Introduction. This study aimed to investigate safety climate and its structural dimensions as well as establish a relationship between safety climate and demographic variables in a power distribution company. Method. This cross-sectional study included 200 workers. The safety climate questionnaire recommended by the UK Health and Safety Executive was applied containing 43 questions in 11 dimensions. Demographic information was also assessed. SPSS version 22.0 was applied to analyze the data. Results. In total, 179 workers participated in this survey. The response rate was high (89.5%). Safety climate had the highest correlation with the management commitment dimension (r = 0.754). The total score of safety climate in this company was 3.37 on a scale ranging from 1 to 5. Among safety climate factors, the highest score was for safety-related training (3.87) but work pressure had the lowest score (2.80). Among demographic variables, a significant relationship was observed between safety climate and age (r = 0.180). Conclusions. Management as an organizational power can exert great influence on the promotion of safety climate. Moreover, adopting efficient training programs and making a balance in workload for decreasing work pressure can improve safety climate.

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This study explores the process of middle management decision-making in actual conditions within the oil and gas industry by applying multiple methods including interviews, audio task recording, and activity theory. First, eight interviews were conducted in the oil and gas industrial sector to explore how middle managers take decisions. Second, to increase the credibility of research, one of the middle managers interviewed was requested to record his activities for one month using an MP3 player. Finally, the data were analysed by applying qualitative data analysis & research software (ATLAS.ti Ink - version 7.5.4) and based on the activity theory principles. The results revealed that middle managers were involved in a variety of decisions. Among them, the frequency of safety-related decisions was high (80%). The analysis also showed that middle managers considered a limited number of alternatives and criteria which substantially supports the notion of bounded rationality. Decisions were mainly consensus decisions, followed by combined decisions, and finally, individual decisions. The middle managers applied rule-based decisions that were mostly if-then rules consisting of both simple and combinations of if-then rules with and/or, else to show interdependencies and nonlinear relationships between different criteria as well as to overcome the uncertainty of outcomes. When the probability of alternatives was equal, and options had middle-truth values, they made parallel decisions instead of sequential decisions to overcome uncertainty and to improve the efficiency of decisions.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the role of middle management in safety within hazardous industries such as the oil and gas industries. In so doing, the study has answered the main research question, what are the roles and responsibilities of middle managers in risk management and safety oriented decision-making? To achieve the objectives of safety management, which are primarily the protection of personnel, environment and assets, it is essential to understand the organisational context. An organisation is constructed from different layers of management with interlinked and complex roles. Middle management, who occupy the middle-level positions, is a fundamental management level in an organisation because they are informed managers, operating between people who have a narrow vision which is limited by their own segments, typically front line operatives, and the top/central executive management, who have a broad picture of an organisation that may be unclear as a result of their distance from the operation.@en

Although there is a tendency to concentrate studies on senior management, achieving safety objectives closely links middle managers with a wide variety of crucial tasks in organisations. This study was carried out to understand the under-estimated role of middle management in safety. For this purpose, a qualitative research was adopted and a middle manager was selected purposefully to record his professional trajectory over the period of a month with an MP3 recorder to capture the whole picture of the current conditions of the company. The recordings captured the behaviour of middle managers, the interactions between them and other entities within and outside of the organisation in dynamic and real-time conditions. ATLASti software, the principle of activity theory, and the elements of the management roles were applied to analyse the daily practices of middle managers. Applying this method, the researchers tracked the actions or reactions of at least 32 other actors. The results reveal that middle managers perform multiple roles within the set of different actions they take, of which, informational roles have the highest frequency. Access to information places middle managers in a unique position where they can use information as an input to play major decisional roles. In addition, arguing (11.57%), wondering (9.90%), and complaining (9.35%), had the highest portions respectively among 45 different actions which were applied by middle managers as they played their leadership, monitoring and spokesperson roles. The authors conclude that middle managers can play crucial and multiple roles in safety management as well. Accessibility to information in short time intervals and more informational sources about process parameters and failures in equipment enhance the identification of safety risks, consequently, they can make more prices decisions in safety issues. They function as informal safety auditors and provide ‘soft’ alarm systems in safety management. Finally, they are actively involved in the control of the safety of the actual production process.

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