is higher than factory C (Factory A = 3.783, Factory B = 3.796 and Factory C = 3.544). This part of the difference in contrast with the background data is inferred to be related very much with work experience; as to work for more than 15 years, respectively, the proportion of Factory A = 66.1%, Factory B = 44.4% and Factory C = 14.0%, indicating that the longer the years of service of the employees, the better will be their centripetal force and cohesion to the company, and is thus responded in the mean of the scale. In respect to safety performance, all the three factories have good results in the set emergency procedures and drills and use of effective personal protective gear, rst aid measures to reduce the hazard. The results of the analysis of factories B and C are very similar. They have also achieved remarkable success in items of Employees understand the proper use of protective gear and

Training all levels of Management to bear the safety and health responsibility, showing Factory B and Factory C are more than Factory A in the implementation of employee behavior-oriented management. Items of the safety performance with low-weak mean were mostly present on the dimensions of management. More workers in the three factories disagree with the enterprise in the implementation of industrial health of latent hazard assessment of work environment measurement to understand the latent factors of hazards and newly use materials, equipment to identify hazard factors and preventive measures; fewer Factory A and Factory B employees agree with the enterprise to encourage employees to participate in setting safety and health programs, including all workers and outsourcing work; Factory B and Factory C employees also had low response on the use of work safety analysis and other methods, according to hazard factors set out in the workplace safety and health objectives management program. In addition, in the part of safety performance items, the standard deviation analysis demonstrates Factory A and Factory B are very similar, while being more diverse in employees awareness in such three items as High-ranking managers to low-level

I.-Y. Hsu et al. / Safety Science 50 (2012) 111

Table 7 ANOVA of years of service in various dimensions of the safety performance. Dimension name (n = 370) Organization oriented Source of variance Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Between subgroup Within subgroup Total Sum of squares 7.989 192.028 200.016 5.350 176.660 182.010 4.295 167.998 172.293 2.818 183.852 186.671 4.867 162.347 167.214 Degree of freedom 3 364 367 3 364 367 3 364 367 3 364 367 3 364 367 Mean sum of squares 2.663 0.528 1.783 0.485 1.432 0.462 0.939 0.505 1.622 0.446 F testing 5.048 Signicance 0.002**

Management oriented

3.674

0.012*

Control oriented

3.102

0.027*

Behavior oriented

1.860

0.136

The overall safety performance

3.637

0.013*

* **

p < 0.05. p < 0.01. p < 0.001.

Table 8 Table of perception distribution in the various dimensions of safety performance of factory A employees. Dimension name (n = 175) Control oriented 3 Management oriented 2 Organization oriented 1 Behavior oriented 4 The overall safety performance Mean (M) 3.876 3.766 3.753 3.739 3.783 Standard deviation (SD) 0.667 0.668 0.739 0.673 0.656 Mean (in descend order) 1 2 3 4

Table 10 Table of perception distribution in the various dimensions of safety performance of factory C employees. Dimension name (n = 86) Behavior oriented 4 Control oriented 3 Organization oriented 1 Management oriented 2 The overall safety performance Mean (M) 3.624 3.568 3.530 3.453 3.544 Standard deviation (SD) 0.687 0.647 0.676 0.693 0.640 Mean (in descend order) 1 2 3 4

Table 9 Table of perception distribution in the various dimensions of safety performance of factory B employees. Dimension name (n = 109) Control oriented 3 Behavior oriented 4 Organization oriented 1 Management oriented 2 The overall safety performance Mean (M) 3.881 3.870 3.732 3.699 3.796 Standard deviation (SD) 0.733 0.774 0.784 0.769 0.730 Mean (in descend order) 1 2 3 4

Table 11 Reliability analysis table after deletion of the questions for various dimensions of safety performance. Orientation Cronbachs a value Organization oriented Questions Single dimension Cronbachs a value 0.944 Overall safety performance

15 16 17 24 26 27 31 32 35 46 47 48

Management oriented

0.911 0.970 0.913

employees give clear safety and health responsibilities and adequate authority, Encourage employees to participate in setting safety and health program, including all workers and outsourcing work and Publication of company safety and health policy and effective communication. But there is high cognitive consistency in such two items as Notication analysis and improvement measures after disaster and Set the emergency response procedure and exercise drills. 5.3. The reasons and principles for the deletion of observed variables If the total observed variables are more than 40 questions, then there will be enormous impact on the t level of the model. As a result of this study, principles for deletion of the observed variable are as follows: (1) The observed variables of SEM model of less than 40 questions are more likely to make good t results. In this study, it is better for the safety performance to take three questions for each dimension.

Control oriented

Behavior oriented

0.930

(2) Since the selected items for each dimension should not lose its original representation, each dimension with reliability still needs to maintain a high level and at least be more than 0.8. The reliabilities after deletion of the questions are shown in Table 11. (3) The factor loading of each selected observed variable should be at least 0.7 (or 0.6) or higher, and can be obtained through the SPSS, or Amos. The factor loading after deletion of the questions is as shown in Table 12. (4) The results of SEM have to be in line with the listed incremental t indices.

I.-Y. Hsu et al. / Safety Science 50 (2012) 111 Table 12 Factor analysis table after deletion of the questions for various dimensions of safety performance. Orientation Organization oriented Questions 15 16 17 24 26 27 31 32 35 46 47 48 Factor loading 0.870 0.958 0.940 0.844 0.912 0.883 0.876 0.911 0.858 0.845 0.935 0.930 Eigen value 2.56 Variance (%) 85.29

Management oriented

2.33

77.51

Control oriented

2.33

77.78

Behavior oriented

2.45

81.80

5.4. Structural equation model analysis The structural equation model (SEM) uses the approximate value to simplify the actual situation. A good model can represent the complex phenomena in the most simplied manner and meanwhile possess enough complexity to explain the model. By applying the literature review of the relevant structural equation

model to safety performance, it was found that the organizational climate has a signicant impact on safety performance (Neal et al., 2000), and safety climate has a signicant impact on some safety performance. The safety performance competition model uses the maximum likelihood (ML) as a method of estimating the model. The t values after completing the CFA schema validation are as shown in Table 13. From 184 documents that adopted SEM for data analysis from 1977 to 1994 it was found (Baumgarther and Homburg, 1996) that the ratio of documents with GFI and AGFI below the recommended value of 0.9 were, respectively, 24% and 48%. So, it can be relaxed to the recommended value of GFI and AGFI to 0.8; the related research has similar suggestions (Jreskog and Sorbom, 1993; Mueller, 1996; Ewing and Napoli, 2005). The SEM path diagram of safety performance and standardized parameters is presented in Fig. 2. The safety performance dimension used 12 observed variables to establish the model, and the observed standardized path coefcients are over 0.7. When the safety performance dimension corresponds to the second-order four dimensions, its standardized path coefcients has reached more than 0.9, indicating an excellent model of measurement systems. After discussing individually the safety performance modes, a complete safety performance mode was constructed. The results of a series of competitive mode are as shown in Fig. 3.

Table 13 Fit values of various structural equation models of safety performance (12 observed variables). Type of model Overall t index GFI Nothing mode First-order single-factor First-order four independent factors First-order four factors related Second-order single-factor model 0.145 0.766 0.587 0.941 0.936 AGFI 0.010 0.662 0.404 0.905 0.900 RMR 0.433 0.027 0.383 0.017 0.018 RMSEA 0.456 0.165 0.278 0.069 0.073 CFI 0.000 0.892 0.696 0.983 0.981

v2/df
77.708 11.091 29.488 2.767 2.963

Fig. 2. The path map of second-order safety performance model (12 observed variables).

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I.-Y. Hsu et al. / Safety Science 50 (2012) 111

Fig. 3. Second-order safety performance model-related road map.

5.5. Discussion of verication results of research hypothesis Targeting the research hypothesis of this study, the verication and discussion conducted are stated as follows: (1) Safety performance can be composed of four dimensions, which are related to each other. (2) The four dimensions of safety performance can be explained by higher order dimensions. Exploring the dimensions of safety performance of the chemical (Su and Hsu, 2008) and the food industries, it was found that second-order safety performance mode that was constructed by 12 observed variables corresponding to 4 elementary latent variables was an excellent t model (Fig. 2). The causal theoretical model was constructed with the stability of four dimensions of organization-oriented, management-oriented, control-oriented, and behavior-oriented aspects of safety performance. The establishment of the above two assumptions was conrmed. 6. Conclusions This study was designed to exploit the safety performance assessment scale, and through empirical research methods to explore the safety performance status of the chemical and food industries. By providing a reference for developing and implementing strategies to improve safety management, safety management performance can thus be improved with a view to provide the manager with a reference for the inter-related factors of the model and the analysis of direct and indirect effects. The hypothetical conrmatory results of this study pointed out that the four dimensions of the safety performance can be explained with dimensions of higher order. This study rst proposed safety performance mul-

ti-class-related structural equation models and conducted hypothetical conrmation for the models. After a series of systematic model analysis verication, the rst-order multi-factor correlation model and second-order single-factor model were found to be the best-t models for safety performance, and a complete and new model was constructed that also has the best t value. Acknowledgment We are indebted to the sponsor of National Science Council in Taiwan for supporting this research project. References
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