Psychological Safety

Organizations stand to benefit from the process improvement outcomes that result from employees’ creative ideas, innovative behaviors, and proactive suggestions (see the Oxford Bibliographies in Management Studies articles “Creativity”, “Innovative Behavior”, and “Employee Voice.”) Employees, however, may recognize risks associated with such activities: an idea may not be accepted or, if accepted, may not produce the intended results, a suggestion may benefit some stakeholders at the expense of others, etc. Psychological safety (PS) reflects employee beliefs about the safety of interpersonal risk taking; employees who perceive their work environments as psychologically safe are more likely to take risks due to the reduced fear of negative repercussions. Conceptualized across multiple levels of analysis (individual-, team-, and organizational levels), this construct is an important feature in a variety of organizational research streams. Most notably, researchers often model psychological safety as an explanatory factor of individual attitudes and behaviors, team information sharing and innovativeness, and organizational change and performance. Recent research has begun to explore cross-level relationships, cross-cultural comparisons, and the potential dark side of psychological safety.