Date of Conferral

12-20-2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

David Bouvin

Abstract

Safety is of paramount importance in the electric utility industry. Construction is the basis of electric work and is one of the most dangerous industries, with a high rate of accidents and fatalities. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between the organizational leaders’ decision to file safety plans and accident reporting to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or utility commissions on the number of accidents in the electric utility industry. The decision-making theory provided the study’s foundation. The study used secondary data from 2019 to 2023 for electric utility companies from California. Published annual electric incident reports on the California Public Utilities Commission website, as well as data on safety plan filing for the same utilities, were collected from California’s Energy Safety Department’s website. Accident data were transformed from continuous to categorical for the Chi-square tests used to test hypotheses and research questions. The association between the accident status and filing safety plan status results revealed a statistically significant association between the number of accidents and filing safety plan status, χ2 = 22.688, p <.001. Results for association between the accident status and accident reporting status indicated a statistically significant association between the number of accidents and accident reporting status, χ2 = 50.884, p <.001. A recommendation is for organizational leaders to consistently file a safety plan and report accidents to regulatory authorities. The implications for positive social change include the potential for organizational leaders to guide their decision-making criteria to improve safety behavior, lower the number of accidents, and develop a stronger safety culture in the electric utility industry.

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