How do safety engineers improve their job performance? The roles of influence tactics, expert power, and management support

Pages381-397
Published date29 November 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/ER-04-2018-0120
Date29 November 2019
AuthorJohanna Bunner,Roman Prem,Christian Korunka
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law
How do safety engineers improve
their job performance? The roles
of influence tactics, expert power,
and management support
Johanna Bunner
Department of Applied Psychology: Work, Education, Economy,
Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Roman Prem
Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria, and
Christian Korunka
Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Abstract
Purpose Non-technical skills are of increasing importance for safety engineers to perform their job. In their
position as expert consultants, they work closely with managers. Thus, gaining management support is
oftentimes crucial for safety engineers to successfully improve occupational health and safety. Drawing on
organizational support theory (OST), this study investigates how safety engineersnon-technical skills in
communication and persuasion (i.e. rational and hard influence tactics) are related with their management
support, and how management support is related with their individual task proficiency (ITP). The purpose of
this paper is to examine the moderating role of safety engineersexpert power in this context.
Design/methodology/approach Usingan online questionnaire,survey data were collected from251 safety
engineers workingin Austria.
Findings Rational influence ta ctics are positively related to I TP via management support, wherea s hard
influence tactics are no t. Safety engineersex pert power moderates the rela tionship between influe nce
tactics and management support and, conseque ntly ITP. High (vs low) expe rt status strengthens t he
positive relationshi p of rational influence ta ctics on ITP via manageme nt support. For hard influe nce
tactics, high (vs low) exp ert power buffered the negativ e relationship of upward appe al and pressure on ITP
via management suppor t.
Practical implications Safety engineers should rely on rational persuasion when cooperating with
management to obtain support and improve their own performance.
Originality/value This study connects the effect of influence tactics in the context of safety engineers
work performance with OST. It demonstrates that safety engineersinfluence tactics are related to work role
performance through management support and that these relationships are moderated by expert power.
Keywords Pressure, Organizational support theory, Individual task proficiency, Rational persuasion,
Safety professionals, Upward appeal
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Modern technical safety systems have become increasingly reliable and the chance of
injuries due to technical failure has been reduced considerably. In fact, up to 80 percent of
accidents in the industrial sector can be traced back to human factors (Flin, OConnor, and
Crichton, 2008; Helmreich, 2000; Reason, 1990). To complement the technical expertise of
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 2, 2020
pp. 381-397
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-04-2018-0120
Received 30 April 2018
Revised 15 April 2019
5 August 2019
17 September 2019
Accepted 25 September 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
© Johanna Bunner, Roman Prem and Christian Korunka. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
381
Roles of
influence
tactics
workers, managers, and especially safety engineers, safety research has started to focus on
non-technical skills such as teamwork and communication (Blair, 1999; Flin et al., 2008).
Safety engineers are consultants whose expertise is characterized by high technical skills
in occupational health and safety (OHS). Their job requires them to consult employers,
employees and work councils on OHS topics and the design of humane working conditions.
Their tasks also include the provision of technical expertise, the briefing and training of
employees, the inspection of organizations, the generation of recommendations for
improvement, the documentation of safety incidents, the provision of (legal) information and
the design of safety systems (Braunger et al., 2015; European Council, 1989). This allows for
different role enactments, such as the administrator, the workshop inspector, the problem
solver or the craft expert (Harris et al., 2012).
Although safety engineerstasks require them to have high tech nical and legal skills, their
jobs oftentimes also require non-technical skills. In their communicationwith managers, safety
engineers oftentimes appear to be lacking social sk ills, and thus fail to argue for OHS measures
regarding organizational resources or economic considerations (Blair, 1999; Winterfeld et al.,
2012). Safety engineer trainings in the European Union also contribute to this problem because
they currently do not include non-technical skills such as communication in their curricula
(European Council, 1989; SFK-VO, 1995). This lack of communication skills is problematic for
two reasons. First, managers control the budget and ultimately approve or disapprove of OHS
measures, including judgments on expected cost-benefit outcomes of their safety decisions
(Clarke, 2000; Winterfeld et al., 2012) here, safety professionals need to be able to provide
convincing arguments. Second, safety engineersmost successful way of gaining management
support for improving OHS is through direct communication with managers as safety
engineers are not authorized to issue directives (Blair, 2013; Chang et al., 2012; Winterfeld et al.,
2012). Therefore, they need to become aware of how their interactions with managers influence
their chances of gaining management support and, in turn, affect their work performance.
Even though the importance of safety engineersnon-technical skills for their performance
has been pointed out before, academic research has mostly neglected this topic (Blair, 1999,
2013; Winterfeld et al., 2012). This study aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of safety
engineersuse of influence tactics on safety engineers job performance through the application
of organizational support theory (OST; Eisenberger et al., 1986). More precisely, it investigates
the effects of influence tactics on management support and the consequential effect on safety
engineersindividual task performance as well as the role of expert power in these relationships.
With this approach, the study aims to shed light on how and when safety engineersinfluence
strategies with managers are successful.
1.1 Influence tactics
Influence tactics are means to achieve ones goals in an organizational setting and are used
by a so-called agent (the person with a specific goal) to change the behavior of a so-called
target (the person whose support is needed to achieve that goal; Kipnis et al., 1980). Influence
tactics are, therefore, effective when they provoke a change in attitude or action within the
target. These changes can occur via three different processes: compliance, internalization,
and personal identification (Kelman, 1958; Yukl, 2013). Compliant targets follow a request
because they expect to receive a reward or avoid a punishment controlled by the agent.
Their motivation to comply is purely instrumental and they only invest the effort necessary
to receive the reward or avoid the punishment. Targets that have internalized an agents
request are loyal to the request presented but not to the agent presenting it. The request
meets the targets underlying values and beliefs and they become intrinsically committed to
supporting it. Personal identification is based on the targets relationship with the agent.
The target imitates the agents behavior and attitudes to please them because the target
desires the agents acceptance and esteem. By following the agents request, the target can
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