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Discussion of “Developing a Model of Construction Safety Culture” by Rafiq M. Choudhry, Dongping Fang, and Sherif Mohamed October 2007, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 207-212, DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(2007)23:4(207) _____________________________________________________________________________
Eugenio Pellicer Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain E-mail:
[email protected]
Keith R. Molenaar Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0428 E-mail:
[email protected]
In the paper (Choudhry et al., 2007), the authors explored the concept of safety culture and applied it to the construction industry. They presented a model of construction safety culture based on three elements: person, behavior and environment. The authors based the model in the work of Cooper (2000), which was developed from Bandura (1980). This model was based on reciprocal determinism as derived from the Social Cognitive Theory (Cooper, 2000). The authors made an excellent effort to adapt the model to the characteristics of the construction industry. This model was properly developed and analyzed by the authors throughout the text. The discussers would like to remark on one issue that is not directly addressed by the authors and that could improve their model and their overall contribution: the importance of education and training in construction safety culture.
Cooper’s model (2000) takes a social approach; it seeks (p. 131) “the creation of a safety culture as a super-ordinate goal, which is achieved by developing and pursuing multiple sub-goals”, among them (p.116) “increasing people’s commitment to safety”. One could interpret that this goal includes the necessary education and training to pursue it. Nevertheless, it is not explicitly stated in Cooper’s paper. In the authors’ paper (Choudhry et al., 2007), this topic is not addressed with enough detail or importance. Figure 3 (Choudhry et al., 2007: p. 210) displays “implement feedback and training” but this item only related to the site safety plan in the environment construct. The feedback and training concerns only construction sites and construction works, which allows for a short period of time for a unique project instead of a continuous process. The person construct does present “increase safety knowledge” (Choudhry et al., 2007: fig. 3, p. 210), but it does not specifically emphasize education and training.
The discussers believe that education and training are vital issues in order to obtain a construction safety culture; previous research by other authors (Hale, 1984; Duff et al., 1994; Hakkinen, 1995; Jaselskis et al., 1996; Findley et al., 2004; Petersen, 2004; Tam et al., 2004) supports this belief. Therefore, the authors should consider addressing education and training explicitly their model. In many countries, construction industry has the highest occupational accident ratio, as compared to the other productive sectors. This is due to the well-known distinctiveness of the construction industry (Nam and Tatum, 1988; ILO, 2001): the workplace is mobile and temporal; many stakeholders take part in the process; most construction companies are small; the profit margin is narrow; procedures are not standardized; subcontracting is very frequent; and workers have little professional qualification. Furthermore, in periods of economic growth many inexperienced workers move into the industry (ILO, 2001). From an academic
point of view, data are not optimistic either; engineers and architects that manage the project life cycle have, commonly, a lack of specific education and training in occupational safety and health (Bryan, 1994; Hakkinen, 1995; Pellicer et al., 2003). Therefore, qualification in the industry is extremely important for the two levels of human resources involved: the technicians that manage the construction works, and the manpower that executes them.
There are several safety culture models that are based on an engineering approach and that do take into account education and training as a main stage of the model. Molenaar et al. (2002) proposed a model based on Bandura’s triad, but very much adapted to construction. This model proposes three elements of people, process and values. The people construct distinguished top management, field personnel and subcontractors, explicitly describing training as a responsibility of the top management. The process construct specified training and education among the five main issues proposed. The model also highlighted the importance of levels and frequencies of safety training.
A second approach (Carvajal and Pellicer, 2006) considered a cyclic model as suggested by many authors in risk management, as traditionally applied to project management (Turner, 1999) or construction (Winch, 2003). Both authors suggested a similar process based on four stages: identification, analysis, response and control. Moreover, the specification OHSAS 18001:1999 (BSI, 1999) also proposed a cycle based on continuous improvement as well: establish corporate policies, plan, implement, check, review and improve. These steps are compatible with the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system (ISO, 2000).
With this background, Carvajal and Pellicer (2006) defined a cycle of five steps (see figure 1): regulation, education and training, risk assessment, risk prevention and accident analysis. This cycle is a logical and continuous process with feedback, thus the title “risk-accident cycle”. Risk assessment comprises risk identification and analysis, as stated in traditional risk management literature (PMI 2004). Likewise, risk prevention consists of response and control. In order to stress the importance of setting objectives and organizational learning over time, two preceding steps and a succeeding step were added. Regulation was included to emphasize the significant role of corporate policies issued by companies. Laws and standards issued by public agencies were also added. Training and education reflected the impact that the former step had upon the people involved if some improvement had to be achieved. Finally, accident analysis was needed to investigate the reason for accidents; thus, other lessons could be learned and future accidents may be avoided; obviously, this step is skipped if there is no accident.
The discussers complement the authors on their sound work, but suggest that the model could be improved by explicitly stating the importance of education and training. The authors should consider adding education and training primarily in the environment construct, but it can also be considered in the person and behavior model constructs as well.
References
Bandura, A. (1986) “Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory”. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Bryan, L.A. (1999) “Educating engineers on safety”. Journal of Management in Engineering, 15(2), 30-33. BSI (1999) “Ocuppational health and safety management systems. Requirements”. British Standards Institution, London. Carvajal, G.I., Pellicer, E. (2006) “The risk – accident cycle: Trends in research applied to the construction industry”. Proceedings of CIB W99 International Conference on Global Unity for Safety & Health in Construction, Beijing, 652-661. Choudhry, R.M., Fang, D., Mohamed, S. (2007) “Developing a model of construction safety culture”. Journal of Management in Engineering, 23(4), 207-212. Cooper, M. D. (2000) “Towards a model of safety culture”. Safety Science, 36(2), 111-136. Duff, A.R., Robertson, I.T., Phillips, R.A., Cooper, M.D. (1994) “Improving safety by the modification of behaviour”. Construction Management and Economics, 12, 67-78. Findley, M., Smith, S.M., Kress, T., Petty, G., Enoch, K. (2004) “Safety program elements in construction”. Professional Safety, February, 14-21. Hakkinen, K. (1995) “A learning-by-doing strategy to improve top management involvement in safety”. Safety Science, 20, 299-304. Hale, A.R. (1984) “Is safety training worthwhile?” Journal of Occupational Accidents, 6, 17-33. ILO (2001) “The construction industry in the twenty-first century: Its image, employment prospects and skill requirements”. International Labor Organization, Geneva. ISO (2000) “ISO 9001: Quality management systems. Requirements”. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva.
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Figure 1. Risk-Accident Cycle (adapted from Carvajal and Pellicer, 2006)
