Navigating Compliance Behavior: The Impact of Leadership, Job Resources, and Job Demands in Offshore Work

This study explores how leadership, job resources, and job demands affect compliance with procedures within an Oil and Gas organization on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The topics were examined through a semi-structured qualitative study. Eight informants from one Oil and Gas offshore organization were interviewed. All informants were skilled workers with relevant competence and experience. The job demands-resources model (JD-R) was merged with leadership and compliance in an overall research model. Several job resources and demands were specifically focused on. Based on the results, the following conclusions can be drawn; 1) Leadership availability is crucial: Leaders' limited availability and time significantly impact compliance. This is particularly true for performance feedback and worker involvement, which require leader interaction. Addressing this constraint is key. 2) Workload is the primary obstacle: High workload negatively affects both leaders (reducing their ability to support resources) and workers (reducing time for engaging with procedures). Managing workload is essential for improving compliance. 3) Other job resources matter: Beyond the initially studied resources, "systems," "continuity," "availability," and "work arrangement" are identified as potentially important and should be investigated further. These should be considered when designing interventions to improve compliance. 4) Job engagement is a key mediator: job engagement reflects a crucial link between resources/demands and compliance. Fostering job engagement is likely to improve compliance. 5) Relational leadership is more effective: Trust, communication, and understanding (relational leadership) are suggested to be more influential on compliance than formal training alone. Developing these relational aspects of leadership should be prioritized. 6) Focus on performance feedback and involvement: While important for compliance, these job resources depend heavily on leader interaction and are often hindered by limited leader availability. Solutions need to be found to make these resources more readily available.7) Production pressure and role ambiguity are less significant: While not identified as major negative influencers in this study, these factors shouldn't be entirely dismissed in other contexts.

Keywords: Compliance, Procedures, Leadership, Job resources, Job demands, Job satisfaction.