Organizational time pressure and safety: exploring the role of supportive and safety climates through a cross-level moderated mediation model

Purpose Organizational time pressure can be regarded as a contextual factor influencing safety. However, research on the mechanisms that explain these negative cross-level effects and how to prevent them remains underexplored. This study addresses this research lacuna and provides insight into how the organizational context shapes employees’ safety attitudes. With this purpose, this study expands the JD-R model to the organizational level and considers how different facets of climate interact with each other. This study tests whether the negative influence of organizational time pressure on employees’ satisfaction with safety via the safety climate is weaker when the organizational support climate is high. Design/methodology/approach Our sample comprised 367 drivers from 33 Spanish road transport organizations. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the model. Findings The results supported the moderated mediation model, exhibiting a negative cross-level effect of organizational time pressure on satisfaction with safety, which was mediated by safety climate. Additionally, this indirect effect was conditional on the organizational support climate, which mitigated the negative influence of organizational time pressure on the safety climate and weakened the indirect effect when organizational support was high. Practical implications These findings have significant practical implications for policies and practices aimed at mitigating the negative effects of organizational time pressure across different sectors. Originality/value This study extends the JD-R model to the organizational level and examines how different facets of the organizational climate interact to influence safety.