Supervisor support and risk perception: Their relationship with unreported injuries and near misses

Each year employers lose billions of dollars to employees missing work due to injuries ($142.2 billion in 2004; NSC, 2006), as well as losing countless hours of labor from missed work (80,000,000 in 2004; NSC, 2006). In an effort to minimize these exorbitant costs and to maintain production and service, reduction of injuries in the workplace has been a continuing concern for organizations. One way to reduce injuries is by keeping accurate track of where and when injuries and/or near misses (a situation where the employee was in an unsafe situation which could have resulted in an injury) are occurring so that current safety problems as well as potential or emerging issues can be addressed. Thus, reporting of injuries and near misses is a critical concern for organizations. The concept of unreported incidents and minor injuries escalating into major injuries is not new. Heinrich (1931) first developed a safety triangle indicating that for every 300 unsafe acts 29 minor injuries would occur and one major injury would occur. When minor injuries are unreported, and remain untreated, this may result in more serious injuries over time (Gallagher and Myers, 1996). Therefore, making sure that minor injuries and near misses are reported to organizations when they occur provides vital information that enables the organization to improve its safety outcomes. Despite the aforementioned importance of making sure injuries and near misses are reported, little attention has been given to what impacts the likelihood of employees not reporting injuries needing a doctor's attention, first-aid cases, and/or near misses. Supervisor impact on organizational safety has been well studied, and researchers have found that supervisor support of safety practices has a positive impact on safety outcomes (Zohar, 2002; Zohar and Luria, 2004; Hofmann and Morgeson, 1999). Yet previous research has rarely looked at the issue of whether or not injuries of various degrees of seriousness and/or near misses are actually getting reported to the organization as a result of supervisor support. Past research has primarily focused on outcomes as either a reduction in injuries (Harshberger and Rose, 1991) or an increase in the overall number of safe behaviors (Zohar, 2002; DeJoy et al., 2000). Additionally, previous research has lacked an examination of the potential mechanisms through which supervisors may affect employee safety. Studies in safety are much more limited when looking at risk perception (belief in the likelihood of being injured due to inherent dangers on the job). As with supervisory support, the majority of studies looking at risk perception and safety have focused on safety behaviors as the primary outcome (Arezes, 2006; Rundmo, 2001; Cree and Kelloway, 1997), with few studies examining the likelihood of employees reporting incidents (Lorentz and Hill, 2000). None of these studies distinguished between various levels of injury seriousness nor looked at near misses, and the relationship between employee risk perception and supervisor support has received very little attention (Mearns et al., 2001; Nelkin and Brown, 1984). Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between both supervisor support and risk perception and the number of unreported injuries at multiple levels of seriousness and near misses. Specifically, we will be looking at two levels of injuries as well as near misses. The first level of injuries are those needing a doctor's attention. These injuries include OSHA reportable cases where the injury necessitates that the employee stop working and seek the care of a medical professional (this may or may not result in days away from work and/or restricted work duty). The second level of injury is a first-aid injury. These include injuries that do not need a doctor's visit, and need only minor treatment for which supplies could typically be found in a standard first-aid kit (i.e., non-prescription medications, bandages/gauze pads/wraps, flushing agents to clean wounds). …