Alsamadani, R M (2013) Measuring, modeling, and assessing safety communication in construction crews in the US using social network analysis. PhD thesis, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.
Abstract
Effective safety communication has been found as a major practice to enhance safety performance. Open discussion from supervisors to employees, immediate feedback and corrections, and implementing a lesson-learned program are examples of practices that help managers to improve on-site safety communication. Yet, safety communication has become more challenging, especially for bi or multi-lingual construction work crews in which Hispanic workers account the majority of the construction workforce in some States. Beside the language barrier, cultural differences have also influenced safety practices for Hispanic workers. This dissertation employs social network analysis approach to quantify and model the weaknesses and potential points of safety communication for small work crews. Additionally, it uses exploratory interview and Photovoice techniques to study safety challenges for Hispanic workers. This dissertation follows a three-journal paper formation. The first paper is an exploratory study that models and quantifies the five safety communication modes of local small construction crews; in addition, it generates visualized networks of communication patterns. The second paper investigates the relationships between personal attributes, communication patterns, and safety performance of 161 participants from 14 different work crews. The third paper proposes research to study and determine the cultural challenge of safety for Hispanic workers. Further, it aims to determine theoretical and practical solutions about existing concerns and issues from Hispanic workers' perspectives.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Hallowell, M R |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | workforce; communication; feedback; safety; employee; network analysis; social network analysis; interview |
| Index terms: | network analysis, modelling, dissertation, supervisor, construction work, social network analysis, cultural difference, exploratory study, journal, manager, interview, safety performance, program |
| Subjects: | operations management, analytical methods, research dissemination and communication, practitioner, cross-cultural studies, research methods, data analysis and analytics, data collection methods, occupational health and safety management, software systems |
| Topics: | Project Management, Engineering Principles, Health and Safety, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, International Construction, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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