Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Abstract Psychological safety is a vital resource across all occupations because it enables employees to learn, contribute, and adapt without fear of negative consequences. Psychological safety empowers members of high stakes, project-based teams to raise concerns, share expertise, and act ethically before miscommunications escalate into costly failures. While prior research in healthcare and aviation has underscored benefits of psychological safety in team environments, less is known about how psychological safety operates across other project-based professions (civil engineering, construction, software development, disaster response) and job sectors that rely on temporary, interdependent project teams. Centering on individual perceptions rather than aggregated team averages, this study surveys professionals from multiple project-based fields (e.g., architecture, public infrastructure, emergency management, IT development) and examines how psychological safety shapes promotive and prohibitive voice behavior, task performance outcomes (accuracy, timeliness, innovation), and ethical accountability. Survey instruments will be used to capture self-reported perceptions of psychological safety, voice behavior, performance, and ethical accountability on the individual team member level. By linking individual psychological safety to communication, performance, and ethics across varied project-based professions, the current study extends existing literature and offers practical guidance for leaders charged with delivering complex projects safely, on time, and within budget. The findings will highlight actionable strategies for fostering safer and more effective collaboration in dynamic, high stakes work settings. Keywords: psychological safety, project-based teams, communication, voice behavior, performance, ethical accountability, high-stakes professions
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Poster file
Included in
Psychological Safety in Project-Based Workgroups: The Effect of Individual Experiences on Performance Outcomes
Abstract Psychological safety is a vital resource across all occupations because it enables employees to learn, contribute, and adapt without fear of negative consequences. Psychological safety empowers members of high stakes, project-based teams to raise concerns, share expertise, and act ethically before miscommunications escalate into costly failures. While prior research in healthcare and aviation has underscored benefits of psychological safety in team environments, less is known about how psychological safety operates across other project-based professions (civil engineering, construction, software development, disaster response) and job sectors that rely on temporary, interdependent project teams. Centering on individual perceptions rather than aggregated team averages, this study surveys professionals from multiple project-based fields (e.g., architecture, public infrastructure, emergency management, IT development) and examines how psychological safety shapes promotive and prohibitive voice behavior, task performance outcomes (accuracy, timeliness, innovation), and ethical accountability. Survey instruments will be used to capture self-reported perceptions of psychological safety, voice behavior, performance, and ethical accountability on the individual team member level. By linking individual psychological safety to communication, performance, and ethics across varied project-based professions, the current study extends existing literature and offers practical guidance for leaders charged with delivering complex projects safely, on time, and within budget. The findings will highlight actionable strategies for fostering safer and more effective collaboration in dynamic, high stakes work settings. Keywords: psychological safety, project-based teams, communication, voice behavior, performance, ethical accountability, high-stakes professions
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology