Can miners' social networks affect their safety commitment? A case study of Chinese coal mining enterprises

Safety commitment is a key factor determining the stability of miners' safe behavior. This study explored safety commitments from the perspective of personnel traits and social networks, extending previous studies on single individual safety commitments. A case survey of social networks, personality traits, and the safety commitment level of six workgroups from coal mining enterprises in China was conducted. The findings demonstrate that: (1) Workgroups exhibited "external occlusion", and key connecting nodes and the core nodes of each group showed an aggregation of nodes with more openness and conscientiousness. (2) With regard to the network density, a positive relationship exists between network density and safety commitment for groups in the same sub-units; likewise, there are obvious correlations among parts of network parameters and safety commitments, as well as personality traits. (3) The opinion leaders' commitment to safety reflects that of their workgroup. Meanwhile, when opinion leaders and group chiefs are not the same people, the safety commitment of opinion leaders is higher than that of group chiefs. (4) Homogeneous clusters and heterogeneous clusters of subgroups exist in workgroups and there is a consistent relationship between the safety characteristics of cluster subgroups and the safety commitment level of the whole workgroup. This study extends the theoretical foundation of safety commitments from the perspective of micro-networks and provides a practical inspiration for overcoming inefficient safety management and effectively promoting safety performance in coal companies.