Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to study the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors on the safety leadership at various Saudi universities. A Likert Scale response type standardized questionnaire was administered among staff and students (n = 60) of 30 universities who attended a symposium regarding safety at universities, and a 100% response rate was observed. A two-way MANOVA analysis was performed to check the interactive effects of organizational and individual factors, and the results were discussed with different significance levels. The results showed the study population with an overall agreed (3.9/5) response about the role of academic safety leadership. Overall responses for safety caring (4.0/5) and safety controlling (4.0/5) followed the response of safety coaching (3.8/5). This study indicates that the perception of safety leadership varied with respect to the nature of the job, and workers with greater work experience have a traditional belief of utilizing personal experience for effective safety leadership rather than specialized measures. University staff with accident experience showed a poor response to safety leadership and safety initiatives such as formulation of the safety committee and availability of safety training. Identified deficiencies can be useful to raise positive safety leadership in the Saudi universities and can be useful to improve the relative poor response.