Lingard, H C; Cooke, T and Blismas, N (2009) Group-level safety climate in the Australian construction industry: Within-group homogeneity and between-group differences in road construction and maintenance. Construction Management and Economics, 27(4), pp. 419-432. ISSN 1466433X
Abstract
In modern organizations it is overly simplistic to assume that a uniform, organization-wide climate for safety develops. Workgroup-level safety climates are more likely to arise in decentralized organizations and their influence on occupational health and safety (OHS) behaviour is likely to be stronger when work is non-routine, as in construction. The existence of workgroup-level safety climates was examined in the Australian construction industry. A group-level safety climate survey was conducted in a road maintenance and construction organization. The clear factorial structure produced in a larger sample of Australian defence logistics workers was not replicated and factors splintered, possibly due to the subject-to-item ratio in the construction study. However, the internal reliability consistency of the factors produced in the earlier pilot study was found to be acceptable for the construction industry data. Two requisite conditions for the existence of group-level safety climates, i.e. (1) within-group homogeneity; and (2) between-group variation, were satisfied within the road construction and maintenance organization. The results indicate that distinct workgroup safety climates exist in construction, providing a theoretical explanation for why some workgroups perform better in OHS than others, despite having similar risk exposure.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | co-workers; group dynamics; road maintenance; safety climate; supervisory leadership |
| Index terms: | road construction, construction industry, construction organization, group dynamics, variation, exposure, routine, safety climate, survey, occupational health and safety |
| Subjects: | health safety and environment, contractual condition, public and environmental health, civil engineering, industry analysis, sociology, occupational health and safety management, organization, data collection methods |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Contract Administration, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Health and Safety, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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