Leader-member Exchange and Employees’ Safety Behavior: The Moderating Effect of Safety Climate

AbstractBuilding on recent work in occupational safety, the present research investigated the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and in-role safety behavior. We predicted that higher quality LMX may produce employees’ stronger motivation for reciprocity, which may lead to not only more extra-role safety behavior [1], but also more in-role safety behavior. Data were collected among work units in a power supplying company in China. Our findings indicated a moderating effect of safety climate on the hypothesized relationship between LMX and safety behavior, so that LMX was positively associated with safety behavior when safety climate was high, while it was negatively associated with safety behavior when safety climate was low. Implications of our findings for social exchange theory and safety management were discussed