Introduction

Over the past few decades, there has been an increased accomplishment in improved work-related safety performance of workers in oil and gas industries in different geographical regions (Dahl and Kongsvik 2018; Ismail et al. 2012b). However, Edwards et al. (2013) opined that the exact nature of safe and unsafe behaviours might differ between organisations in the same industries, and the targeted level within an organisation (e.g., management, supervisors, or workers).

Highlighting on the importance of positive safety behaviour at work, Uryan (2010), explained that an employee’s behaviour toward safety has a direct impact on their desire or intention to comply with safety policies. In line with this, Ismail et al. (2012a) viewed safety problems at work as a direct reflection of unsafe or careless act exhibited by workers and these can be resolved if behaviours are closely monitored and encouraged accordingly. In this same view, several studies have identified unsafe human behaviour as the most common cause of workplace accident and injuries (Choudhry 2014; Zhang and Fang 2013). Relatedly, Hamid et al. (2008) reported the causes of accidents at the workplace were due to the workers negligence, failure of workers to obey work procedures, and poor workers attitude about safety. Similarly, Fernandez-Muniz et al. (2014), emphasised on employee’s behaviour as important panacea in the improvement of safety outcomes.

The significance of setting up a safe working environment is generally highlighted across safety literature. However, meeting the rules and regulations has been adjudged not enough to sustain a safe working environment in the industry. As such, there is need for a change around workplace safety culture to help limit the occurrence of accidents and injuries in the workplace (Parker et al. 2006; Kilaparthi 2014; Okoye 2016). Enhancement of workplace safety culture does promote good safety behaviour as well as present numerous benefits with respect to achieving a positive safety culture in every organization, characterised by reduction in workers absenteeism, happier workforce, improved productivity, profitability and quality, client and stakeholder satisfaction, reduced insurance premiums and claims, reduced risk of crimes etc. (Mearns and Yule 2009; Olsen 2010; Ek et al. 2014; Zaira and Hadikusumo 2017). Management commitment should be seen as an essential component to ensure that, safety in a workplace is successful (Olsen 2010; Ek et al. 2014; Kilaparthi 2014; Skeepers and Mbohwa 2015; Zaira and Hadikusumo 2017). Furthermore, Boughaba et al. (2014) expounded on the correlation between safety culture maturity and safety performance of worker and concluded, commitment to safety by management play a fundamental role in the determination of workers’ safety behaviour and consequently in the reduction of workplace incidence. In reality, there is the need to foster safety culture and safety practices within an organization, and without the support and commitment of the management such approaches can be relatively hard to achieve. However, several authors have opined that cultural safety change should not be controlled or viewed as a linear top-down process but instead, it should stem from every sector of the organization (Cooper 2000; Choudhry et al. 2007; Kilaparthi 2014). Parker et al. (2006) emphasised that in organisations where the attitudes and behaviours of senior managers are perceived to be positive in terms of safety, the need for workers to see and develop safety behaviour that influences their individual safety performance increases. In line with this view, Nævestad et al. (2018) articulated that positive safety culture values can readily penetrate an organization through senior management effort by demonstrating attention and commitment through safety communication. Secondly, it can help with development of respectful work environments by creating a reason to raise concerns and ensure workers are empowered to contribute their opinions and medium developed to respond promptly.

Another important dimension of safety culture assessment process is the willingness of workers to participate towards the development of profound idea on activities that need to be followed up (Kilaparthi 2014; Biddison et al. 2016), considering the workers outcome in terms of the sense of empowerment that they feel while actively engaging with their work processes and embedded safety-related processes (Frazier et al. 2013). Workers need to have a sense of involvement to ensure a positive safety culture, ownership, and commitment. This can be gained when workers are involved in safety training, safety (Choudhry et al. 2006). However, where workers’ contributions to safety concerns are treated indifferently by the management, this can discourage them from participating in safety issues proposed (Nordlof et al. 2015).

The onus lies with an organisations leadership to help create an atmosphere by which their subordinates and contributing workforce can feel free to discuss their source of safety concern, encourage their attitudes, and commit to their responsibility towards enhancing work procedures (Henriksen and Dayton 2006). Sadly, frontline workers feel disinclined to report errors, particularly the mistakes originating from the organisation, because they may be feeling that they are not responsible for safety and it’s the duty of their supervisors/managers do it (Harvey et al. 2018; Amalia 2019).

The significance of creating a safe workplace and strengthening the safety culture in any organisation, and especially the oil and gas industry, to reduce rate of accidents will require a continuous improvement effort (Kilaparthi 2014; Witter et al. 2014; Wold and Laumann 2015). Hence, employee’s safety and prevention of major disasters within this industry remains notable concern (Hoffmeister et al. 2014).

Safety culture, safety behaviour and safety performance framework

The concept of safety culture goes beyond individual values, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions, competencies, and heavily depends upon behavioural patterns that determine commitment to adoption of safe practices across the organisation (Cooper 2000; Bautista-Bernal et al. 2024). With persistent occurrence of workplace incidents, in several industries, the need to promote and examine safety measures around individual, workplace and organisation interactions exist (Al-Mekhlafi et al. 2021; Ofori et al. 2023).

Behaviour-based safety is based on the notion of promoting safe behaviours among employees whereby individual behaviour is evaluated in a set of desired situations and interfaced with other factors (Gh et al. 2021). Accordingly, behavioural safety is not only important in ensuring the wellbeing of employees, but can have positive impact on productivity, decrease health and safety cost, reduce the chance of prosecution or public reputational damage, reduce absenteeism of workers, and reduce the likelihood of reduced profitability of the organization (Okolie and Okoye 2012; Frazier et al. 2013; Okoye 2016). Nevertheless, there has been a continuous degeneration of safety performance in the oil and gas industry, particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria (Uwaoma and Ordu 2016), and there exists a research gap around the interaction between safety culture and safety behaviour, impacting safety performance.

State of workplace safety in Nigeria oil and gas sector

With its fast-growing human resource and workforce components, the Nigeria oil and gas industry needs to benchmark and secure international safety standards and policies, making business operations and activities in the industry safe. However, the scarcity of publicly available data shows no clear mechanism in collecting and storing data related to accidents and injuries of workers (Seleye-Fubara and Bob-Yellowe 2006). The need to establish a clear cause and effect regarding accidents in the workplace environment, and promoting a safe culture of work tends to be a fundamental issue for the industry (Ehiaguina and Moda 2020).

Earlier, Frazier et al. (2013) argued that the advantage of Behavioural Based Safety far outweighs its costs. For instance, organizations in the US lose approximately $170 billion yearly due to injuries at the workplace, and the associated cost reduces with time as organizations continue to view safety as an investment rather than an expense (Saad 2016). As such, the use of behaviour-based safety is much needed strategy for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry to help reduce workplace accidents and injury (Uwaoma and Ordu 2016). Nigeria has benefitted from the presence of both local and international oil companies operating in its oil fields both off and onshore in terms of provision of employment, energy supply to industry and commerce etc. (Vaaland et al. 2012; Elum et al. 2016). Unfortunately, the safety and health of the workers within the sector is still considered as dangerous, as the workers are frequently exposed to diverse work-related health and safety hazards (Taiwo 2010; Ezejiofor et al. 2014), which at instances are fatal and hardly reported to authorities or made public. Fatalities in the Nigeria oil and gas sector workers had exponentially increased to 217 in the 2016 as compared to only 54 fatality cases reported in 2010 (Adugbo 2017). In addition, there exists a strong ground to believe the data relating to occupational injuries or fatalities from operations in the country’s oil and gas sectors does not reflect the actual incidence and accidents that occur within the industry (Elenwo and Akankali 2014; Ezejiofor et al. 2014), and the ground reality maybe much harsher.

Idubor and Oisamoje (2013) viewed safety issues in the Nigeria oil and gas industry and concluded that it was lacking in the required standard adherence owing to the chronic underutilization of safety policies with resultant impact on the implementation and adherence to health safety policy standards, which has in turn led to the present state of safety culture as witnessed within the sector. Despite the awareness of the local and international regulatory guidelines by individual oil and gas companies in the nation, health and safety rules and policies have still not been adequately implemented (Ehiaguina and Moda 2020). In furtherance, Edwards et al. (2013) argued that the influence of safety culture overlaps organizational culture and safety, and it focuses on the individuals within an organization and the manner they view the safety requirements that they are expected to comply and adhere to, including the way they accept these requirements as part of their work scope in the workplace. The way forward for safety management in the Nigeria oil and gas industry would be to create a workplace environment that accepts and encourages the development and acceptance of a positive safety culture, as this will help determine if applied safety measures will be a failure or success. One way to enhance workplace safety culture is to recognize the impact of workers’ untypical or unsafe behaviour in resisting any changes in their workplace environment, particularly when these changes are not compatible with their own cultural ideologies. With this realization, management in the Nigeria oil and gas industry must find suitable strategies in implementing safety standards, policies, and strategies that are aligned with the organizational culture for it to be effective (Ehiaguina and Moda 2020).

Regardless of the availability of means or funds in implementing an effective safety culture that will bring in a positive impact on the safety performance of the industry, there is a significant increase in the number of serious injuries and deaths among Nigeria oil and gas workers, highlighting the need and importance of enhancing health and safety in the sector. Most research undertaken in the oil and gas sector in the country has focused on its impact on the environment. Despite the increased number of work-related fatality and injury recorded, on record there is no study that looked at safety culture and worker’s behaviour associated with workplace accidents in the Nigeria oil and gas industry. To have better understating on the nature of the safety concern within the industry, the current study considers the relationship between safety culture and safety behaviour, and how it affects safety performance of workers within the Nigeria oil and gas industry.

Methodology

Survey instrument

A cross sectional study using validated close-ended questionnaire was used to collate information from participants across 15 major oil and gas industries operating within the Niger delta region. The used questionnaire survey consisted of 35 attributes and was applied to measure the workers safety perception and response based on 9 distinct constructs structured around safety culture practices in workplace. The first part considered participants demographic information that include age, gender, work experience, employment type and job category. The second part adopted five-point Likert scale to measure workers perceptions around existing safety culture practices in the organisation. Within the studied attributes, 26 focused on employee’s perception of management commitment, safety communication, safety leadership, employee involvement, safety communication, safety training and their impact on worker’s safety behaviour. In addition, out of the 35 attributes, 8 of them considered workplace safety compliance and 11 of them aimed at probing safety participation in workplace (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Summary of the exogenous and endogenous variables considered in the study

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A Likert-type scale of five-point, where one refers to very low, and five refers to very high comprising 51 questions were adopted from formerly validated questionnaires of related literature and theories (Zohar 1980; Mearns et al. 1998) and tested among the target audinece.

Based on the initial test comments received, further rewording some of the items to blend with local working culture and practices was made ahaed of the data collection. The Questionnaire comprised of two sections with the first section consisting of questions assoacited with participants demography such as age, gender, work experience, employment type, and job category. Section two comprised of questions that measured workers’ perceptions regards existing safety culture practice within their organization; management commitment (6 items), safety leadership style (10 items), safety communication and motivation (9 items), employee involvement (9), co-worker involvement (3 items) and safety training (8 items).

Target population

Online Survey (JISC, Bristol UK) platform was used to distribute the questionnaire among frontline workers working within the industry located in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria between 8th August 2018- 31st October, 2018. Inclusion criteria considered in the selection of participating companies include location, size and nature of the oil and gas activity undertaken. At individual level, inclusion criteria considered were at least 1 year or more experience as either in full time or contract employment and working in the frontline. This group of workers are expected to be maximally exposed to workplace-associated hazards, and hence would be able to provide relevant information on how safety culture is promoted, perceived, utilised and potential lapses in the approach that affects their safety response and performance at work. The generated online survey link was shared with relavant gatekeeper to help facilitate data collection among target oirganisation and encouarged all eligible inidvidual participantion.

Sampling method and sample size

Purposive sampling approach involving a complete sampling frame of all eligible individuals and offering each of them the chance of being chosen as part of the sample while allowing for generalization of results based on the study findings was adopted in this study. Based on human capital development trend reported by the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, a projection of over 160,533 are employed in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria. To determine the sample size for the study, Fisher’s formula for estimating single proportions and minimum sample size was applied (Niang et al. 2006; Nwadike et al. 2021).

Data analysis method

Data generated from the survey response was later transferred on to SPSS software version 27 and analysed. Prior to the statistical analysis, processing of missing data using listwise deletion approach (Donner 1982; Kang 2013) was done, resulting in loss of ~ 5% of overall data received in the survey. This was done to reduce the impact of missing data on the study outcome. Key reason for the missing data could be due to the poor conceptualisation of the presented questions by the respondents. Post the processing of missing data, 462 survey responses was deemed fit and descriptive statistics of demographic information such as age, gender, work-experience, employment type, and job category from these responses were undertaken. Reliability of measured items was tested using the Cronbach’s alpha method to measure how strongly associated the set of items measured are as a group (Tavakol and Dennick 2011). The percentage of responses from each item was used to assess the extent to which participants agree or disagree with the question asked, prior to establishing structural relationships using the approach detailed below.

Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)

Using AMOS graphics 4.0 software package, structural equation modelling (SEM) was carried out to establish the causal relationship among variables through parameters estimation, identification of the path model and model modification (Fig. 2). Exogenous variables considered in the model development included age, gender, work experience and safety management practices. While safety participation and safety compliance, were used as the endogenous variables.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Hypothesised model, using one directional arrow to illustrate the causal relationship between exogenous variables and endogenous variables

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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To examine the measurement model validity, different “goodness of fit statistics” like root means square error of approximation (RMSEA), wherein value less than 0.08 indicate model fit, Chi square test and degree of freedom (< 5.0 value) were used (Swedler et al. 2015). The use of CFA approach was primarily to establish confidence in the measurement model and to understand the relationship of the observed variables against the underlying latent constructs.

Results

Participant’s characteristics

Table 1 describes the demographic data of the study population consisting of 462 participants, encompassing the Nigeria oil and gas sector. The participants were drawn from 15 oil and gas companies operating in the Niger delta region. Of this number, 19.9% of the respondent works for Total oil Company, 13.5% are staff of Oando oil and 11.3% are workers of Shell Nigeria. Based on the sampled population, 58.9% of the participants identified their gender as male and 28% of those that took part in the survey identified their age range as 26–35 years. Among the respondents 68.8% are employed as full-time staffs in the oil and gas sector. 35.1% of the participants had between 6 and 10 years of working experience in the sector, followed by those with 1–5 years (30.7%) of experience (Table 1).

Table 1 Participant’s demographic characteristics (n = 462)
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Figure 3 presents the extent to which participants agree with the degree of satisfaction around safety compromise, safety motivation, reporting culture and production pressure, and corresponding influence on their work efficiency. There was considerable degree of acceptability among the participants where 53.2% said they either agree or strongly agree that their supervisors demand more towards getting the work done on time even where it is obvious that safety is likely to be compromised before completion of the work. In addition, there was strong agreement around not getting the needed motivation to work safely with 63.9% of respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement that the role played by their supervisor have negligible impact in motivating them to work safely. The feeling of been pressured to put production ahead of personal safety was overwhelmingly acknowledged among the participants with 93.5% either agree or strongly agree to the question asked. Safety reporting culture was found to be limited among the participant with 89.4% acknowledging that not reporting safety concern due to reprimand from supervisors or in worst case having the fear of being fired from the job (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Degree of participant’s response around safety compromise, safety motivation, reporting culture and production pressure

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Reliability test result

Cronbach’s alpha (α) reliability test was applied to ensure appropriateness of the items measured. Based on the reliability coefficients results for all measure; safety management commitment (4 items) and safety motivation (2 items), safety training (4 items) exhibited α values between 0.7 and < 0.8, and can be considered acceptable. The initial SEM was performed for path model identification to evaluate causal models by examining the relationships between each dependent variable and all independent variables. The total number of estimated sample moment parameter (27) was more than the numbers of distinct parameters (23). The degree of freedom (df) is the differences between both parameters (27 − 23 = 4) and was found to be greater than zero (df = > 0), as a result the model was considered over identified.

Model fitness

The maximum likelihood estimation was applied to yield optimal parameters of all studied variables and to assess the distributional properties. The result showed there was a significant (p < 0.05) direct estimated impact of safety management practices to both safety participation and safety compliance. In addition, safety management practices had a higher direct estimated impact on safety participation (0.37) than safety compliance (0.23). Work experience had significant direct estimated impact of safety participation (p < 0.05) and a non-significant direct estimated impact on safety climate (p > 0.05). Age was found to have a significant estimated impact on safety compliance (p < 0.05) whereas age does not have any significance towards safety participation (p > 0.05). In addition, it was also observed that gender does not have any significant impact on both safety compliance and participation (p > 0.05).

The overall fit of the model was assessed using multiple goodness-of-fit (GOF) indices including the ratio of chi-square x2 to the degrees of freedom, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), the Normal fit index (NFI) and Turker Lewis index (TLI). The analysed GOF indices tends to indicate if there is a need to modify the existing model to further improve the model fit. GOF tests were performed and the resultant values were within the acceptable range for the several types of model fits (Table 2). Based on this application, the values considered were within the acceptable range for the diverse types of model fits except for RMSEA. In the latent factor’s analysis, the RMSEA was 0.069 indicating acceptable fit and GFI, was 0.990 also indicating acceptable model fit. Adding covariance between error variable 1 and 2, helped to increase the values of the fitness parameters (Fig. 4). Based on the CFA results detailed below, model fit was used to assess how appropriate the proposed model captures the co-variances among all measures or items within the model after informed model modifications.

Table 2 Goodness of fit for the parameters used to measure the model fit after modification
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Fig. 4
figure 4

Modified model for the relationship between age, gender, work-experience, safety management practices to safety compliance and safety participation

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Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) result

To strengthen the rationale for the used structural model test, it was considered important that good measurement model needs to be established. As such, CFA was performed after modifications were made to the model, with an aim to establish the confidence in the measurement model and the relationship between observed variables to the underlying constructs (Table 3). Based on the CFA performed, significant association was established between work experience and safety participation (p = 0.003). However, there was no significant relationship between work experience and safety compliance (p = 0.109) found. In addition, safety management practices showed significant relationship with safety compliance (p = 0.000) and safety participation (p = 0.000). Relatedly, participants age was found not to have any significant relationship with safety compliance (p = 0.018), the same outcome applies to gender (p = 0.825) yielding no significant relationship with safety compliance (Table 3).

Table 3 Relationship among variables from confirmatory factor analysis test
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Parameter estimation

The maximum likelihood estimation was applied in the Amos 4.0 graphics software to yield optimal parameters of all studied variables to assess the distributional properties (Table 4). Although there was a significant direct estimated impact of safety management practices on safety participation and safety compliance, safety management practices had a higher direct estimated impact on safety participation than safety compliance. The significance of work experience has been discovered to have a direct estimated impact on safety participation (p < 0.001) and a non-significant direct estimated impact on safety compliance (p = 0.037). From the result, age has a significant estimated impact on safety compliance and not significant on safety participation (p < 0.001). However, gender equality was found not to significantly impact both safety compliance (p = 0.226) and participation (p = 0.825), respectively.

Table 4 Estimation of parameters among variables and model fitness
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Discussion

This study aimed at evaluating safety behaviour and the impact it has on safety performance of oil and gas workers in Nigeria. This was informed by conclusion drawn in earlier studies that indicated poor safety culture as having the propensity to influence the employee’s safety behaviours, leading to accidents and injuries at workplace (Edwards et al. 2013; Lu and Tsai 2010; Nordlof et al. 2015). Based on the limited empirical study that considered safety behaviour among workers in the Niger delta, strengthening such culture can be used in improving the safety performance of workers (Boughaba et al. 2014; Frazier et al. 2013) operating in the region.

Organisational safety culture has been found to be driven by effective safety leadership style, another important element of a positive safety culture, especially where the leadership team sets a vision and strategic direction while reinforcing the importance of safety to employees. Overall, efficient safety leadership is viewed as a key component of safety culture and fundamental to improving workers’ safety performance through the effective relationship among the workforce. As such, the need for the management to have sufficient safety knowledge, right attitude and behaviour that reinforce worker’s optimism and enthusiasm for better safety performance is considered timely and essential (Cooper 2015; Muchiri et al. 2019).

Findings from the safety management practices measured in this study revealed valuable information about the perceptions of the workers on the existing safety culture practice within their organisation and is consistent previous studies (Lu and Tsai 2010; Nordlof et al. 2015; Swedler et al. 2015), which may provide directional guide through which safety climate intervention measures can be improved to reduce accident and injuries at work. Among the study’s findings was the overall safety management practices that considered significant role of safety participation and safety compliance, suggesting that more emphasis on workplace safety culture can have positive influence on workers safety behaviour within the industry. This finding has beneficial implications for safety management as it shows that safety participation and safety compliance of workers can be influenced and are susceptible to change especially where effort and right atmosphere are created. Similarly, Vinodkumar and Bhasi, (2010) affirmed that safety management practices as a measure of organisational safety culture had direct significant relationship with workers safety behaviour in eight different high-risk industries observed in India. In addition, safety management practices tend to not only enhance working conditions, but also impact positively on employee’s behaviour in respect to safety, thereby decreasing workplace accident. Previous studies have established that enhanced safety culture and safety behaviour could serve as a precursor to minimising accident among workers in the oil and gas industry, especially where perceived employee occupational controls are taken into consideration (Mearns and Yule 2009; Nielsen 2014; Olsen 2010). In addition, the attitude of a leadership plays a fundamental role in the rate of accident recorded, and hence strengthening of safety leadership approach within the organisation where safety responsibilities and accountability are promoted will help definitively help in enhancing organisation safety culture (Hoffmeister et al. 2014; Martínez-Córcoles and Stephanou 2017; Zuofa and Ocheing 2017; Cooper 2018; Bautista-Bernal et al. 2024).

Laharnar et al. (2013), affirmed while safety policies have set out the overall approach to safety management systems within organisations, in many instances such approaches have failed at the initial stages of enforcement. This could be attributed to non-commitment of best safety cultural practices, lack of clarity around role and responsibilities, poor communication, emphasis on fast production (Kilaparthi 2014; Cooper 2018). Not only have these strategies resulted to failure in safety policies implementation but have also escalated risk to injuries, accident and illness of workers associated with work. In line with this, our study found that over 93.5% of participants acknowledged feeling pressured to put production before safety or sometimes ignore safety regulations completely in order to get their job done. This further highlight the existence of trade-off of productivity over safety within organisations, where production pressure and targets seem to have utmost significance over safety actions. Boughaba et al. (2014), is of the view that safety commitment by employee may be low when management neglects safety processes whenever production falls behind plan. As a result, to achieve an effective safety culture within the oil and gas industry, it is essential mangers portray positive attitudes and endorse good safety behaviours exhibited by workers as means of encouraging positive safety culture within the organisation (Parker et al. 2006).

Dollard and Bakker (2010) considered poor safety cultural practices within an organisation could lead to increased pressure for workers to hide their safety concern rather than convey them. This may happen where workers contribution to safety are not being prioritised and may give rise to less motivation and intensified fear of expression. Outcome from the present study further reaffirm this position considering that 89.4% of the respondents admitted not having confidence to report safety concerns due to fear of being fired and the absence of motivation from management to work safely. Such atmosphere created at work, and if allowed to go unchecked may limit the flow of safety information, while exposing workers to higher incidences of possible workplace accidents. Other studies have also opined that, where safety concern and safety motivation is neglected at work it may negatively affect safety behaviour, which may in-turn affect workers accident and near-misses reporting culture (Lu and Yang 2010).

Previous research has also emphasised the importance and the significant role of leadership as drivers of various forms of workplace climate (Skeepers and Mbohwa 2015; Fernández-Muñiz et al. 2017; Li et al. 2020; Tao et al. 2020; Mezentseva et al. 2023). In this regard, the involvement of senior management and their commitment toward positive safety culture is fundamental to the endorsement of related safety policies, procedures, and practices (Ek et al. 2014; Mearns and Yule 2009; Skeepers and Mbohwa 2015). With this approach in place, workers will appreciate the need to adopt and comply with safety related procedures established by senior personnel in the workplace, further propellling the workforce towards the adoption of safety associated mechanisms and procedures (Kilaparthi 2014). Poor safety climate within an organisation could lead to inadequate job designs and will definitively increase the risk of accident and injury. It should also be noted that higher levels of job pressure may prevail at work partly due to the absence of procedures, policies, and practices intended at maintaining work demands at controllable levels (Dollard and Bakker 2010). In order to overcome these challenges, promotion of trust and mutual understanding between employees is needed on order to enable everyone see the benefit of safety culture been promoted.

The world of work is now experiencing generational mix among its workforce and each of these subgroup holds differential perception on work values, preference, motivation and adaptation principle toward any change. In addition, perception towards safety culture is also different across these groups (Idrees et al. 2017; Isa et al. 2021; Leone et al. 2024). Empirical studies on safety culture in the oil and gas industry and other high-risk industry have confirmed that variables such as gender, age and work experience are essential elements to be considered during safety culture measurement (Ibrahim et al. 2012; Nævestad 2017; Ehiaguina and Moda 2020; Ofori et al. 2023). Such factors are found to have effect on safety culture, thereby influencing or impacting on the safety behaviour of workers (Ismail et al. 2012b). In furtherance, Lee and Harrison (2000) studies on nuclear power stations in the UK focusing on workers risk perceptions observed that significant differences in perceptions existed when variables such as gender, shift, age, workdays, and work areas of the respondents were considered. Similarly, Ayim-Gyekye and Salminen (2010) found work experience as significant in the improvement of occupational safety culture. In contrast, Nævestad (2017) found only age, work sector and activities of workers to be important in the enhancement of occupational safety culture. Considering that 18.4% of our respondents are within the age range of 18 to 25 years and 30.7% had less than 5 years’ work experience in the sectors, considering demographic factors as influencing elements on safety behaviour of workers within the industry should be an vital part in future policy development. In addition, there is the need for strengthening of existing policy and procedures to encourage safe work practice among these groups of inexperienced young workforce in high-risk sector like the oil and gas industry.

Improving organisational safety culture in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is crucial for establishing proactive safety policies, fostering worker understanding, and mitigating future risks. This involves focusing on safety behaviour, compliance, and participation, as highlighted in this study. Poor commitment and ineffective strategies often lead to policy failures, causing workers to perceive limited emphasis on safety implementation. Hence, management must prioritize policy enforcement and involve diverse workers in decision-making. While a universal safety policy exists, individual company policies are essential for safeguarding workers and stakeholders. This study’s findings offer valuable insights for enhancing workplace safety and call for further research into the relationship between safety culture elements and worker behaviour in the industry.

Limitation

The study’s strength lies in its comprehensive inclusion of diverse participants from various organizations and work groups within the Nigerian oil and gas industry. This breadth of participation enhances the study’s credibility and relevance to the sector’s safety culture and practices. Moreover, the analysis of the gathered data provides compelling evidence highlighting the urgent need to improve workplace safety culture and practices in this industry.

However, a notable limitation of the study pertains to the design of the questionnaire. While the study collected valuable data, it failed to encompass every aspect of the intricate relationship between safety culture and safety behaviour. This oversight hindered the ability to fully analyse the individual impact of each element of safety culture on workers’ safety behaviour. Additionally, by solely employing a quantitative approach through the questionnaire, there was an inherent assumption that participants responded openly and honestly, and that their responses accurately reflected the reality of their workplace experiences at the time of completing the questionnaire.

In future research endeavours, addressing these limitations could involve employing a more comprehensive questionnaire design that captures a wider range of factors influencing safety culture and behaviour. Additionally, incorporating qualitative methods alongside quantitative approaches may provide richer insights into the nuanced dynamics at play within the oil and gas industry’s safety landscape. Overall, while the study underscores the pressing need for safety improvements, it also highlights avenues for further research refinement to deepen our understanding of safety culture in this critical sector.

Conclusion

The study findings underscore a significant correlation between safety culture and the safety behaviour of oil and gas workers in Nigeria. Notably, it was observed that poor safety culture has strong influence on accidents and injuries among oil and gas workers in Nigeria. This research highlights important practical implications that relates the causal relationship between safety management practices, safety compliance and safety participation. Alongside this, the study emphasises the pivotal role of reinforcing safety management practices within the workplace to bolster overall safety performance. In addition, the study elucidates the importance of cultivating a strong safety culture within the oil and gas sector, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement in safety management practices. When employers show commitment to implementation of safety management practices, their commitment towards workers safety is unequivocally demonstrated, and this can enhance the overall safety and well-being of workers, ultimately fostering a safer and more secure work environment.