Effect of Confidentiality of Reporting System on Employee Perception and their Willingness to Report Near-Misses

摘要

Reporting of near-miss incidents in the chemical industry is an important process inunderstanding the weaknesses in the technical and organizational system. However, researchsuggests there is a major bias that has the potential to substantially lower the value that is derivedfrom the near-miss management systems—underreporting of near-misses. One of the reasonsreported in the literature for under-reporting of near-misses is the fear of being recognized andblamed. There have been claims that a confidential reporting system may provide reassuranceand hence reduce under-reporting. This study attempts to answer the question of whether thepresence of a confidential reporting system will have an impact on an operator’s decision toreport. Employees at three chemical plants across the United States were surveyed to determinetheir perceptions about eight hypothetical, but realistic, scenarios. To study the effect of theconfidentiality aspect, the scenarios were presented to two different sets of employees at eachlocation: one set was informed that the system was confidential and one set informed that thesystem was not. Despite the supporting theories, results show that there was no significant effectof confidentiality of the reporting system on employee perception related to near-misses andtheir willingness to report.