Bhattacharjee, K; Bugalia, N and Mahalingam, A (2025) Differences in pathways to resilient safety culture for construction projects of different sizes. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 151(5): 04025026, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
A positive safety culture is essential in improving the construction industry's poorer occupational health and safety (OHS) performance. The resilient safety culture (RSC) is a state-of-The-Art safety culture model whose practices enable construction projects to develop adaptive capabilities to manage ever-changing, unforeseen safety risks. However, academic attention has been limited to identifying the pathways for construction projects of different sizes to achieve RSC. To fill this research gap, the current study models the causal links between various safety practices and dimensions of RSC for varying-sized construction projects using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study collected 180 valid survey responses cross-validated with interviews and field inspections from 27 construction projects in India. Contract value is used as a metric to segregate projects into three sizes: small, medium, and large. The study results revealed distinct pathways between safety practices and RSC dimensions for projects of different sizes, contradicting the existing literature suggesting that causal linkages between safety practices and safety cultural dimensions are often uniform and smaller projects should emulate larger projects to enhance their safety culture. The study's SEM result revealed that the impact of error-management-related practices on improving RSC dimensions significantly differs between small and large projects. In addition to hazard-prevention-related practices, large projects may rely more on mindful organizing practices to improve their safety culture, whereas small and medium projects may prioritize using error-management-related practices. The safety practitioners may strategically use the study results to prioritize specific practices for achieving RSC in their projects.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | India; large construction projects; partial least-square structural equation modeling; resilient safety culture; safety practices; questionnaire survey |
| Index terms: | dimension, India, construction industry, prevention, safety culture, inspection, linkage, state of the art, questionnaire, practitioner, construction project, large construction project, interview, survey, structural equation modelling, occupational health and safety |
| Subjects: | financial risk, Geography, organizational theory, health safety and environment, production management, quality assurance, research dissemination and communication, practitioner, occupational health and safety management, statistical analysis, industry analysis, business, data collection methods, health monitoring assessment and metrics |
| Topics: | Project Management, Geographical Context, Health and Safety, Quality Management, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Cost Management |
| 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