Toward effective construction safety: Application of morphological analysis to the Arabian Gulf region

This project concerns itself with improving occupational health, particularly by improving construction safety in places that are undergoing rapid urban growth. The developing regions with massive urban growth have safety regulations and institutions, yet in most cases they are not comparable to regulations and institutions in western countries. Over the years, western countries have developed long traditions of construction activities and regulations to manage the construction sector. The needs for effective oversight of the construction industry in developing regions are apparent due to the sustainable growth and the massive transformation as reflected in the gigantic construction boom. The focus of this case study is the Arabian Gulf Region. In these countries, a rapid growth in wealth and population in recent decades has fuelled an explosive rate of construction activities by public and private sectors. As a result, there has been a corresponding rise in construction accidents. Accordingly, occupational safety is gaining more attention in the region and in the process is confronting some unusual circumstances and unique challenges due to having international companies employing workers from all over the world. This diversity expresses itself most clearly at construction sites where there is no common language, no common work culture and different understanding of construction dynamics or labor work practices. Heterogeneity of this kind engenders more accident risks than what would likely to occur in homogeneous places. So there is a need for grappling with this diversity by identifying accident risks and their contributing factors. However, this is easier said than done because the risks and factors are parts of 'wicked problems' that elude easy solution. A method that has demonstrated its utility in addressing wicked problems, though not yet in the construction sector, is Morphological Analysis (MA). As applied here, MA involves a process of eliciting expert information and then merging it with available accident data in order to identify combinations of factors associated with risk of accidents. The dissertation research assesses the utility of the MA method in identifying such risks in construction, and in pointing to regulatory interventions that may mitigate those risks and thereby improve occupational safety.