Assessment of safety leadership among senior managers in China’s coal mining industry

The factors giving rise to the safety leadership of senior managers in the coal mining industry are underexplored. We conducted 24 semistructured interviews with experienced senior managers in this industry. We used hermeneutic content analysis for the interview content, identified five safety leadership dimensions of senior mangers, and designed the Safety Leadership Scale in Coal Mines in China. Data from 845 participants in nine coal mines were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We followed a two-step approach, involving data pruning and a second-order CFA, and validated a 21-item measure that shows good validity and reliability. The second-order CFA results show that the measure yielded an acceptable fit. Our results can be used to estimate the safety leadership level among senior managers in China’s coal mining industry.