Organizational identification moderates the effects of perceived COVID-19 safety climate on COVID-19 safety behavior in employees' personal life: A social identity approach

Abstract

Organizations play a pivotal role in fostering employee safety behavior. Building on the social identity approach, we argue that organizational identification facilitates the internalization of organizational norms and values. Thus, organizational identification should strengthen the influence of organizational climate on employee behavior. More specifically, we predicted that the relationship between perceived COVID-19 safety climate and COVID-19 safety behavior (both at work and outside of work) would be stronger the more employees identify with their organization. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a two-wave lagged study with 709 employees after the lifting of government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions. Results showed that perceived COVID-19 safety climate predicted COVID-19 safety behavior at work, but not in the non-work domain. Organizational identification moderated the relationship between perceived COVID-19 safety climate and COVID-19 safety behavior in the non-work domain, but not at work. In particular, the positive link between safety climate and safety behavior outside of work emerged only for employees who strongly identified with their organization. Our findings highlight that organizational identification not only influences employee behavior within the workplace but also shapes how employees apply organizational safety norms in their non-work domain.