Errors, violations, and reporting behaviour in aviation maintenance

Abstract

[Abstract]: Descriptive models of how accidents occur are now commonplace in the aviation industry. These models are useful for guiding accident investigation teams and for helping to decide what changes need to be introduced to reduce the possibility of further accidents. However, from a psychological point of view, what is still lacking in the field is an empirical model that links organizational constructs such as safety climate with individual variables such as stress and fatigue and then shows how both of these combine to influence important outcome variables such as workplace violations, errors, and willingness to report incidents and near-misses. The present paper reports on a series of studies conducted within aviation maintenance settings. The first study focussed on the link between safety climate, stress, and maintenance errors. The results suggested that safety climate does not have a direct effect on errors but has a strong indirect effect via psychological stress experienced by individual workers. A second study replicated this finding. A third study extended the model to include workplace violations and demonstrated the importance of measuring management attitudes and group norms when assessing intention to violate and actual violation behaviours. A fourth study has just been completed that introduced a variable labelled as willingness to report. Sections of the path model that were established in earlier studies received further support and a strong link was established between safety climate and willingness to report. The paper concludes with recommendations as to how these empirical findings can be used to support ongoing initiatives in safety training.