An investigation into the implementation of safety management systems by Hong Kong construction contractors

The accident rate in the Hong Kong construction industry is at an unacceptably high level when compared with other countries. The HKSAR government has made it mandatory to implement a safety management system for construction projects with the hopes of improving the situation, however, the readiness of the local contractors is questionable. As stated by Peterson (1978), an unsafe act, an unsafe condition, and an accident are all symptoms of something wrong with the management system. Therefore, an investigation of the safety management system can help to identify the problems encountered by contractors. The objective of this thesis is first to investigate the effectiveness of the implementation of safety management systems amongst Hong Kong construction contractors, and second to compare and contrast the performance of small and large contractors and hence to find out if there are any underlying problems in the management systems, and to look for possible solutions. A triangulation approach that consists of questionnaires, interviews, case studies and safety audit reports was adopted to get the view of the performance of the contractors in Hong Kong. 116 listed contractors of the Works Bureau and 18 private contractors responded the questionnaire. Another branch of data came from the 130 safety audit reports, they served as an objective record of the actual performance of the contractors in Hong Kong. There is a general presumption that small contractors are inferior in their implementation of safety management systems because they usually suffer from a lack of resources. This assumption is only partially true because among all the weak elements in the safety management system, some of them are universally suffered by all contractors irrespective of the grouping. The author also found that, for some elements that are proved to be significantly related to the grouping of contractors, there is a constant proportion of complied contractors that are coming from Group A, this proves that the size of the contractor is not the only determining factor in performance. When the author looked closer to those good performing Group A contractors, it was found that Management Support and Proactive Frontline Management Staff also play a determining role in safety performance. Findings reveal that the main obstacles encountered by contractors are interlinked; they include a lack of resources, lack of safety awareness and knowledge, unclear responsibility under sub-contracting system and lack of management support. The findings also identify there are systematic failures in the implementation of safety management system. Those remedial measures actually require both long-term management commitment and change in work practice together with co-operation by workers. Finally, a challenge to the basis of Hong Kong’s Safety Management System was given: the current approach, which relies on legislation and self-regulation, is regard as inappropriate because legislative control is not suitable for organic organization like the construction industry. Self-regulation does not work before the safety culture in Hong Kong has not yet been mature enough to handle the system.