Zhou, Q; Fang, D and Mohamed, S (2011) Safety climate improvement: Case study in a Chinese construction company. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 137(1), pp. 86-95. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
A positive safety climate can improve employees' safety awareness and reduce workers' unsafe behaviors. Having consistent key factors that comprise safety climate is paramount in facilitating the measurement and comparison of safety climate over time which helps identify effective approaches to improve safety performance. This paper examines the consistency of safety climate factor structure and safety climate improvements over time in a Chinese construction company. It adopts a case study approach and reports on using the same safety climate instrument to carry out two surveys, three years apart. The exploratory factor analysis showed that the obtained four-factor structure of safety climate remained consistent across the two surveys. Moreover, the confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the second-order factor of safety climate was unchanged. Statistically significant improvements were also found on all four identified factors. The governmental or organizational strategies and/or tactics that could stimulate positive improvements on safety climate factors (referred to as stimulators hereinafter) were then identified via interviews with safety management officers in the company. The most effective stimulators were found to include constituting the safety regulations and safety rules, as well as increasing the intensity of safety training and safety promotion. Implications on the consistent factor structure of safety climate and the stimulators are also discussed.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | case study; exploratory factor analysis; management commitment; safety attitude; safety climate; safety regulations; safety training |
| Index terms: | safety attitude, safety training, case study, promotion, safety management, safety performance, regulation, commitment, survey, construction company, confirmatory factor analysis, organizational strategy, interview, exploratory factor analysis, unsafe behaviour, safety climate |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, business, organization, psychology, health safety and environment, financial risk, management, political science, statistical analysis, occupational health and safety management |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Human Resources, Governance, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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