Famakin, I O; Aigbavboa, C and Molusiwa, R (2023) Exploring challenges to implementing health and safety regulations in a developing economy. International Journal of Construction Management, 23(1), pp. 89-97. ISSN 1562-3599
Abstract
There have been numerous laws enacted to regulate health and safety practices in the rapidly changing construction industry. However, the number of fatalities and accidents in the industry remains high. The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges to implementing health and safety regulations in a developing economy. A total of 30 challenges to implementing health and safety in construction were identified through an extant literature review; while data was obtained using survey questionnaires from professionals in both consulting and contracting firms involved in infrastructure development. The collected data was analysed with mean score, factor analysis and reliability tests to identify the main challenges to health and safety implementation on construction sites. The findings revealed that the challenges to implementing health and safety regulations include manhandling and external management, internal management, human error, enforcement system, working condition, and human and environmental factors. To ameliorate and reduce the effect of these challenges, there is need to review and update existing health and safety laws to align with current realities and periodically review safety records for future planning. This study could also form the basis for further studies in managing challenges to health and safety on construction sites.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | accidents; construction sites; developing economy; health and safety |
| Index terms: | health and safety, developing economy, infrastructure development, survey, literature review, construction site, questionnaire, regulation, health and safety practices, environmental factor, factor analysis, enforcement, fatalities, construction industry, implementation |
| Subjects: | health risk and incident analysis, economic development, health safety and environment, infrastructure engineering, occupational health and safety management, industry analysis, statistical analysis, political science, data collection methods, work location, contractual arrangements, data analysis and analytics, environmental science |
| Topics: | Site Management, International Construction, Sustainability, Governance, Procurement, Health and Safety, Engineering Principles, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here