Team Diversity as a Safety Asset: A Field Investigation of Language Diversity and Occupational Safety

Abstract

Despite significant progress in understanding how situational factors influence safety compliance, the effects of team diversity—particularly language diversity—on safety outcomes remain underexplored. This is particularly concerning given the prevalence of language diversity in teams operating in hazardous environments and the disparities in accident rates, injuries, and fatalities among workers from diverse linguistic and racial-ethnic backgrounds. In this study, we examine how language diversity affects occupational safety, and therefore begin to resolve an unsettled deliberation of whether diversity is a detractor or catalyst of safety outcomes. Integrating social identity theory and work on leader member exchange differentiation, we develop and test a model hypothesizing that team language diversity is positively related to safety compliance and that this relationship can be explained by leaders' relationships with followers. Analysis of survey data from over 1,000 construction workers (162 teams) showed that our hypotheses were generally supported; that team language diversity was positively related to safety compliance. Further, we found that this relationship can be explained by the process of leader-member exchange differentiation, but only when leaders also exhibit safety-specific transformational leadership (SSTL). We discuss these results in detail and implications for scientists and human resource practitioners are presented.