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Development of safety culture in the construction industry: A conceptual framework

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The nature of most accidents at the construction sites shows that the construction industry is unique. Factor involved include human behaviour, different construction sites, the difficulties of works, unsafe safety culture, dangerous machinery and equipment being used, and non-compliance to the various set procedures. Study shows that an accident and injury at the worksite is often the result of workers' behaviour, work practices or behaviour and work culture. Safety and health culture are more related to workers' safety practices. An efficient safety management system ought to be based on the safety awareness that should become a culture in the construction industry involving all the parties. The efficient safety culture and safety management system should be shown to the public, and as well as healthy and safety in environmental value business. This paper will discuss the conceptual framework of the development of safety culture in the construction industry, known as one of the dangerous industries but which can still provide a safe working environment thus offering a safe and promising career. Safety culture is an alternative for encouraging competition at any level. The construction industry must have a safety culture in order to reduce number of accidents, fatalities and injuries that involves workers and properties.
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Misnan, M S and Mohammed, A H (2007)
Development of safety culture in the construction industry:
a conceptual framework. In: Boyd, D (Ed) Procs 23rd Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September
2007, Belfast, UK, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 13-22.
DEVELOPMENT OF SAFETY CULTURE IN THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: A CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK
Mohd Saidin Misnan
1
and Abdul Hakim Mohammed
2
1Department of Quantity Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
2Department of Property Management, Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Engineering, Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
The nature of most accidents at the construction sites shows that the construction
industry is unique. Factor involved include human behaviour, different construction
sites, the difficulties of works, unsafe safety culture, dangerous machinery and
equipment being used, and non-compliance to the various set procedures. Study
shows that an accident and injury at the worksite is often the result of workers’
behaviour, work practices or behaviour and work culture. Safety and health culture
are more related to workers’ safety practices. An efficient safety management system
ought to be based on the safety awareness that should become a culture in the
construction industry involving all the parties. The efficient safety culture and safety
management system should be shown to the public, and as well as healthy and safety
in environmental value business. This paper will discuss the conceptual framework of
the development of safety culture in the construction industry, known as one of the
dangerous industries but which can still provide a safe working environment thus
offering a safe and promising career. Safety culture is an alternative for encouraging
competition at any level. The construction industry must have a safety culture in
order to reduce number of accidents, fatalities and injuries that involves workers and
properties.
Keywords: behaviour, safety, safety culture, work practices.
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
The construction industry is unique among other industries as the activities of
construction often take place in the outdoor under conditions not conducive for safety
and health. Workers in the construction sites have to face constant change in the
nature of work, the location of work and the mix of workers. Most of the people tend
to relate construction industry with dangerous working environment and high risk as
compared to others. The reputation of construction industry is relying on the expertise
of implementation and management of safety and also how it can be completed safely
and meet the consumer's requirements (Mills, 2001; Loosemore et al. 2003; Root,
2005; Goetsch, 2005).
One of the actions that can be undertaken in order to develop good or better image of
construction industry is by providing safe working environment (Jamal Khan et al.
2005). High accidents in construction industry are causing losses of both the number
of labours and millions ringgit of properties every year in the country (Alves Dias and
Coble, 1996; Singh et al. 1999). If this situation is not reduced to a minimum or if
Misnan and Mohammed
14
possible prevented, it will hinder the country's economic growth in becoming a
developed country in year 2020 (CIDB, 2000).
Objectives of the research
This paper is part of a PhD research and it presents literature review related to the
safety culture. This paper begins with background of safety issues and safety culture
in construction industry. The objectives of this research are:
a) To identify factors involved in the development of safety culture through
searching and reviewing previous research.
b) To present the findings of the literature review as a guide to understand the
issues and problems in the development of safety culture in the construction
industry.
c) To develop safety culture conceptual framework in the construction industry in
Malaysia.
Accident, Safety and Culture
Nowadays, quality and safety are two main issues in construction industry. ISO 9000
has been promoted in construction industry to ensure the quality of construction work
done by the contractors. Apart from quality of work, a safe working environment is
very necessary to erase the high risk image closely associated with the construction
industry. Construction safety is a standard of quality that is indicated in the contract
and required by the client (Alves Dias and Coble, 1996). As projects are becoming
more complex, safety has become a main focus in ensuring the safety of the
construction personal and properties. Developed countries such as UK and Australia
have enforced safety rules in contractors’ works on site. Revolution and changes in
safety system management has become a mandate in practicing safety action that can
be managed interminable (Low and Sua, 2000). The worldwide construction industry
is still practicing work process by labour intensive based on wet trades. This factor
contributes to the low quality of work due to the workers’ lack of expertise and
training, while at the same time exposes them to the accident easily (CIDB, 2004).
Accident theory on human factors shows that there is a link of events which are
caused by human faults. In this theory, there are three general factors causing human
faults, namely; overload, irrelevant response, and irrelevant activities. Refering to
Heinrich Theory, accidents are caused by main factors that can be predicted such as
human faults, unsafe environment, or dangerous use of machineries(Goetsch, 1998).
These accidents and injuries can be avoided by putting aside these factors.
Current research shows that construction industry has been labelled as an industry
with low level of safety and health culture. Compared to other industries, it has been
shown that this industry has the highest number of accidents. The efforts of
improving the safety and health at work for this industry will become useless until
the safety and health culture is improved (CIDB, 2000). The changes have to be
undertaken by the construction industry towards establishing the paradigm of safety
and health culture which may improve the safety and health level in line with the
requirements of safety and health in the construction industry in total (Misnan et al.
2003).
Safety culture
15
Definition of Safety Culture
There are hundreds of definitions of culture. Culture is difficult to define because it is
a large and inclusive concept. "Everything you need to know in life to get along in a
society" is not as useful a definition, however, as one that focuses on what culture's
characteristics are. Culture involves learned and shared behaviours, norms, values, and
material objects. It also encompasses what people create to express values, attitudes,
and norms. Culture is largely undiscussed by the members who share it. Edward Hall,
a key researcher into cultures, in Varner and Beamer (2005) stated:
Culture [is] those deep, common, unstated experiences which members of a
given culture share, which they communicate without knowing, and which
form the backdrop against which all other events are judged .
The concept of culture was first known to represent, in a very broad and holistic sense,
the qualities of any specific human group that are passed from one generation to the
next. This includes religion, way of life, values and beliefs of people. This is known as
'social culture'. People born in a particular culture are expected to believe and behave
differently from others (Shamil Naoum, 2001). Similar to the social culture, each
organization has its own culture dominated by its values and behaviour. This is known
as 'organizational culture'.
According to Booth (1995), the term safety culture was introduced to the nuclear
safety debate by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group of International
Automatic Energy Agency (IAEA) in their analysis of the Chernobyl disaster. IAEA
(1986) defined the safety culture of an organization as the product of individual and
group values, attitudes, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determined the
commitment to, and the style and proficiency of an organization's health and safety
programmes. Overall safety culture can be described as a set of beliefs, norms
attitudes and social technical practices that are concerned with minimizing the
exposure of individuals, within and beyond an organization, to conditions considered
dangerous or injurious.
Cooper (2000) theoretically defined safety culture as a sub-facet of organizational
culture, which is thought to affect member's attitudes and behavior in relation to an
organization's ongoing health and safety performance. He argued that defining the
product of safety culture is very important to clarify what a safety culture should look
like in an organization. He added that this also could help to determine the functional
strategies required to developing this product, and it could provide an outcome
measure to assess the degree to which organizations might or might not possess a
'good' safety culture. This outcome has been severely lacking in construction, hitherto.
Safety culture and culture of safety are frequently encountered terms referring to a
commitment to safety that permeates all levels of an organization, from frontline
personnel to executive management. More specifically, "safety culture" calls up a
number of features identified in studies of high reliability organizations, organizations
outside of health care with exemplary performance with respect to safety (Roberts,
1990). Whereas Cox and Cox (1991) (in industrial gases, European) defined safety
culture as one which reflects the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and values that
employees share in relation to safety. A definition of safety culture adopted by many
researchers is:
the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions,
competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to,
and the style and proficiency of an organization's health and safety
Misnan and Mohammed
16
management characterized by communications founded on mutual trust,
shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the
efficacy of preventative measures (ACSNI, 1993).
Most definitions of safety culture encapsulate beliefs, values, and attitudes that are
shared by a group. As human behaviours (and thus at an individual level, safe or
unsafe behaviours) are partly guided by personal beliefs, values, and attitudes
(Kleinke, 1984; Fazio, 1986), continued workplace safety may have its base in
individually, and organizationally constructed shared beliefs that safety is important.
A related theme evident in the definitions of safety culture offered is that of individual
norms. Ostrom et al. (1993) argued that a culture is comprised of social norms, which
are unspoken rules of behaviour that, if not followed, result in sanctions.
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS IN SAFETY CULTURE
Jones (1997) stated that safety is part of important aspects which should be given an
attention and guidance to improve the stated safety management to stronger safety
culture. Some can be used like the method to improve safety management, plant and
equipment, and workers involvement. Safety culture in construction community can
be very low. Looking at that weakness in these characteristic and human attitudes, it
can be concluded that to protect from accidents, it demands changing of paradigm in
the characteristic and human attitudes. Previous reactive and bad attitudes, generally a
norm, should be changed to positive and proactive culture (Misnan et al. 2006).
Two fairly distinct approaches to managing workplaces safety have competed for
attention and have generated a considerable amount of debate and controversy during
the past decade. The first of these approaches, behavior-based safety, focuses on the
identification and modification of critical safety behaviour, and emphasizes how such
behaviors are linked to workplace injuries and losses. The second approach, in
contrast, emphasizes the fundamental importance of the organization's safety culture
and how it shapes and influences safety behaviors and safety program effectiveness.
Adding to this mix, each movement has recruited its own persuasive proponents and
vocal detractors. On the surface at least, the two approaches appear to be indirect
opposition to each other and represent two entirely different world views of injury
causation and safety management (Dejoy, 2005).
Safety and Organizational Culture
Culture is defined as those practices common to a group of people. In this context,
safety can be expressed in simple direct terms as behavior affected by culture. Note
that this topic encompasses both management behavior (action or inaction) and
employee behavior (Eckhardt, 1996). Culture is further defined as missions interacting
with work processes and corporate values to generate behavior (McSween, 2003).
How a company’s mission is understood, followed by expectations and processes,
determines behavior.
Organizational or corporate culture as defined by Handy (1993) is the 'pervasive way
of life or set of norms and values that evolve in an organization over a period of time'.
Norms are unwritten but accepted rules which tell people in organizations how they
are expected to behave. They may be concerned with such things as how managers
deal with their staff (management style), how people work together, how hard people
should work or the extent to which relationships should be formal or informal. Values
are beliefs on how people should behave with regard to such matters as care and
Safety culture
17
consideration for colleagues, customer service, the achievement of high performance
and quality, and innovation.
There is also some debate, initiated by Hofstede (1980), and revived by Reason
(1998), about the ownership of culture. Some theorists argue that the organization has
culture, whereas others argue that the organization is culture. Like organizational
culture, safety culture is assumed to be a relatively stable construct, similar to
personality, and resilient to change in the face of immediate and transient issues.
Safety culture is often seen as a subset of organizational culture, where the beliefs and
values refer specifically to matters of health and safety (Clarke, 1999).
It should be noted that the proposed definition of safety culture is stated in neutral
terms. As such, the definition implies that organizational culture exists on a continuum
and that organizations can have either a good or poor safety culture. However, not all
definitions in the literature make this assumption. Some suggest that safety culture is
either present or absent within an organization. Nevertheless, it is clear from the initial
introduction of the term within various operational environments that safety culture is
assumed to be a component of an organization that can be improved rather than
simply instilled (IAEA, 1986; Cox and Flin, 1998). Obviously, such a distinction is
important when it comes to both measuring and changing safety cultures within
organizations. More specifically, safety culture is seen as a subfacet of organizational
culture and exists at a higher level of abstraction than safety climate. It seems
plausible that safety culture and safety climate are not reflective of a unitary concept,
rather, they are complementary independent concepts (Cooper, 2000).
Cultural Change
Cultural change aims to change the existing culture of an organization. Organizational
or corporate culture is the system of values (what is regarded as important in
organizational and individual behaviour) and accepted ways of behaviour (norms)
which strongly influence 'the way things are done around here'. It is founded on well-
established beliefs and assumptions.
Organizational culture is significant because it conveys a sense of identity and unity of
purpose to members of an organization, facilitates the generation of commitment and
helps to shape behaviour by providing guidance on what is expected. It can work for
an organization by creating an environment which is conducive to high performance.
It can work against an organization by encouraging unproductive behaviour. Strong
cultures will have been formed over a considerable period of time and have more
widely shared and more deeply held beliefs than weak ones. Strong cultures are only
appropriate if they promote desirable behaviour. If they do not, they are inappropriate
and must be changed (Armstrong and Stephens, 2005).
SAFETY CULTURE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Glendon and McKenna (1995) stated that effective safety management is both
functional (involving management control, monitoring, executive and communication
subsystems) and human (involving leadership, political and safety culture sub-systems
paramount to safety culture). The concept of safety culture emerged from earlier ideas
of organizational climate, organizational culture and safety climate. They described
safety culture as the embodiment of a set of principles, which loosely defines what
organization is like in terms of health and safety.
Misnan and Mohammed
18
In this approach, safety is looked into from the culture point of view of shared
characteristics of a group dynamic relating to a system (e.g. group, community, race,
nation, religion) which include beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions and motivations.
Glendon and McKenna (1995) pointed out that building a safety culture on so many
diversities is not an easy task. But it had been proven that organizations with good
safety cultures have employees with positive patterns of attitudes towards safety
practice. These organizations have mechanisms in place to gather safety-related
information, measure safety performance and bring people together to learn how to
work more safely. Ostrom et al. (1993) looked at the employees' perceptions of safety
culture as follows:
Management attitudes towards safety;
Perceived level of risk;
Effects of work pace;
Management actions towards safety;
Status of safety adviser and safety committee;
Importance of health and safety training; and
Social status of safety and promotion.
Creating a culture of safety means that the employees are constantly aware of hazards
in the workplace, including the ones that they create themselves. It becomes second
nature to the employees to take steps to improve safety. The responsibility is on
everyone, not just the management. However, this is a long process to get to that point
(Dilley and Kleiner, 1996).
Safety and health culture within a company is closely linked to the workforce’s
attitudes in respect to safety. They share the company’s risk, accidents and incidents.
According to Glendon and McKenna (1995), effective safety management is both
functional (involving management control, monitoring, executive and communication
sub-systems) and humanizes (involving leadership, political and safety culture sub-
systems paramount to safety culture). The role of management and the involvement of
all employees as important key players in safety and health culture are important in
order to cultivate the positive beliefs, practices, norms and attitudes among all in the
company. Glendon and McKenna (1995) also identified four critical indicators of
safety culture. They are:
Effective communication, it leads to commonly understood goals and means to
achieve them at all levels.
Good organizational learning, whereby organizations are able to identify and
respond appropriately to changes.
Organizational focus upon health and safety, how much time and attention is
essentially paid to health and safety.
External factors, including the financial health of the organization, the
prevailing economic climate and impact of regulation and how well these are
managed.
The theoretical and empirical development of safety culture and climate has followed
the pattern set by organizational culture and climate, although to a lesser extent. As
Safety culture
19
stated previously, most efforts have focused on the empirical issues surrounding safety
climate although it is possible to identify theoretical development of concepts within
the safety culture literature. Also, the terms safety culture and safety climate have
been used interchangeably in the literature (Cox and Flin, 1998). Cox and Cox (1996)
also demonstrated this point by likening culture to personality, and climate to mood.
Conducting a survey will assess the current mood state of an individual. Some
responses may be indicative of the individual's stable underlying beliefs, constructs
and personality but overall, the survey will reflect how the individual feels at that
point in time. The comparison between culture and personality seems attractive
because personality is relatively stable over time whereas climate and mood can be
susceptible to short-term fluctuations (Pervin, 2003).
Creating a safe and healthy work culture requires the inculcation of safe and healthy
practices as part of everyday life, at work and at home among all the workers in
Malaysia. Culture means doing something automatically, spontaneously, without
having second thoughts about it. In occupational safety, a safety culture means
automatically correcting a hazardous act of job task or eliminating a hazardous
condition. In occupational health, it means automatically undertaking measures to
ensure protection from health hazards at the workplace using personal protective
equipment and without having to be told repeatedly to do so (Lee, 2003).
Concept of Safety Culture in Construction Industry
Today, the changes in safety management have opened a new outlook to war safety. It
is no longer being treated as secondary in the business context rather it is treated as a
culture. More emphasis is being put on ensuring everyone understand the importance
of safety and changing the attitudes and behaviour is the hard task. Safety is not only
the manager's responsibility but everyone must play part (Stewart, 2002).
Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of safety culture development. The
development of safety culture based on the framework views the overall individual to
group responsibility that develops the total value of safety culture which support the
organizational culture. Everyone must play part in the organizational culture to ensure
correct understanding of the importance of safety and changing the attitude and
behaviour through the instrinsic and extrinsic element of the culture. Organizational
culture will be transmitted to all organization activities which involve intrinsic and
extrinsic elements of the organization. This will in turn be transmitted to every
member in the organization. All instrinsic and extrinsic elements of culture will affect
the organization culture throughout the development of safety culture. Consequently,
it makes the concept of safety culture more acceptable with expected wider
attention. It does not mean that the safety system nowadays is not relevant for
practices, but this system will function well when the organization has developed
safety culture. The reason can be seen from different aspects: the existence of barrier
in safety system which may be less if the organization can develop strong safety
culture.
For a long time, the construction industry has been labelled with a poor occupational
safety and health culture. Efforts to improve occupational safety and health
performance will not be effective until the occupational safety and health culture is
improved (Misnan et al. 2006). As the result, there is a need for a major paradigm
shift regarding attitudes on occupational safety and health in construction sites.
Widening the understanding of behaviour increases insight into possible targets for
improvements, for example better planning, more effective job design, or more
Misnan and Mohammed
20
comfortable personal protection. Human behaviour influence on safety performance is
enormous. Therefore, this root problem must be solved effectively.
Heirarchy
The individual The group
National
culture
Value
Belief
Assumption
Norms
Ritual
Symbols
Behaviours
Intrinsic elements Extrinsic elements
Safety culture
Defined or manifested
Vocational
culture
Organisational
culture
Culture
Sum
Figure 1: Conceptual framework of safety culture development
The legislation has changed over the years with more emphasis on safety at work. Still
today the rules and regulations are being improved to make the working environment
safe. Besides the effect of laws, many safety activism factors also influence the
decision of modern managers regarding health and safety such as the active role of the
trade unions, consumerism and the legal battle by accident/incident victims. All these
factors are forcing managers to change their attitudes towards safety. It is clear that
working environment safety is going to be better. Managers are now adopting
proactive approaches towards safety.
CONCLUSION
In summary, there appears to be considerable evidence suggesting that organizational
and contextual factors are important in terms of a variety of workplace safety related
outcomes. However, current definitions of safety culture remain rather vague and
variable, and current knowledge does not permit precise statements about which
factors are most important in which organizations or situations. Also, systematic
studies evaluating field-based interventions specifically targeted to safety culture
change are conspicuous in their absence. But this is perhaps not that surprising given
Safety culture
21
current conceptual and measurement limitations. It is also worth noting that
intervening into the culture of an organization is difficult under the best of
circumstances, because it requires that the organization be willing to look at itself and
make fundamental changes in the way it pursues its core activities. These limitations
not withstanding, the importance and usefulness of organizational culture as it pertains
to workplace safety appears to be broadly accepted by researchers and practitioners
alike.
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... Misnan and Mohammed proposed a conceptual framework for safety culture in the construction industry in Malaysia. 16 The study revealed that safety culture is dependent on the safety practices performed by workers and an effective safety management system (SMS). The conclusion was that the presence of an SMS could lower the occurrence of accidents, injuries and fatalities experienced by workers in the construction industry. ...
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Introduction: Safety culture has mainly been used across several safety management literatures to describe the level of safety within workplaces. This paper presents the research landscape and scientific developments on safety culture in the global construction industry. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach was employed to identify, screen, and analyze the published documents indexed in the Elsevier Scopus database. Next, the research landscape and scientific developments on the topic were examined by bibliometric analysis (BA) through co-authorship, keywords co-occurrence, and citations. Results: Results showed that 738 documents were published and indexed on the topic between 1995 and 2020. The findings showed that articles are the preferred medium, whereas Engineering is the preferred subject theme for published documents on the topic. The journal of Safety Science (published by Elsevier) is the most influential source of publications on the topic. In contrast, Dongping Fang, based at Tsinghua University (China), is the most influential researcher due to the substantial research grants and financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation. Further analysis showed that the most prolific authors on the topic are based in China, Australia, and Indonesia, although the United States has published the most documents. BA also revealed large networks of researchers and co-occurring keywords and the organizations and countries that currently exist, collaborate, and cite each other works on the topic. Conclusion: The findings indicate that safety culture in the global construction industry has undergone significant scientific developments resulting in high research impact mainly due to its role in preserving the health and safety of workers.
... Exploring knowledge on safety facilitates identifying the categories of workers who need training and the type of training required to increase the understanding and effect a change in attitude and behavior toward using PPE. Such linkages are necessary as knowledge of safety is linked to attitudes and practice cultures (Misnan and Mohammed 2007). Therefore, this research answers the call from Wong et al. (2020) and explores the three facets of knowledge, attitude, and practice as limited research frames these three constructs (Tam et al. 2004). ...
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Despite alarming injury and fatality rates, construction workers continue to neglect the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This research explores safety outcomes concerning knowledge, attitude, and practice in PPE use on Trinidad's construction sites. A questionnaire survey of 100 respondents and 20 interviews with site workers revealed that knowledge of action and attitude were better predictors than practice on the propensity of construction workers to be involved in near-misses and accidents. The research explains why there were no significant differences between safe work practices and the occurrence of near-misses or accidents. In addition, it was found that workers' attitudes toward PPE use were not mediated by on-site experience, but they were more related to their age and if they believed their safety was the responsibility of their supervisor. The research concludes that knowledge of action varied among educational groups; however, there was no significant difference between PPE training and workers with knowledge of PPE usage and calls for changes in the current educational program content and delivery. This research identifies accident causation factors and recommends measures for construction companies to achieve improved safety performance and reduce the risk of accidental injury or death.
... Our study highlights that both industry and non-industry stakeholders play a significant role in shaping the safety culture in the trucking industry as well influencing the wider road safety culture in Nepal. Transforming safety cultures is challenging, but has been achieved in the construction industry, through continuous improvements in regulations and safety-related activity (Misnan and Mohammed, 2007). An agency to lead on a multi-sectoral systems-based approach to road safety, would assist in this regard. ...
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Background Heavy goods vehicle drivers are an influential driving population in Nepal, with over 90% of goods in the country are transported by road. Due to the time spent on the road, drivers have long periods of exposure to the risk of crash involvement. The study explores the perceptions and experiences of heavy goods vehicle drivers and representatives from their professional association regarding road danger. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with fifteen heavy goods vehicle drivers regularly driving on the East-West highway of Makwanpur District, Nepal. A focus group was conducted with eleven members from a major transportation entrepreneur's association in Nepal. The focus group and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, translated, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Four themes were developed- assumptions of blame; perceptions of safety culture in the trucking industry; influence of road infrastructure; and behaviours of road users. The road and traffic environment, enforcement, and the safety culture in the heavy vehicle industry not only influenced the attitudes of the road users towards traffic safety but also legitimized and encouraged behaviours that affect safety. General and industry-related road safety improvements suggested by participants included: making provision for heavy good vehicles parking areas, separating the highway with a median strip, improving crash investigation capacity, conducting road safety awareness and training programs, strictly enforcing the speed limit and laws about driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs, and formulating strategies to create a safe, supportive working environment in the heavy vehicle industry. Conclusion Heavy goods vehicle drivers and members of the professional association can provide rich information regarding the barriers and facilitators of road risk in Nepal. Their perceptions and opinions can contribute to devising interventions at individual, societal, organizational, and governmental levels, and inform efforts to develop a positive safety culture within the heavy vehicle transport industry.
... Since then, organisations and researchers have developed the concept and applied more widely to non-nuclear industries and linking it to the need for preventive approaches to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and to human and behavioural aspects. As stated by Misnan (2007), organisational culture exists on a continuous process and that the organisations can either have a good or poor H&S culture. H&S culture can also be considered as a subset of the overall organisational culture (Cooper, 2000;Hudson, 2001). ...
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Many countries have put in place policies and legislation to reduce accidents and diseases on construction sites though having varied degree of comprehensiveness, the extent of implementation, will and capacity of enforcement. In spite of these efforts, it has been revealed that the increase in the rate of unsafe acts and rate of fatalities in the construction industry is significant due to poor safety culture. Hence, this study assessed the level of health and safety (H&S) culture in construction firms in Abuja by self-administering a total of 152 questionnaires on H&S issues to construction professionals. It included Builders, Quantity Surveyors, Architects, Civil Engineers, and Project Managers/supervisors who were involved in construction works. The data obtained were analysed using percentages and mean scores. It was discovered that despite the increasing growth in the construction firms in Nigeria, the H&S culture practice in construction firms is highly fragmented and poorly implemented. It is recommended among others that there should be high commitment from the top of organisations which will in turn produce higher level of motivation and commitment throughout the organisations.
... Since then, organisations and researchers have developed the concept and applied more widely to non-nuclear industries and linking it to the need for preventive approaches to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and to human and behavioural aspects. As stated by Misnan (2007), organisational culture exists on a continuous process and that the organisations can either have a good or poor H&S culture. H&S culture can also be considered as a subset of the overall organisational culture (Cooper, 2000;Hudson, 2001). ...
Article
Full-text available
Many countries have put in place policies and legislation to reduce accidents and diseases on construction sites though having varied degree of comprehensiveness, the extent of implementation, will and capacity of enforcement. In spite of these efforts, it has been revealed that the increase in the rate of unsafe acts and rate of fatalities in the construction industry is significant due to poor safety culture. Hence, this study assessed the level of health and safety (H&S) culture in construction firms in Abuja by self-administering a total of 152 questionnaires on H&S issues to construction professionals. It included Builders, Quantity Surveyors, Architects, Civil Engineers, and Project Managers/supervisors who were involved in construction works. The data obtained were analysed using percentages and mean scores. It was discovered that despite the increasing growth in the construction firms in Nigeria, the H&S culture practice in construction firms is highly fragmented and poorly implemented. It is recommended among others that there should be high commitment from the top of organisations which will in turn produce higher level of motivation and commitment throughout the organisations.
... On the other hand, the term safety management is a feature that enhances the efficiency of the business by anticipating operational, procedural or environmental hazards and threats before they happen (Sheahan, 2017). Today, safety management is no longer treated as secondary in the business context rather it is treated as a culture (Misnan& Mohammed, 2007). This situation will greatly influence the employees' perception towards occupational safety and health management in the organization (Rhaffor, Saparuddin, & Maidin, 2018). ...
... Compared to other industries, the construction industry stands unique because most of its activities often take place outdoors and under conditions that are not conducive to safety and health [1]. Different types of construction projects involve numerous types of hazards identification. ...
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The Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (KVMRT) System is set to be one of the mega projects in Malaysia. Many of the researches have focused on the causes of construction accident occurrences at the site. Whilst, this study focuses on the consequences (i.e., costs) of the occurrences of the accidents for the project. The work injuries create economic issues for our society. The awareness of accident costs is absent because the stakeholders always leave the matters to the insurance company. They are ignorant of the cost of an accident without realising the greatness of its impacts on the industry and the country. Therefore, this study aims to determine the relationship between accident costs and the factors influencing the accident costs of urban rail infrastructure projects to the Employer. All these factors are known as safety and health cost dimensions. For this research, the Employer, also known as a Contractor, is the person who bears the accident costs (direct and indirect costs) of the project. Multiple regression performed on the sixty-two (62) accident cases from the MRT 1 SBK (Sungai Buloh-Kajang) Line Projects. These findings could heighten the importance of the effect of an accident on the Employer’s company’s economics and budgeting.
Chapter
Safety culture is a combination of different aspects put together including the perception of the employees and the values and belief system including their psychological and social variables. When it comes to the construction industry, safety culture is relatively new to the industry, and the nature of work is totally different when compared with other sectors of industries because the human behaviour and labour challenges vary from one construction sector to another sector. Employee’s safety is based on their safety culture, safety habits and safety awareness. Workplace culture is the basic reason that leads to many of the incidents and accidents that happen in the construction industry. The nature of worker’s behaviour in the industry is closely linked to the safety culture. A good safety culture shows how much the company is dedicated to their safety policy and it should be supported by the senior management. For an efficient foundation of the safety management system, the safety awareness should be an integral part and become a culture within the construction sector. With the help of this work, an insight is given to develop and maintain safety culture into organization. It broadly covered the various aspects to be consider for enhancing safety culture along with their pattern of implementation for assuring the establishment towards their best safety culture. This model will help enough to examine the existing culture and identifying their gaps for improvements.KeywordsSafety cultureSafety policySafety management systemSafety climate surveySafety framework
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This paper discusses on the relationship of effective communication and safety culture in construction industry. Generally, lack of communication at workplace and for this case, construction and project site is part of contributing factor in accident and some of the accidents involved fatalities. In any areas especially those involving human, communication is a key factor towards producing an optimum result. Lack of communication and understanding of safety culture if is not done effectively can lead to error and defect especially in construction industry since construction industry not only dealing with human but also other aspects such big machines and those machines operated by human. Safety culture among construction workers and project owners is also another crucial element in construction industry but safety culture can only be achieved if the message is communicated effectively. Therefore, this paper discusses on the relationship and importance of effective communication and safety culture and generally how it is implemented in construction industry in Malaysia.
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The level of work accidents in one project is greatly influenced by the level maturity of safety culture are founded by some structural elements. In Indonesia, the construction industry is growing up and many foreign construction companies come and expand their business in Indonesia, which well-known for having better maturity. The aim of this research is to know the safety culture dimensions in foreign construction companies in Indonesia and the relationship model of those structural elements. Methodology of this research survey respondent and the analysis was conducted using SMART PLS application software to obtain the results of relationships between dimensions. The results are ten safety culture dimensions in foreign construction companies in Indonesia and 16 relationships that are significant relationship in developing safety culture in foreign construction company. The most influential dimensions are leadership and the value of safety among the workers to developing safety culture and expected to be applied to public and private companies in Indonesia.
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This introductory paper to the special issue on Safety Culture considers some of the key issues relating to the nature, measurement and utility of this concept. It argues that there are many important questions still unanswered: what is safety culture and what is its theoretical basis (the question of definition), is it synonymous with safety climate, what are the essential characteristics of a ‘good’ safety culture and how might they be best measured, what are the reliability, validity and utility of existing measures of safety culture, and how does the concept contribute-if at all-to good safety systems and performance? Can an organization's safety culture be related to additional parameters (such as accident and incident performance) which are judged both within and outside the organization by the full range of stake-holders? Finally, the authors consider future issues and the future direction of work in this area.
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The paper describes briefly the author's view of the events which took place during the efforts of the employees of Tower Colliery to purchase their mine and the changes which have resulted from the change of ownership during the period when the author was the Managing Director of Tower Colliery Limited.
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On a worldwide basis, a growing number of organizations operate in ways that can result in catastrophic consequences. Within this set of potentially hazardous organizations, there are a number that have operated nearly error free for long periods of time. This article examines what characterizes their operations and how managers can know whether their organizations are hazardous or potentially hazardous. The article also explores the steps that can be taken to ameliorate the potentially negative effects of design strategies that might result in catastrophic outcomes.
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Although construction is one of the most labour-intensive industries, people management issues are given inadequate attention. Furthermore, the focus of attention with regards to HR has been on the strategic aspects of HRM function - yet most problems and operational issues arise on projects. To help redress these problems, this book takes a broad view of HRM, examining the strategic and operational aspects of managing people within the construction sector. The book is aimed at project managers and students of project management who, until now, have been handed the responsibility for human resource management without adequate knowledge or training. The issues addressed in this book are internationally relevant, and are of fundamental concern to both students and practitioners involved in the management of construction projects. The text draws on the authors' experience of working with a range of large construction companies in improving their HRM operational activities at both strategic and operational levels, and is well illustrated with case studies of projects and organizations. © 2003 Martin Loosemore, Andrew Dainty and Helen Lingard. All rights reserved.
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This paper discusses four topics relating to safety culture, three theoretical and one practical. The first considers why it is that an unsafe culture is more likely to be involved in the causation of organizational rather than individual accidents. It is the pervasive nature of culture that makes it uniquely suitable for creating and sustaining the co-linear gaps in defences-in-depth through which an accident trajectory has to pass. The second topic relates to pathological adaptations, and discusses two examples: the Royal Navy of the mid-nineteenth century and the Chernobyl reactor complex. The third issue deals with recurrent accident patterns and considers the role of cultural drivers in creating typical accidents. The final topic is concerned with the practical question of whether a safety culture can be engineered. It is argued that a safe culture is an informed culture and this, in turn, depends upon creating an effective reporting culture that is underpinned by a just culture in which the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour is clearly drawn and understood.
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Two models were outlined for conceptualizing the relationship between attitudes and behaviors. Model I describes the process of influencing attitudes and predicting behaviors. Model II describes the process of influencing behaviors and predicting attitudes. Conclusions from research on the enhancement of the attitude-behavior relationship were integrated into the frameworks of the two models. Researchers interested in influencing attitudes were challenged to complete the link between attitude change -attitude measure - behavior. Researchers interested in influencing behaviors were challenged to complete the link between behavior change -attitude measure - future behavior. A paradigm shift was noted from attribution theories to the use of causal models for elucidating the attitude-behavior relationship.
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This paper concerns organizational safety culture and the structure or architecture of employee attitudes to safety as part of that culture. It begins by reviewing the somewhat scant literature relevant to this area, and then reports a study, conducted in a European company, which collected and factor analysed data on employee attitudes to safety. The framework provided for the study was that offered by Purdham (1984), and the results suggested that employees' attitudes to safety, within this company (across occupation/occupational level and country), could be mapped By five orthogonal factors: personal scepticism, individual responsibility, the safeness of the work environment, the effectiveness of arrangements for safety, and personal immunity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and attention is drawn to their subsequent use in an intervention to enhance safety culture within the organization by attacking supervisors' attitudes to safety.