Disengaged morals, unsafe silence: investigating the psychological safety–injury reporting relationship

Purpose:
Workplace safety remains a critical concern across industries, with self-reported and unreported work injuries posing significant risks to employee well-being and organizational sustainability. This study examines the role of moral disengagement as a mediating factor in the relationship between psychological safety climate and both self-reported and unreported work injuries. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, this study argues that a strong psychological safety climate discourages moral disengagement, which, in turn, influences employees' likelihood of reporting or concealing workplace injuries. The study also considers the specific reporting practices found in Pakistani industrial settings, where safety procedures are often informal and shaped by hierarchical relations.

Methodology:
Data were collected from 303 employees working in large-scale industries in Pakistan, including the woollen, textile, shoe, sugar, and seed sectors. The analysis was conducted using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).

Findings:
The psychological safety climate was negatively associated with moral disengagement, whereas moral disengagement had an inverse relationship with self-reported work injuries and a positive relationship with self-underreported work injuries. Moreover, moral disengagement mediates the relationship between psychological safety climate and workplace injuries. The model explained 0.078 variance (R2 ) in MD, 0.394 in SR, and 0.357 in SU. Similarly, the effect size f 2 was 0.163 for MD, 0.025 for SR, and 0.027 for SU.

Originality:
This study contributes to the workplace safety literature by integrating moral disengagement as an intervening mechanism between psychological safety climate and workplace injuries. The contribution is context-specific, offering insight into how cognitive mechanisms operate in Pakistani manufacturing environments where reporting norms are often informal. The findings emphasize the need for organizations to cultivate a robust psychological safety climate to minimize moral disengagement and encourage accurate injury reporting. The theoretical and practical implication of the study shows that by fostering psychological safety and ethical practices, workplace injuries are reduced, and firms are urged to make safety a core priority, especially in high-risk settings. The study also acknowledges limitations such as purposive sampling, cross-sectional design, and reliance on self-reports, which can be addressed in future research.