Bae, Juhyeon (2024) Integrating wearable biosensing with social norm to empower construction workers for preventive job site safety. PhD thesis, University of Michigan, USA.
Abstract
Wearable technology holds immense potential to empower construction workers in self-managing safety risks and enables managers to practice individualized risk monitoring, thus addressing the limitations of the current 'one-size-fits-all' approach in construction risk management. More importantly, when risk information from wearables is shared among co-workers, they can protect each other through mutual support and assistance. However, simply receiving information about co-workers does not automatically lead to actions to help others unless there is sufficient motivation. These voluntary safety behaviors are extra-role and not mandated, driven more by informal rules of appropriate behavior, known as social norms. Therefore, social norms can be used to gently guide workers' voluntary behavior to protect co-workers. In this context, integrating risk information sharing with social norms can create a synergistic effect, significantly enhancing the effectiveness of wearable-based risk management. Despite the potential, there are several knowledge gaps to be filled: (1) there is a lack of field-applicable wearable-based risk monitoring techniques for assessing workers' fatigue and heat strain; (2) there is a notable deficiency in managerial strategies that utilize social norms to improve workers' safety behavior; and (3) there is limited knowledge on the potential of integrating wearable-based risk information sharing with social norms to enhance workers' voluntary safety behavior. To fill these gaps, four interrelated studies were conducted (1) to develop field-applicable risk monitoring techniques that assess fatigue and heat strain risks from biosignals; (2) to develop managerial strategies that leverage social norms to gently guide workers' safety behavior; (3) to explore the potential of norm-based safety risk information sharing among co-workers in improving workers' helping behavior. These studies serve as foundational steps towards extending the potential of wearables for safety risk management, moving beyond mere self-monitoring and managerial oversight, and transforming safety into a team effort. This will eventually contribute to creating collaborative and safe work environments for construction workers.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | wearable biosensor; worker safety; social norm |
| Index terms: | construction worker, monitoring, work environment, risk management, effectiveness, information sharing, biosensing, safety behaviour, strategy, fatigue, social norms, motivation, manager |
| Subjects: | management, performance management, data exchange, occupational health and safety management, health conditions and diseases, risk assessment, control systems, social justice, practitioner, psychology, environmental science |
| Topics: | Ethics, Quality Management, Risk Management, Sustainability, Health and Safety, Site Management, Organizational Design, Digital Applications, Human Resources, Roles and Professions, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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