‘The canary in the coal mine’: A multi-level analysis of the role of hope in managing safety performance of underground miners

Coal mining is one of the most dangerous occupations in China despite the enforcement of stringent industry regulations and investments in modern safety equipment. In recent years, the majority of accidents in coal mining have been attributed to human errors. This study offers new insights into combatting coal mining accidents by focusing on ‘soft’ human factors from the perspective of coal miners. We draw from positive psychology to argue that hope and team reflexivity play critical roles in transforming management commitment to safety into desired safety outcomes. We test our model using multi-level analysis on a sample (n = 487) of underground miners in 98 coal mining sites in China. The results show that hope mediates the influence of management commitment to safety on miners' behaviors towards both safety compliance and safety participation. Team reflexivity, as a team-level property, is found to positively moderate the association between management commitment to safety and miners' hope. We discuss the implications of our findings that hope can be the ‘the canary in the coal mine’ in predicting safety behavior of coal miners.