Smith, S D; Sherratt, F and Oswald, D C (2017) The antecedents and development of unsafety. Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers: Management, Procurement and Law, 170(2), pp. 59-67. ISSN 17514304
Abstract
The concepts of unsafe acts and unsafe conditions within incident and accident reporting processes are well established, and both play a part in safety, as seen in highly complex accident-causation models. Nevertheless, a systematic understanding of the development of unsafety to its manifestation as incidents is yet to emerge. Drawing on a large data set of nearly 4000 safety observation reports from a large infrastructure construction project, investigation of the way in which incidents are categorised is explored, and then, through content analysis of a purposive sample of individual reports, the reality of how the acts and conditions develop, combine and interrelate is evaluated. The findings reveal significant inconsistency in the application of the categorisations of 'act' or 'condition' and the utilisation of the process in apportioning individual blame through 'unsafe acts'. It can be suggested that, within a construction context, there are relatively few precursors that produce unsafe acts or conditions, and focusing on these in practice would provide greater insights, enhancing utility without adding significant complexity. Further understanding of how the development of unsafety takes place would enable management to use reporting data, such as safety observation reports, better in the development and implementation of focused interventions.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | health & safety; knowledge management; safety & hazards |
| Index terms: | drawing, implementation, content analysis, complexity, infrastructure construction, knowledge management, investigation |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, data analysis and analytics, systems engineering, contractual arrangements, professional development, technical documentation, civil engineering |
| Topics: | Procurement, Engineering Principles, Information Management, Design Practice, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
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