According to Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1986) supportive, non-exploitative
management behaviour would also contribute to legitimizing leadership authority. Managers
who provide good, supportive psychosocial working conditions may therefore gain more
authority in their demand for safety, than managers who fail to provide supportive
psychosocial conditions. This indicates that safety climate would have an intermediary
function in the relationship between a supportive psychosocial conditions and safety
performance. Wallace et al. (Wallace, Popp, & Mondore, 2006) empirically found safety
climate to mediate a positive relation between foundation organisational climate and lower
accident rates. These relations, and how they operate, need to be better understood. We
therefore formulated a third set of hypotheses: