Patriarca, A S (2013) Safety at the margins: A rhetorical analysis of occupational risk communication in construction. PhD thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA.
Abstract
This dissertation focuses on occupational risk communication created by grantees of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Susan Harwood Training Grant (SHTG) Program. Although the SHTG program is aimed at workers in most high-hazard industries, I focus on occupational risk communication developed for residential construction workers, who remain the most at-risk for on-the-job injuries and fatalities. In 2011 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 721 construction workers died in work-related accidents (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). In this study, I relied primarily on two research methods: context-sensitive text analysis of deliverables created by twelve SHTG program grantees from 2006-2009 and interviews with representatives of four of these twelve grantees. The findings from this research illustrate the complexity of creating occupational risk communication in grant-related institutional settings. Although the process might seem straightforward, it is composed of twelve milestones, each of which can result in difficulties for the final deliverables. Grantees are asked to create safety training deliverables that includes principles of active workplace learning; however, qualitative analysis of these deliverables indicates that such principles are rarely enacted. Instead, the deliverables are marked by an emphasis on technical language, as well as by death-focused justification strategies that scare trainees into following the guidelines being presented. Each of these characteristics can alienate audiences of varied linguistic and cultural backgrounds, such as those found in the construction industry.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Evia, C |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | communication; complexity; learning; qualitative analysis; research methods; residential; safety; text analysis; training |
| Index terms: | statistics, residential construction, fatalities, occupational safety and health, text analysis, workplace learning, dissertation, safety training, qualitative analysis, strategy, interview, complexity, construction industry, economic indicator, injury, construction worker, program |
| Subjects: | research dissemination and communication, occupational health and safety management, industry analysis, construction integration, systems engineering, health conditions and diseases, management, data collection methods, health risk and incident analysis, software systems, mathematical modelling, professional development, analytical methods, practitioner, data analysis and analytics, research design and methodology |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Education, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, 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