Serne, J N (2024) Attributing cause for occupational accidents in construction: A descriptive single case study. PhD thesis, Grand Canyon University, USA.
Abstract
This qualitative descriptive single case study explored how construction safety professionals in the United States who had at least five years of experience in safety and experience with investigating one or more serious occupational accidents within the last year described making attributions during investigations. Heider’s attribution theory was used as the theoretical lens for the two research questions related to how construction safety professionals described making dispositional and situational attributions. The three sources of data used in the study captured responses from 37 purposefully selected participants and included 20 accident scenario questionnaires, 13 individual semi-structured interviews, and eight summative focus groups participants. Four themes to address the research questions were identified using a thematic analysis approach described by Yin. These themes revealed that cognitive bias and constraints related to the complexity of the construction industry appeared to influence participants to make dispositional attributions, while having empathy for workers and a learning mindset motivated them to make situational attributions. These findings call for the development of practical methods to reduce bias, increase empathy, promote a learning mindset and increase collaboration and communication between the various parties working on multi-employer sites. Limitations include the recruiting method and low sample size. Future studies should determine if bias can be reduced by using a team-based investigation method or professional development and construction safety professionals’ perceptions of accountability, discipline, and blame.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Dennis, T |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | United States; accountability; bias; case study; collaboration; communication; complexity; construction safety; employer; future studies; learning; professional; safety; sample size; thematic analysis |
| Index terms: | attribution theory, sample size, case study, professional development, future study, construction industry, occupational accident, investigation, accountability, mindset, focus group, United States, interview, complexity, construction safety, thematic analysis, questionnaire, bias, collaboration |
| Subjects: | management, health risk and incident analysis, professional development, probability and distributions, methods and analysis, systems engineering, environmental health, industry analysis, research design and methodology, data collection methods, Geography, liability law, behavioral psychology, health behaviours and lifestyles |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Research Practice, Information Management, Legal Issues, Sustainability, Health and Safety, Geographical Context, Engineering Principles |
| 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