Safety risk tolerance in the construction industry: Cross-cultural analysis

Disparities in worker risk tolerance may create barriers to implementing safety management systems and improving safety performance. At present, it is unclear if and to what extent construction safety risk tolerance vary across broad geographic regions. To better understand patterns in these sociocultural constructs, a survey of building trade contractors and subcontractors was administered. Using principal component analysis and K-means clustering, the determinants of risk tolerance were analyzed for 11,997 construction workers from 17 countries via controlled sampling for equal representation. The analysis showed that risk tolerance is influenced and linked by individual and sociocultural determinants, i.e., affective associations, control beliefs, safety culture, and risk-taking attitudes. Differences and distinct groupings were observed when the derived global risk tolerance scores were compared to country-specific risk-tolerance scores. This study contributes to the literature by empirically identifying determinants of risk tolerance and quantifying cross-cultural disparities in risk tolerance. It was found that the natural grouping of countries, based on their risk-tolerance determinants, coincides with their ancestral heritage and socioeconomic systems. The results can be used to inform policymakers, stakeholders, safety professionals, and industry leaders to improve safety decisions in the workplace, promote strong situational awareness, design structural policies, and implement safety programs.