Li, S; Wu, X; Wang, X and Hu, S (2020) Relationship between social capital, safety competency, and safety behaviors of construction workers. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 146(6): 04020059, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
There are many accidents in the construction industry. Unsafe behaviors, a direct cause of accidents, have been studied extensively, but few scholars have examined the role of social capital in improving workers' safety behaviors. Based on the social capital perspective, this paper explored how to improve the safety behaviors of construction workers in order to provide a theoretical basis for the study of improving workers' safety behaviors. Through a literature review and analysis, this paper presented the research hypothesis, constructed a structural equation model (SEM), and explored whether workers' social capital can affect their safety behaviors. The results showed that the structural and relational dimensions of workers' social capital have a significant and direct influence on their safety behaviors, whereas the cognitive dimension does not. The structural and cognitive dimensions significantly affect safety competency, but the relational dimension has an insignificant effect on safety competency. Safety competency significantly affects safety behaviors and has several mediating roles between the structural and cognitive dimensions and safety behavior. This paper provides a theoretical basis for enabling management personnel to develop and improve workers' safety behaviors based on interpersonal relationships. It shows that the interaction, trust, and common language between workers help to improve workers' safety behaviors. This research offers a theoretical basis for studies of construction workers' safety behaviors and helps construction companies improve workers' safety behaviors and their on-site safety from the perspective of social capital.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | mediation variable; safety behavior; safety competency; social capital; structural equation model |
| Index terms: | safety behaviour, construction worker, dimension, construction industry, interaction, interpersonal relationship, structural equation model, social capital, construction company, literature review, mediation, unsafe behaviour, personnel |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, statistical analysis, behavioral psychology, occupational health and safety management, sociology, financial risk, management, data analysis and analytics, health monitoring assessment and metrics, dispute resolution, practitioner, organization |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Cost Management, Health and Safety, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Legal Issues, Human Resources |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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