The Generality of Psychosocial Safety Climate Theory-A Fundamental Element for Global Worker Well-Being: Evidence...

Occupational health and safety researchers and policymakers often rely on organisational theories and evidence to provide valuable information for effective policy making and understanding. Yet, most traditional and contemporary organisational theories are developed within a single nation, often in high-income countries. Therefore, cross-national validation is required for generalisable worldwide use. The current study focuses on an antecedent to workplace health and safety, that is, the psychosocial safety climate (PSC), and aims to investigate if PSC is an etic (i.e., universally applicable) or emic (i.e., nationally/context specific) theory. Across nations, we investigate the construct meaning of PSC by testing PSC measurement invariance and the invariance of a nomological network of PSC relationships, (1) PSC to co-worker to work engagement (PSC extended Job-Demands Resources (JD-R) motivational pathway), (2) PSC to co-worker support to psychological distress (PSC extended JD-R health erosion pathway), and (3) the moderation of PSC on the co-worker to outcomes relationship. A total of 5854 employees from four nations (Australia = 1198, New Zealand = 2029, Malaysia = 575, Japan = 2052) participated in the study. Multi-group structural equation modelling suggested that there was measurement invariance in a four-factor PSC model across the four samples. Findings from multigroup analyses support both the PSC extended motivational and health erosion pathways across nations, as well as the moderation effect of PSC in the Australian and Japanese samples. Together, the results largely support the etic nature of PSC construct and theory, with a few national nuances.