The role of complexity science in advancing safety leadership and safety compliance in safety-critical environments

Purpose Despite substantial efforts to improve safety leadership, the traditional safety leadership approach and practices may be insufficient to achieve a sustained level of employees’ safety compliance. Safety compliance is not only driven by individual leadership behaviors but also shaped by dynamic interactions, feedback loops and interdependent processes that evolve over time. Therefore, complexity science principles (CSP) have been proposed to address the limitation of conventional leadership behaviors in promoting safety compliance at the workplace. This paper aims to examine the interactive effects of safety leadership and CSPs on the level of safety compliance in the oil and gas industry. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using questionnaires from 173 oil and gas projects. The structural equation modeling (SEM) method was used to analyze the collected data. Findings The results indicated that (1) three dimensions of safety leadership (i.e. empowering and engaging; modeling and reinforcing; and promoting and enabling) have significant and positive effects on safety compliance; and (2) five CSPs partially mediate the positive effects of safety leadership dimensions on safety compliance. The results support that more effective safety leadership behaviors via one or more CSPs entail higher levels of safety compliance. Originality/value The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge of safety management by providing empirical evidence to clarify the positive effects of selective safety leadership behaviors on safety compliance and the mediating role played by various CSPs. Suggestions are also provided for workplace safety researchers and practitioners to achieve sustained improvements in safety compliance.