Abstract:
The paper concerns organisational safety culture and how it may be applied to reduce
employee accidents in the mining industry in Ghana. A sample of 340 managerial workers
of three mining companies in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality was selected using the
simple random sampling technique. Data for the study was gathered using a survey
questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modelling analysis technique was performed
to establish the relationship between safety culture and each of the five dimensions
of workplace safety (work safety, management safety practices, safety programmes,
supervisor safety and co-worker safety). It was found that safety culture is a significant
positive predictor of work safety (R2 = 0.039), management safety practices (R2 = 0.272),
safety programmes (R2 = 0.159), co-worker safety (R2 = 0.225) and supervisor safety (R2 =
0.199). The study concluded that workplace safety can be improved by enhancing the safety
culture in the mining industry in Ghana. The study recommends that in order to curb the
incidence and occurrence of accidents and injuries in the mining industry in Ghana, Human
Resource (HR) managers should lay more emphasis on ways that would enhance the safety
culture of all employees in the industry.
