Looking beyond violence prevention climate – exploring line managers' violence preventive practices in two high-risk sectors

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-06-2021-0133
• Published date: 05 April 2022
• Date: 05 April 2022
• Pages: 429-444
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: Sofie Østergaard Jaspers,Dorte Raaby Andersen,Iben Louise Karlsen,Lars Peter Sønderbo Andersen,Paul Maurice Conway,Johnny Dyreborg,Birgit Aust

Looking beyond violence

prevention climate –exploring line

managers’violence preventive

practices in two high-risk sectors

Sofie Østergaard Jaspers

Psychosocial Work Environment Department,

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dorte Raaby Andersen

Department of Occupational Medicine –University Research Clinic,

Danish Ramazzini Centre, Regional Hospital West Jutland, Herning, Denmark

Iben Louise Karlsen

Department of Safety Culture and Accidents,

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

Lars Peter Sønderbo Andersen

Department of Occupational Medicine –University Research Clinic,

Danish Ramazzini Centre, Regional Hospital West Jutland, Herning, Denmark

Paul Maurice Conway

Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Johnny Dyreborg

Section for Safety Culture and Safety Research,

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark and

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark, and

Birgit Aust

Department of Psychosocial Work Environment,

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

Purpose –Work-related violence is a major occupational safety and health (OSH) issue. According to the

concept of violence prevention climate, managers play a pivotal role in preventing the risk of violence at work.

However, research on this is scarce. The objective of this study was, therefore, to examine line managers’use of

violence preventive practices in high-risk sectors.

Design/methodology/approach –The authors employed three different sources of data (semi-structured

interviews and field notes from both leadership seminars and coaching sessions) that were collected in the

context of an intervention study in Denmark aimed at improving violence prevention. The authors conducted a

Managers’role

in violence

prevention

climate

429

© Sofie Østergaard Jaspers, Dorte Raaby Andersen, Iben Louise Karlsen, Lars Peter Sønderbo

Andersen, Paul Maurice Conway, Johnny Dyreborg and Birgit Aust. Published by Emerald Publishing

Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone

may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ legalcode

Funding: This study was funded by The Danish Working Environment Research Fund. Award

number AMFF-24-2016-03-2016510163.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm

Received 25 June 2021

Revised 4 October 2021

Accepted 8 November 2021

InternationalJournal of Workplace

Health Management

Vol. 15 No. 4, 2022

pp. 429-444

Emerald Publishing Limited

1753-8351

DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-06-2021-0133

thematic analysis of violence prevention experiences among 16 line managers –eight from the prison and

probation services and eight from psychiatric hospitals.

Findings –Using an existing prevention framework, the authors categorized the descriptions into three types

of violence preventive practices used by the line managers across the two sectors: “preventing violence”,

“managing episodes of violence”and “promoting the positive”. Especially the category “promoting the

positive”is often neglected in the intervention literature.

Originality/value –The study identified new aspects of managers’violence preventive practices than those

included in the violence prevention climate concept. Such knowledge may help organizations devise improved

systems for violence prevention in high-risk sectors.

Keywords Violence prevention climate, Workplace violence, Management, Managers’work environment,

Prison and probations services, Psychiatry, Violence prevention

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Work-relatedviolence is a major occupationalsafety and health (OSH)issue. Despite extensive

preventiveefforts over the years,violence and threats at workstill represent a widespreadrisk,

with consequences at individual, organizational and societal levels (Biering et al., 2018;

Eurofound,2017;Rudkjoebin g etal.,2020;Xuet al., 2018a,b). Prevalence rates of violencevary

greatly betweensectors, but risk is particularlyelevated in sectors with a high degree of client

contact, such as hospitals and prisons (Gadegaardet al.,2018;Nyberg et al.,2020).

From both the theoretical and empirical points of view, it is well established that management

practices can decrease the risk for violence and threats perpetrated by clients toward employees

(Gadegaard et al.,2018;Spector et al., 2007,2015). From a theoretical standpoint, management

practices are assumed to play a key role in shaping safety and violence prevention climates,

which in turn affect the risk of episodes of violence (Spector et al.,2007;Zohar, 1980). From the

empirical point of view, a few prospective studies showed that the way employees experience

how their manager prioritizes violence prevention, encourage registration of episodes and give

support after occurrences of violence is associated with a lower risk of being exposed to violence

and threats at work (Gadegaard et al.,2018;Spector et al., 2015). Previous studies also found that

poor supervisor quality and low support from the closest supervisor are associated with a higher

risk of exposure to violence and threats (Andersen et al.,2018;Gadegaard et al.,2018).

Employee-directed violence preventive practices are well described in the literature in, for

instance,the de-escalation literatureand in studies of coercionminimization in psychiatrysuch

as “Safewards”(Bowers et al., 2015). On the other hand qualitative examinations of the role

played by managers in violence prevention are –to the bestof the authors’knowledge –rare.

An exception isa recent study showing that line managersfrom a Swedish hospital perceived

violenceprevention as a twofold assignmentwhere both employee and patientsafety had to be

assured, a goal that was difficult to achieve (Jakobsson et al., 2021). They also reported a

mismatch as the most frequent type of violence occurring was represented by less severe

episodes, whereasthe organization’s focus was on the management and preventionof severe

episodes.The extant sparse researchand the reported problemsof practicing preventionposes

a challenge forimproving practice where theinvolvement of both employeesand managers is

recommended in workplace violence prevention (OSHA, 2004) and more generally in OSH

interventions(Awa et al.,2010;Corbi

ere et al.,2009).Violence preventioninitiativesare complex

and often jeopardizedby low-resource environments [e.g. highlevels of sickness absence and

problems in recruiting (Byrne and Hummer, 2007;Cowman, 2009;McKeownet al., 2019)]. It is

known from adjacent fields that managers, when attempting to enact practices to prevent

accidents and mental health problems, face challenges in their work environment in terms of

lack of time and support (Biron, 2018;Skakon et al.,2010;Tafvelin et al.,2019). This calls for

more in-depthknowledge on how managers act in resource-scarce andcomplex environments

characterized by a high prevalence of violence and threats. Such knowledge may help

organizations devise improved systems forviolence prevention in high-risk sectors.

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