Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

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

Leadership empowerment behaviour on safety ofcer and safety

teamwork in manufacturing industry
David Yoon Kin Tong a,, Devinaga Rasiah a, Xue Fa Tong b, Kim Piew Lai a
a
b

Faculty of Business, Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, Multimedia University, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia
Department of Management, School of Social Science and Public Policy, Kings College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 April 2014
Received in revised form 11 July 2014
Accepted 9 September 2014

Keywords:
Leadership
Empowerment
Safety commitment
Perceived organisational support
Safety teamwork

a b s t r a c t
This study aims to evaluate Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Ofcers perceptions of the relationship between leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB) and psychological empowerment (PE) leading to
safety teamwork with the production team. Based on the lists of competent OH&S ofcers exhibited in
the Malaysia Ministry of Human Resources website, the participants were recruited. The proposed conceptual model was validated by rst- and second-order conrmatory factor analysis of structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicate a weak construct relationship between leadership empowering
behaviour and ofcers psychological empowerment. Furthermore, the ndings on psychological empowerment were partially mediated. A proposed strategy for further study was recommended to conrm the
PE mediating effect. Overall, effective safety teamwork in the manufacturing industry relates to the ofcers psychological empowerment, safety commitment, and perceived organisational support.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In a study of corporate success for the Fortune 1000, Collins
(2001) identied that the key factor in improving companies performance was leadership. According to Shamir et al. (1993), leaders
are known to have extraordinary effects in inuencing their followers. In contrast, poor leadership skills can lead corporation to
downfall in business, create conicts between subordinates, failure
to build team, perceived as arrogant and insensitive, betraying
trust, and other negative effects of leaders behaviour (Leslie and
Van Velsor, 1996; Baumeister and Bushman, 2011). It is because
of leadership effects on the followers genre of leadership theoretical study never ceases to be developed until this era. In the past
few years, leadermember exchange (LMX) theory (Liden et al.,
1997), transactional and transformational leadership (Bass, 1999;
Eagly et al., 2003), charismatic leadership (House and Howell,
1992), leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB) (Arnold et al.,
2000), and others were applied across various industries; the outcome revealed that the leadership behaviour is critical to outcome
in organisations (Flin and Yule, 2004; Eid et al., 2012).
Focussing on leadership-safety in manufacturing sectors, there
is dearth of study relating to leadership empowerment behaviour

Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 6 252 4125; fax: +60 6 231 8869.
E-mail addresses: yktong@mmu.edu.my (D.Y.K. Tong), devinaga.rasiah@mmu.
edu.my (D. Rasiah), xuefa.tong@gmail.com (X.F. Tong), kplai@mmu.edu.my (K.P. Lai).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2014.09.009
0925-7535/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

(Arnold et al., 2000). Most empowerment studies were non-safety

related. Among others, Cole et al. (2011) studied empowerment
and team performance in automobile component manufacturing
company, Germany; in light manufacturing, Robert et al. (2000)
compared it with employees job satisfaction in the United States,
Mexico, Poland, and India; Siglera and Pearson (2000) examined
organisational culture in textile plants in the United States. Thus,
these studies implied that leadership empowerment is linked to
workforce commitment and teamwork.
However, depending on the organisational situation, persons
involved, and the nature of work, empowerment may create a
dilemma that could lead to counterproductive in achieving the
organisational goals (Paul et al., 2000); it differs culturally and by
organisational power distance (Robert et al., 2000; Siglera and
Pearson, 2000). In the latter, it is dened as the degree to which
one accepts that power in institutions and organisations are distributed unequally (Hofstede, 2001). Evaluating safety leadership
empowerment in country like Malaysia, a nation that topped the
countries in the world in power distance (Sweetman, 2012) would
be intriguing; more so, when manufacturing rms are bound by
the national OH&S act and regulation. Complying with these
requirements, at least a full-time competent OH&S ofcer must
be employed. Generally, the ofcers position is equivalent to
senior supervisor level. The ofcers competency is certied by
the Ministry of Human Resource. The ofcer plays a signicant role
between management and other departments in promoting safety

D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

culture, coordinating as well as addressing safety issues, monitoring safety performance, and others (Wu et al., 2010). In correspondence to extensive theoretical work on the importance of
empowering practices, to the date we found that there have been
few empirical works on leader empowering behaviour of an
OH&S ofcer in a manufacturing setting. The closest related study
was Wu et al. (2010) who explored on OH&S professionals roles in
a telecommunication company in Taiwan, but on their contributions to safety culture in the company. Thus, in this study, we
aim to evaluate OH&S ofcers perceptions on leadership empowerment behaviour leading to psychological empowerment and
safety teamwork.
This paper is organised and presented as follows. In the next
section, a literature review is presented and the hypotheses were
posited. In third and fourth sections, the research method and
results were presented. Lastly, the ndings are discussed with its
implications, limitations, and proposed further study.
2. Literature review
2.1. Leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB)
Arnold et al. (2000) constructed the Empowerment Leadership
Questionnaire (ELQ) with the purpose of measuring effective leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB) in a team environment. In
their rst study, 8 classications of leaders behaviour were
dened from qualitative interview. In the second quantitative
study, 5 constructs were tested to be reliable and valid for measuring effective leadership of empowered teams. This ve-factor
model consisted of: leading by example (5 subscales), coaching
(11 subscales), participative decision making (6 subscales), informing (6 subscales), and showing concern (10 subscales), totalling 38
subscales. The versatility of this instrument is applicable in
empowered team environments, such as, task problem-solving,
cross-functional, autonomous or self-managing team, including
individuals.
With LEB, several studies provided that sufcient evidence
which empowered employees were associated with higher
employee performance and satisfaction (Vecchio et al., 2010;
Dewettinck and van Ameijde, 2010; Martnez-Crcoles et al.,
2012). However, depending on the research objectives, most studies did not adapt the complete instrument. For instance, MartnezCrcoles et al. (2011), used ELQ to examine the effects of empowering leadership on safety participation in the two Spanish nuclear
plants and found that this leadership style enhanced workers
safety participation behaviours. The authors adapted only 17 of
the original 38 subscales due to time constraints: 3 subscales for
leading by example, 4 for coaching, 3 for participative decision
making, 4 for informing, and 3 for showing concern. Interestingly,
in a cross-cultural research on a U.S.-based multinational that
specialises in light manufacturing and operating in three countries,
Robert et al. (2000) used 15-item ELQ and found that empowerment was negatively associated with satisfaction in India but positively associated with the United States, Mexico, and Poland. The
disparity in these ndings evokes further studies on empowering
leadership in other developing countries, like Malaysia.
2.2. Psychological empowerment (PE)
In the extant literatures of empowerment, researchers categorised the studies into two main approaches: situational and
psychological (Spreitzer, 1995; Arnold et al., 2000). In situational
approach, it involves the assessment of higher-level management
delegation of power to employees and the outcome of employees
decision making (Yang and Choi, 2009). In the latter, it incorporated

191

the psychological cognitions (Spreitzer, 1995; Baird and Wang,

2010). Most researchers used psychological empowerment (PE)
approach to assess the nature of empowerment and individual
employees cognitive feelings in relation to his/her contributions
to the organisation (Menon, 2001; Yang and Choi, 2009; Boudrias
et al., 2009). Indeed, one survey of 406 manufacturing companies
found that the effects of psychological empowerment programs
were mixed and inconclusive (Waterson et al., 1999). Several
authors have suggested that unless the conditions are favourable,
PE can be weakened. Such conditions comprise of employees traits,
ability, involvement, dominant cultural values, among others
(Spreitzer, 1996; Forrester, 2000; Yukl and Becker, 2007). This
includes the fact that empowering trivial tasks to employee that
lack skills and knowledge will be ineffective. The effect of OH&S
ofcers psychological empowerment on safety tasks in manufacturing environment has yet to be determined. They are trained personnel with knowledge and skills in Occupational Health and Safety
(OH&S). The ndings on the consequences of empowerment relating to their commitment, perceived organisational support, and
safety teamwork will add to safety literatures.
The PE construct consists of a set of four cognitions dimension of
meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. The overall
dimensions measure the degree of the felt empowerment of an individuals work role and context (Spreitzer, 1995). The author rst
tested PE construct on industrial sample and found that the Cronbach alpha was 0.72, indicating that the overall reliabilities of the
dimensions were acceptable. When PE was used in service organisations, Dewettinck and van Ameijde (2010) found that PE is positively
related to affective commitment and job satisfaction with alpha values of 0.830.91, and mediated between leadership empowerment
behaviour and affective commitment. Similarly, Boudrias et al.
(2009) also revealed that PE mediated behavioural empowerment
with alpha 0.83. In short, the multidimensional measure of PE can
be used as predictors or mediators of different anticipated outcome
of empowerment, affective domain, and primarily on performance
domain and even for different level of employees in an organisation
(Spreitzer, 1995; Spreitzer et al., 1997).
2.3. Relationships between LEB and PE
In leadership literature, Sims et al. (2009) discussed how the
characteristics of empowering leader were derived from the theories of participation and self-management. Such leader focuses on
inuencing others, encourages initiative, self-responsibility, selfproblem solving, self-condence, and others. In brief, this leadership type empowers their followers self-leadership capabilities.
Nevertheless, Sims et al. (2009) further explained that depending
on a particular situation, a leader could be directive or empowering.
In a critical situation, directive leadership is practical. However, in a
non-critical situation, where employees have some degree of experience and expertise, empowering leadership functions better. As
such, in this study, the assumption is made in a situation where
safety practices in manufacturing environments are functioning
daily, leader empowering on OH&S staffs responsibilities would
be effectual.
Moreover, an earlier study by Spreitzer (1996) had deduced that
such leadership behaviours could contribute to individual or
teams perceptions of psychological empowerment (PE). In this
perspective, Spreitzer (1996) suggested that the effectiveness of
empowering leaders behaviour and psychological empowerment
of the follower could be measured with a nomological framework
that linked these two constructs. In line with this, Dewettinck and
van Ameijde (2010) did a study on employee behavioural intentions to stay in the organisation and found that constructs were
generalizable across different working contexts, including individualised setting.

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D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

In the context of industrial safety, we found a paucity of studies

that used ELQ and PE. The closest being Martnez-Crcoles et al.
(2011) framework that linked ELQ with Zohar and Lurias (2005)
safety climate; Martnez-Crcoles et al. (2012) linked ELQ with
Bress et al. (2008) collaborative team learning construct. To this
extent, we proposed using LEB and PE constructs in our conceptual
framework. The ndings will contribute to the industrial safety literature. Hence, we hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 1. LEB will be positively related to OH&S ofcers
psychological empowerment.

2.4. Relationships between PE and safety commitment

The versatility of PE has brought about the growing interest in
integrative model studies that incorporate PE construct with various commitment variables. For example, Howard and Foster
(1999) measured PE with a perceived management commitment
to quality; Bordin et al. (2007) used PE with Mowdays et al.
(1979) organisational commitment to IT employees. Among all,
the most commonly used commitment measure were affective
commitment (Meyerson and Kline, 2008; Dewettinck and van
Ameijde, 2010; Borghei et al., 2010). Affective commitment (AC),
continuance commitment (CC), and normative commitment (NC)
are the three components from Meyer and Allen Model of Organizational Commitment (Allen and Meyer, 1990). Affective commitment
is a psychological attachment to an organisation as a result of positive work experience in which employees tend to contribute their
competence in the work role based on their feelings (Allen and
Meyer, 1930). Similarly, in safety management, when employees
perceive that management are committed to safety, such safety
climate inuences safety behaviour (Zohar, 1980); and tend to
reciprocate by compliance with safety rules and cooperation in
safety teamwork (Hadjimanolis and Boustras, 2013).
However, in safety context, it is inappropriate to examine PE on
AC as the contents of the ACs item statements comprise of I would
be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization and I really feel as if this organizations problems are my
own (Jaros, 2007). Rather, we proposed linking PE to safety
commitment; specically we individualise OH&S ofcer safety
commitment to their organisations. In a commitment culture, the
inherent value of safety can be internalised over time by employee
involved in safety (Luria and Rafaeli, 2008). In this respect, we
operationalised safety commitment scales based on our industrial
safety experience and extensive review of previous safety literatures on safety commitment: management commitment to safety
(Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991; Williamson et al., 1997); organisational commitment (Luria and Rafaeli, 2008; Hadjimanolis and
Boustras, 2013), safety commitment (Hofman and Morgeson,
1999), and among others. Hofman and Morgesons (1999) safety
commitment measure are generic but serves as a guide for our discussion. By connecting PE to safety commitment, OH&S ofcers
safety commitment to the production oor and other departments
can be assessed and so we hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 2a. OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment will
be positively related to safety commitment.

industrial rms, where safety staffs often hold scheduled meetings

with selected representatives from departments, the perceived
support of the top management in allowing them to use the meeting facilities would yield organisational membership and increase
participation among them (Eisenberger et al., 1986). In the social
exchange theory, these employees would reciprocate by positive
work attitudes and behaviours associated with the support in the
workplace (Ford and Tetrick, 2011; Hadjimanolis and Boustras,
2013).
Additionally, among other job responsibilities of OH&S ofcer
an ongoing safety policy brieng and campaigning, including
organising safety trainings, and such activities without organisational nancial support would be futile. When there are some
safety concerns in the plant, employees who perceive support are
likely to raise the concerns with recommendations to the management (Hofman and Morgeson, 1999). The approval of the recommendations demonstrates work-context support. Furthermore,
organisational leader that inuences empowerment is a form of
implicit organisational support. Organisational leader who trust
the ofcer is willing to take the risks in empowerment (McShane,
2013). With this psychological empowerment and perceived
organisational support, the safety staffs would take discretion over
their work activities and view themselves as active participants in
safety. Based on this discussion, we hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 2b. OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment will
be positively related to perceived organisational support.

2.6. Teamwork in production safety

Intense competition in the manufacturing sectors emphasises
on the increase in productivity and quality of the products and services. In this environment, job pressures are inevitable in the daily
operations processes. According to Hinzes distraction theory
(1996) this occupied operations may distract manufacturing
employees from hazards and increase the probability of accidents
in the plant. Nevertheless, accidents can be mitigated by team
coordination and cooperation among production team and safety
personnel. Such teamwork is known to have a strong effect on
safety (Mitropoulos et al., 2009). However, ensuring this teamwork
on safety is a challenge especially when operations functioning in
continuous shifts are compared with to the safety ofcer working
in normal day shift.
In this regard, the front line production operators and supervisors play a signicant role in supporting the safety team. To ensure
effective teamwork, it necessitates trust and openness among both
team members (Mathieu et al., 2008). In addition, safety information needs to be transmitted freely and efciently from the safety
team to production supervisors, which in turn communicated to
operators for each shift change. Encouragement of feedback from
operators on safety issues closes the communication loop and in
doing so, it facilitates the motivation in operations and safety participation and decisions (Robbins and Judge, 2013; Berlo, 1960)
thus, reduces the need to monitor each others behaviour in every
shift (Mathieu et al., 2008). Overall, this combined effort is contributed to the organisational OH&Ss goals.
2.7. Relationships between safety commitment and safety teamwork

2.5. Relationships between PE and perceived organisational support

In organisational support theory, Rhoades and Eisenberger
(2002) explained that perceived organisational support (POS) was
directly linked to employees perceptions of organisation favourable treatment, conditions, support, and well-being to them. In

The accomplishment of safety culture is reected in the commitment of safety from management to employee involvement (Mearns
et al., 2010; Whitener, 2001). In the functional level, OH&S ofcer act
as extended arms of the management. Nonetheless, OH&S staffs cannot work in isolation. In this respect, they need a company-wide
commitment to safety programs. In the production oor, they are

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D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

sometimes viewed to interfere with productivity (Goetsch, 2010). In

situations where safety is at odds to departments performances,
teamwork could become an issue. However, it is often challenging
for an OH&S ofcer to prove their worth through their contributions.
First, they need to be committed to handling any occupational
health safety issues from various departments. Secondly, they could
convince all that working in a safe environment is a healthy way of
doing business and has its competitive edge and long-term nancial
benets to the company (Goetsch, 2010). Consequently, the propensity to effective safety teamwork depends on the commitment of
OH&S staffs to the production team and the production team anticipation to safety practices for organisational safety. Thus, linking
safety commitment to safety teamwork, we postulate that:
Hypothesis 3a. OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment will
mediate the relationship between leadership empowerment
behaviour and safety commitment.

2.8. Relationships between perceived organisational support and

teamwork
In the concept of norm reciprocity, employees feel obligated to
the organisation if they view POS is the voluntary actions rather than
external inuences such as union or governmental regulations
(Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002). Where manufacturing rms are
bound to national OH&S regulations and laws, Eisenberger et al.
(1986) theorised that this forced contractual obligations have a lesser effect on POS. In a manufacturing environment, we are not sometimes sure to what extent this situation applies. However, in reality,
without organisational support for safety facilities, equipment, and
trainings, commitment among employees safety practices, teamwork will be compromised. This perceived support is vital to
employees contributions and if POS has an effect, they are likely
to reciprocate favourable employees feelings and behaviours to
carry out the job effectively and committed to helping the organisation reach its safety objectives without expectation of reward or promotion (Mearns et al., 2010; Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002;
Whitener, 2001). Therefore, based on these discussions, we proposed
a conceptual framework (see Fig. 1) and hypothesised as follow:
Hypothesis 3b. OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment will
mediate the relationship between leadership empowerment
behaviour and perceived organisational support.

3. Research method
3.1. Data collection and survey instrument
In this study, the participants were recruited from a list of registered health and safety ofcers obtained from the website of the

H2a

Leadership
Empowerment
Behaviour (LEB)

H1

Malaysia Ministry of Human Resource in the Department of Occupational Health and Safety section. At the time of search, there
were 2464 certied ofcers from various industries listed in the
website. Geographically, Peninsula Malaysia is divided into three
regions. In the list, we manually sorted the samples into a central
region that consisted of Selangor, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, and Johor (Department of Statistic,
Malaysia, 2011). Using this process, 476 manufacturing companies
were identied. With the list of companies, the Research Assistant
(RA) contacted the ofcers by phone after they were randomly
sampled in 300 using Microsoft Excel. In each call, the RA reafrmed with the receivers that it was a manufacturing rm before
explaining the objective of this survey to the OH&S ofcer or committee in the absence of the ofcer. Some companies expressed
that they were not keen to participate while others explained that
their ofcer had resigned. Some companies without the OH&S ofcers but with appointed OH&S representatives expressed their
willingness to participate in the survey. The questionnaires were
mailed to the participants with enclosed envelopes and stamp
afxed. Follow-up calls were made within two weeks after the
questionnaires were posted. The cut-off period for data collection
was set at 2 months. Within this period, a total of 255 data was collected and after screening for incomplete data, 7 were deleted. The
remaining 243 valid data were analysed. The manufacturing sectors vary from paint manufacturer to automotive parts, fertilizer,
aluminium, battery, and others.
The survey instrument consists of two parts. Part A describes
the participants demographics information, Part B uses a sevenpoint Likert type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree)
on all ve constructs. In Part A, the data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), and in Part B, the
analysis of moment structures (AMOS) software package was used
for structural equation modelling. Both software packages were of
version 21.
3.2. Path analysis
3.2.1. Leadership empowering behaviour (LEB)
The LEB was assessed using the Empowerment Leadership
Questionnaire (ELQ) designed by Arnold et al. (2000). As explained
earlier, the original measure of ELQ consisted of 38 items or subscales. When Arnold et al. (2000) tested this instrument on two
organisations they found that some items were deleted due to
low factor loadings. For this reason, 15 items from the ELQ with
high factor loadings were commonly adapted (Dewettinck and
van Ameijde, 2010). ELQ psychometric properties were designed
for team context and have ve dimensions with 3 items each.
We adapted these dimensions because they are relevant to the
manufacturing environment. The dimensions are: leading by
example (e.g. Our General Manager sets high standards for performance by his/her own behaviour), participative decision-making
Safety
Commitment
(SC)

Psychological
Empowerment
(PE)

H2b

H3a

Safety
Teamwork (ST)

Perceived
Organisational
Support (POS)

Fig. 1. Conceptual framework.

H3b

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D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

(e.g. Our General Manager encourages team members to express

ideas/suggestions), coaching (e.g. Our General Manager helps team
members identify areas where they need more training), informing
(e.g. Our General Manager explains company goals to team members), and showing concern (Our General manager shows concern
for team members well-being). We chose the designation of General Manager as leader because generally they are the highest
authority in manufacturing rms in Malaysia.
When the rst-order conrmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
performed on the 15 items using the AMOS software program,
we found that no items were deleted as the items standardised
regression weights were between 0.741 and 0.928, thus meeting
the threshold value of 0.5 (Hair et al., 2010). This consistency has
legitimised the mean of the dimensions to be converted to reect
the LEB construct (Arnold et al., 2000; Boudrias et al., 2009).
3.2.2. Psychological empowerment (PE)
PE measure was adapted from Spreitzers (1995b) instrument. PE
instrument consists of four dimensions: meaning (e.g. The work I do
is very important to me), competence (e.g. I am condent about my
ability to do my job), self-determination (e.g. I have signicant
autonomy in determining how I do my job), and impact (e.g. My
impact on what happens in my department is large); each dimension
has 3 items, totalling 12 item questionnaire measures. Similarly, no
items were deleted when the rst-order conrmatory analysis was
computed and the standardised regression weights were between
0.631 and 0.843. Like ELQ, the mean of the dimensions items was
computed to represent the PE construct (Spreitzer, 1995b;
Boudrias et al., 2009; Dewettinck and van Ameijde, 2010).
3.2.3. Safety commitment (SC)
SC construct was operationalised with references to previous
safety literatures and a researchers previous working experience
as safety manager in a manufacturing rm. Safety commitment
has elements of individual or group values, perceptions, (ACSNI,
1993; Ostrom et al., 1993), compliance behaviour (Hofman and
Morgeson, 1999), attitude (ACSNI, 1993; Cox and Flin, 1998),workers involvement in safety (Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991) and
others. The construct has ve items and using the 7 Likert type
scales, the rating consisted of asking OH&S ofcer about: We tend
to H&S complaints from all departments; We evaluate the effectiveness of the OH&S programs yearly.
3.2.4. Perceived Organisation Support (POS)
This study used Eisenbergers et al. (1986) 17 highest loading
items and adapted ve items for the POS construct that suit the
local manufacturing environment with reference to OH&S ofcer
perceptions. For instance, from the original statement, Company
A cares about my opinions, we adapted this statement to, The
organisation supports recommendations from us to improve
OH&S programs; in another original statement, Company A is
willing to help me when I need a special favour, we adapted it
as, The organisational supports us with sufcient resources (workers, nancial, time, etc.) to promote our OH&S campaign.
3.2.5. Safety teamwork (ST)
In our literature search, we found no specic safety teamwork
questionnaire for the manufacturing sector. Tabassi et al. (2012)
explained that teamwork measures are generally task specicity.
Like, safety commitment, we operationalised ST construct items
based on previous teamwork studies and our experience on safety
teamwork. Based on this, we brainstormed and chose 7 elements of
teamwork to include communication and co-operation (Helmreich
et al., 1997; Sexton et al., 2000; Crichton, 2005; Salas et al., 2012),
trust and participation (Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2000;
Shagholia et al., 2010) and shared goal, understanding of the task,

roles, and responsibilities (Crichton, 2005). For instance, using the

element of co-operation, the itemized statement consists of, We
work closely with the production team to minimise any accident,
near-miss accident, dangerous occurrence, etc.; in the element of
trust, We are condent that the production team knows their role
and responsibility in occupational health and safety; and in shared
goal element, Overall, the production team and we have been
successful in achieving the organisations OH&S goals.
3.3. Mediation
Mediation is a set of statistical procedure used to assess
whether the mediator has an indirect effect via the independent
variable to the dependent variable (Iacobucci, 2008). This also
explains how and when this effect occurred (Frone, 1999; James
and Brett, 1984; Preacher et al., 2007). When a model has a full
mediating effect, the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable is not statistically signicant after
the mediator is included in the model, partial mediation effect
when the independent variable and dependent variable remains
signicant and no mediation when the independent variable and
dependent variable remains signicant and unchanged (Hair
et al., 2010, p. 768).
In assessing the strength and signicance of the mediation, this
study used the resampling strategies by bootstrapping the sample
size to 2000 bootstrap samples and setting the bias-corrected condence intervals to 95%. The AMOS program permits these settings
in the analysis properties for the data output. Bootstrapping allows
the derived sample to be conceptualised as a pseudo-population
that represents a broader population (Preacher et al., 2007) and
an advantage of bootstrapping is that it imposes no distributional
assumptions (Preacher and Leonardelli, 2012).
4. Results
4.1. Descriptive statistics
The descriptive results in Table 1 showed that a total of 243
(51%) companies took part in this survey. The data consisted of
189 (77.8%) males and 54 (22.2%) females, totalling about 243 participants. Among the participants, there were 188 (77.4%) OH&S
ofcers and 55 (22.6%) representatives. The highest age group
was between the age of 31 and 40 (38.3%) and the lowest age group
is >50 (5.8%). Most participants were Malay ethnic 162 (66.7%).
4.2. Hypotheses testing
In testing the hypotheses, the second order conrmatory factor
analysis (CFA) was computed on the conceptual model between
the constructs of leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB), psychological empowerment (PE), safety commitment (SC), perceived
organisational support (POS), and the endogenous construct as
well as safety teamwork (ST). The overall model had t values of
v2 = 633.91, degree of freedom (df) = 281, v2/df = 2.26, p = 0.00,
normed t index (NFI) = 0.891, TuckerLewis index (TLI) = 0.925,
comparative t index (CFI) = 0.935, root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA) = 0.072, and standardised root mean
square residual (SRMR) = 0.048. These values meet the all threshold requirements for a model t (Hooper et al., 2008).
The construct relationships for LEB to PE has a regression
weight of 0.505, p = 0.000. The hypotheses H2a and H2b were signicant, with regression weights 1.586 (p = 0.000) and 1.344
(p = 0.000) respectively. Similarly, for H3a the regression weight
was 0.415 (p = 0.000) and H3b, 0.559 (p = 0.000). This means that
the hypotheses H1, H2a, H2b, H3a, and H3b were all supported.

D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

Table 1
Demographic information of participants.
Descriptions of participants

Number

Percent

Gender
Male
Female

189
54

77.8
22.2

Age: Mean = 2.20; SD = 0.868

2030
3140
4150
>50

58
93
78
14

23.9
38.3
32.1
5.8

Ethnicity: Mean = 1.47; SD = 0.751

Malay
Chinese
Indian and others

162
53
28

66.7
21.8
11.6

Level of education: Mean = 1.93; SD = 0.920

Secondary school
Diploma
Degree
Master

100
70
62
11

41.2
28.8
25.5
4.5

Number of employees: Mean = 6.07; SD = 19.33

100300
109
301500
70
501700
62
>701
11
Missing value
10

44.9
18.1
13.2
19.8
4.0

Year of working as HS committee: Mean = 8.18; SD = 35.76

Less than 1 year
32
13 years
55
46 years
49
79 years
16
10 years and above
89
Missing value
2

13.2
22.6
20.2
6.6
36.6
0.8

As company HS ofcer: Mean = 2.03; SD = 8.86

188

77.4

As company HS committee: Mean = 2.57; SD = 8.81

55

22.6

Companys location
Melaka
Selangor
Shah Alam
Johor
Total companies participated

30.0
9.5
21.0
39.5
51.0

73
23
51
96
243

Overall, the square multiple correlations (SMC) for ST was 0.726,

indicating that the predictors of safety teamwork explain 72.6%
of its variances (see Table 2).
4.3. Reliability and construct validity
In Table 3, all the constructs have reliabilities between 0.7 and
0.92 (Hair et al., 2010). The variance extracted (VE) and average
variance extracted (AVE) threshold values for the constructs were
0.7 and 0.5 respectively, indicating construct convergent validity
(Hair et al., 2010, p. 709). The highest 2-tailed signicant construct
correlations were SC and POS, 0.76 and the lowest were LEB and PE,
0.49.
4.4. Mediation ts
The strength and signicance of the direct relationships
between LEB and safety commitment (SC) as well as LEB and POS
were rst analysed for its direct effects. The results showed significant values of 0.824 with p = 0.000 for LEB and SC relationship; for
LEB and POS direct effect, its value was 0.671 with p = 0.000. PE
was added as mediator for the relationships between LEB and SC.
PE was also partially mediated (95% condence interval
(CI) = 0.1660.437). The model t values were v2 = 127.52,

195

p = 0.125; df = 67; v2/df = 1.903; NFI = 0.955; TLI = 0.970;

CFI = 0.978; SRMR = 0.047; RMSEA = 0.061. To conrm the effect
of partial mediation, Rucker et al. (2011) suggested performing
the Sobel test. The test statistic indicated, 3.671 (p = 0.0002,
2-tailed). Similarly, with PE as mediator for LEB and POS model,
PE was partially mediated in (95% CI = 0.2210.451) while the
model t values were v2 = 141.51, p = 0.039; df = 68; v2/
df = 2.081; NFI = 0.950; TLI = 0.964; CFI = 0.973; SRMR = 0.047;
RMSEA = 0.067 (refer to Table 4 on results of mediation). Again,
Sobel test conrmed the mediating effect of the construct of
3.792 and signicant at 0.0001 (2-tailed).
5. Discussion and conclusions
With the enactment of OH&S regulations and laws in Malaysia,
the appointment of qualied OH&S ofcers in the manufacturing
industry is obligatory. The appointed ofcer acts as a representative between the management and the employees at large in
ensuring occupational health and safety practices in the workplace.
Their job functions entail consultations to co-workers in various
departments and management; making decisions and suggestions
in mitigating industrial accidents. Such commitment requires the
leaders empowerment to the ofcer over the decisions that will
affect their performance (Heller and Yukl, 1969). With this delegation, the ofcer should feel psychologically motivated to support
the feeling of empowerment (Laschinger et al., 2004). In the extant
safety literature, we found a dearth of studies on empowering leadership behaviour with OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment.
Often, their roles to safety in an organisation are overlooked. In
some circumstances, their presence is perceived as interfering with
production operations, but they contributed signicantly to the
companys safety. Therefore, in this research, we aim to assess
the relationship between leadership empowerment behaviour,
OH&S ofcer psychological empowerment, perceived organisational support, safety commitment, and safety teamwork in a manufacturing environment.
In this evaluation, we sought the views of OH&S ofcer in their
workplace and answered the key questions relating to the importance of leaders empowering behaviour, their psychological
empowerment, organisational support, their safety commitment
to the organisation, and their roles in ensuring safety teamwork
with the production team. We specically chose to study the ofcer relationship with the production team as they form the largest
group in the manufacturing operations. To answer the question on
how the effects of psychological empowerment of OH&S ofcer
occur, we mediated this variable with leadership empowerment
behaviour and safety commitment, and perceived organisational
support.
5.1. Implications of the study ndings
Several implications were derived from the ndings. First, leaders in manufacturing operations need to empower OH&S ofcer in
executing company-wide health and safety programs in the plant.
With this, the ofcer is likely to function more effectively, resulting
in higher safety commitments and initiative in role responsibilities
(Howard, 1998; Yulk, 2013). Second, OH&S ofcer is competent
personnel; the job entails him/her to be on the move, making
impromptu decision on near miss incident, and others. This job
characteristic can inuence the degree of the ofcers feeling
empowered (Niehoff et al., 2001) provided there is a sincere
empowerment from the leader.
Third, effective company-wide OH&S program requires not only
the ofcers wholehearted commitment; but also teamwork from
all departments is very essential. Generally, the ofcer with

196

D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

Table 2
Hypotheses testing for safety teamwork conceptual model.
Constructs and items relationships

Estimate

Hypotheses

Std. Reg. Wt.

SMC

***

PE
LEB
0.505
H1 = S
0.823
PE = 0.683
***
SC
PE
0.074
H2a = S
0.939
SC = 0.881
***
POS
PE
0.371
H2b = S
0.884
POS = 0.782
***
ST
SC
0.202
H3a = S
0.403
ST = 0.726
***
H3b = S
0.487
ST
POS
0.270
Model Fit: Chi-square v2 = 633.91, degree of freedom (df) = 281, v2/df = 2.26, p = 0.00, normed t index (NFI) = 0.891, TuckerLewis index (TLI) = 0.925, comparative t
index (CFI) = 0.935, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.072, and standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.048.
Note: p < 0.05; p < 0.001; p < 0.000.(Arbuckle, 2007); S signicant; Std. Reg. Wt. = Standardised regression weight; SMC Square multiple correlations; LEB
Leadership empowerment behaviour; PE Psychological empowerment; SC Safety commitment; POS Perceived organisational support; ST Safety teamwork.

Table 3
Internal consistencies, construct reliability, correlations, and AVE of the constructs.
Constructs

Mean

S.D.

CR

VE

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

3.96
3.98
4.13
4.12
3.97

0.65
0.58
0.63
0.64
0.58

0.97
0.77
0.95
0.96
0.95

0.92
0.71
0.88
0.88
0.89

0.85
0.49
0.73
0.66
0.67

0.5
0.55
0.58
0.53

0.78
0.76
0.71

0.77
0.74

0.79

LEB
PE
SC
POS
ST

Note: CR is the construct reliability. The diagonal values in bold represent the square
root of average variance extracted (AVE) between constructs and their measures.
Off-diagonal values are the correlations between the constructs. All correlations are
signicant at the 0.01 (2-tailed). The diagonal values higher than the off-diagonal
values in the same row and column indicate discriminate validity. Variance
extracted (VE) values greater than 0.5 indicates convergent validity.

appointed committee members often functions as self-managed

teams in overseeing OH&S issues in the plant. When the production department operates in shifts, the ofcer with skeletal team
members requires concerted effort from the production team on
teamwork. With this cooperation, the programs will be fruitful.
Forth, promoting OH&S programs and ensuring safety practices
are continuous processes. Organisational supports can range from
ongoing trainings to providing sufcient signs, posters, and other
visual aids, meeting room, personal protective equipment (PPE),
and others. Employees are likely to favour these supports that
enhance workplace safety by reciprocating their commitment to
the programs.
Lastly, the partial mediations for both PE on SC and PE on POS
indicate that only part of the total effect of SC and POS was due
to the mediation of PE (James and Brett, 1984). However, based
on recent debates on mediation, Rucker et al. (2011) explained that
there are two reasons which caused partial mediation results. That
is, another mediator inuencing the indirect effects could be used
or it could be due to the sample size. In the latter case, we re-computed the constructs by reducing the bootstrapped sample from
2000 to 10 and found this sample size effect; the direct effect is
insignicant with value 0.438, indicating full mediation of PE
(Hair et al., 2010).

This study has revealed the importance of leaders in promoting

empowerment behaviour in manufacturing rms. This empowering behaviour inspires OH&S ofcers psychological empowerment
and commitment to safety contribution in the plant. Additionally,
when the ofcer perceives support from leaders and their concern
for the needs necessary for the safety programs, it motivates the
ofcer and production team to safety teamwork. Thus in sum, leadership empowerment is related to relations-oriented behaviour
and involves some forms of delegation. Such behaviour has implications for achieving safety objectives in manufacturing environment (Yulk, 2013).
5.2. Limitations and future research
This study draws two main limitations of the ndings. First, the
OH&S ofcers self-reported data may have been biased and is not
generalizable. Reecting on the samples collected in the central
region in Malaysia, it consisted of OH&S personnel and temporary
appointed OH&S representatives. Furthermore, there was no representation of OH&S ofcers from the state of Negeri Sembilan. With
this limitation, further study should capture the northern region in
Malaysia and compare the differences in opinions on LEB and PE
for the two cohorts of OH&S staffs from two regions.
Second, the actual cause of partial mediation results remains
perplex. By reducing the bootstrapped sample size, we found full
mediation for PE (see above discussion). However, to conrm full
mediation effect, Rucker et al. (2011) suggested adding a suppressor variable. This will increase the predictive validity of the mediator (MacKinnon et al., 2000). In this case, therefore, we proposed
further study to include the suppressor variable of trust. Empowerment requires leader trust of their employees and the risks it creates (Spreitzer, 1995). Seeking OH&S ofcers views on leaders
trust would validate PE as mediator, thus conrming its effects.
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the Multimedia Universitys mini
funds under the project no: IP20120606010.

Table 4
Results of mediation.
Hypotheses on mediation

Direct w/out med

Std. direct w/med

Std. indirect w/med

(Sig. value)

LEB ? Commitment
H3: LEBPECommitment

0.824
NA

NA
0.686(s)

NA
0.442(s)

***

***

95% CI

Mediation effect

0.1660.437

Yes/partial

Model t: Chi-square v = 127.52, p = 0.125; df = 67; v /df = 1.903; NFI = 0.955; TLI = 0.970; CFI = 0.978; SRMR = 0.047; RMSEA = 0.061
***
LEB ? POS
0.671
NA
NA
H4: LEBPEPOS
NA
0.515(s)
0.435(s)
0.001
0.2210.451
Model t: Chi-square v2 = 141.51, p = 0.039; df = 68; v2/df = 2.081; NFI = 0.950; TLI = 0.964;CFI = 0.973; SRMR = 0.047; RMSEA = 0.067

Yes/partial

Note: w/out med without mediation; p < 0.05; p < 0.001; p < 0.000 (Arbuckle, 2007); w/med with mediation; NA Not applicable; s Signicant.
Source: This table format is presented according to Gaskination (2011)

D.Y.K. Tong et al. / Safety Science 72 (2015) 190198

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