Chinda, Thanwadee (2008) A system dynamics approach to construction safety culture. PhD thesis, Griffith University, Australia.
Abstract
Throughout the world, the construction industry has had a poor safety record, and is disproportionately more dangerous when compared to other industries. The major cause of construction accidents is attributed to unsafe behaviours and work practices, which are viewed as the direct result of having a poor safety culture. The development of a mature safety culture has been recognized as a vital element in the achievement of high standards of safety, alongside an effective safety management system. A better understanding of how to improve safety culture greatly assists an organization to allocate appropriate safety resources, and thus improve its overall occupational health and safety performance. Recently, researches have been undertaken to measure the ‘health’ of construction safety culture in an attempt to plan for safety culture improvement. Those studies, however, have focused neither on the interactions among key safety culture elements, nor on the consequences of safety initiatives being undertaken over time. Importantly, construction organizations need to be able to measure their current safety culture maturity level, and identify areas for safety improvement, to enable them to progress through to higher maturity levels. Such actions are essential, as the implementation of safety initiatives that do not address prioritized areas for improvement, may add little value to the organization in its quest to improve its safety culture, and reduce costs in the long term.To address these issues, this study developed a model of construction safety culture, and investigated the interactions and causal relationships between the five enablers (what the organization should be doing) and Goals (what the organization aims to achieve), and their consequences over time. The ‘construction safety culture index’, developed through modelling construction safety culture, was used to measure the level of construction safety culture maturity in the organization, and identify areas for safety improvement...
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | culture; construction safety; standards; health and safety; occupational health and safety; safety |
| Index terms: | construction industry, interaction, implementation, modelling, safety management system, construction organization, safety culture, maturity level, construction safety, work practice, system dynamics, construction accident, occupational health and safety, unsafe behaviour, health and safety |
| Subjects: | computing systems, organization, analytical methods, contractual arrangements, evaluation, financial risk, health safety and environment, management, behavioral psychology, environmental health, industry analysis, occupational health and safety management |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Digital Applications, Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Procurement, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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