Relationship Between Safety Climate, Job Tenure, and Job Satisfaction Among Railroad Workers

• Main Author: Etheridge, Maurice Cortez
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: ScholarWorks 2016
• Subjects: Business
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/2120; https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3223&context=dissertations

Researchers have reported that corporations in the United States incur hundreds of billions of dollars of annual direct and indirect costs from workplace injuries. Employing a theoretical framework underpinned by the job characteristics theory, this correlational study examined the relationships between task identity, safety climate, and job satisfaction to assist transportation managers with information for improving workers' job satisfaction for increasing productivity and organizational performance. Three validated survey instruments (Safety Climate, Job Characteristics Inventory, and Job Satisfaction) and one demographic instrument were distributed to railroad workers in the eastern region of North Carolina (n = 80). The survey response data provided the basis for identifying the significant predictors, moderators, and mediators of workers' job satisfaction. Structural equation modeling and partial least squares software indicated a significant (p < .001) positive correlation between the indicator variables of Employees' Task Identify, Safety Climate, and Job Tenure and the dependent variable of Job Satisfaction. Although there was a significant positive correlation between railroad employees' job tenure and job satisfaction, job tenure did not significantly (p > .05) moderate the relationship between railroad workers' task identity and job satisfaction. The findings may be of value to railroad transportation managers developing new initiatives to improve safety climate for increasing employee job satisfaction. Improving safety climate and job satisfaction could effect beneficial social change by decreasing accidents affecting both railroad worker and public safety.