The Role of Safety Climate in Predicting Safety Culture on ...

Architectural Science Review Volume 52.1, pp 5-16

© 2009 Earthscan Ltd. ISSN:0003-0628 (print), 1758-9622 (online) doi:10.3763/asre.2008.0037 www.earthscan.co.uk/journals/asre

The Role of Safety Climate in Predicting Safety Culture on Construction Sites Evelyn Ai-Lin Teo† and Yingbin Feng Department of Building, National University of Singapore, 4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566 † Corresponding author: Tel: 6565161008; Fax: 6567755502; Email: [email protected] Received 22 July 2008; accepted 11 November 2008

Abstract: Although theory and empirical research on safety climate and safety culture have developed considerably, the relationship between them remains debatable. This paper reports on empirical examination of the relationship between safety climate and safety culture. The results of this study indicate that safety climate has an impact on the three dimensions of safety culture, namely psychological, situational/environmental and behavioral aspects of safety culture. Several project specific features, such as project duration, project size, and contractor registration grade, are found to influence the relationship between safety climate and safety culture. It is concluded that the assessment of safety climate could provide a reliable prediction of the level of the overall safety culture of construction organisations. Thus, an effective assessment tool for construction safety culture could be proposed based on the results of this study. Keywords: Construction safety, Construction sites, Safety assessment tool, Safety climate, Safety culture

Introduction

In the past two decades there has been an increasing interest in the concept of safety culture as a means of reducing the potential for accidents associated with routine tasks. Notwithstanding its recent appearance in the field of safety management, safety culture is gaining acceptance due to its critical role for improving safety performance (Cooper, 2000; Guldenmund, 2000; Wiegmann, Zhang, Thaden, Sharma & Gibbons, 2004). Safety culture affects not only accident rates, but also on work methods, absenteeism, quality, productivity, commitment, loyalty and work satisfaction (Cooper, 1997). In order to determine the level of the safety culture of a construction organization, there are a variety of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools available that can be used to measure safety culture, among which assessment of safety climate is constantly utilized as an effective measure (Cox & Cheyne, 2000; Lee & Harrison, 2000; O’Toole, 2002). However, a review of the literature shows that there is no apparent consensus on whether the measure of safety climate can be a reliable indicator of overall safety culture in an organization (Choudhry, Fang & Mohamed, 2007; Guldenmund, 2000). Cooper, (2000) argues that investigating safety culture through a safety climate measure had a propensity to focus solely on the way people perceive rather than representing various aspects of safety culture that have a tendency to be overlooked, such as behavior of employees, site situation or safety environment. Ongoing debate persists as to the distinction between safety culture and safety climate

(Cooper, 2000; Guldenmund, 2000; Wiegmann, et al., 2004). So far, there appears to be no empirical examination of the relationship between safety climate and the safety culture of construction organizations, especially those operating in Singapore. Against this background, this study was proposed to (1) verify the relationship between safety climate and safety culture by conducting empirical examinations, and (2) determine the role of safety climate in predicting the overall safety culture of a construction organization.

Safety Culture and Safety Climate

The term safety culture was first introduced in INSAG’s Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 1986). The term safety climate had appeared several years earlier in an investigation of safety attitudes in Israeli manufacturing (Zohar, 1980). Safety culture was defined by Safety Culture (International Safety Advisory Group, Safety-Series 75-INSAG-4) as the assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals, which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance (IAEA, 1991). Since then, a considerable number of definitions of safety culture have abounded in the safety literature (Choudhry et al., 2007; Guldenmund, 2000; Wiegmann et al., 2004). According to Flin, (2007), the most widely accepted definition of safety culture comes from the nuclear power industry.

Architectural Science Review

“The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management. Organizations with a positive culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures” (ACSNI, 1993, p. 23). A recent review of safety culture literature by Wiegmann et al., (2004) identified a set of critical features regardless of the particular industry from the various definitions of safety culture. These critical features include the following: 1. “Safety culture is a concept defined at the group level or higher that refers to the shared values among all the group or organization members, 2. Safety culture is concerned with formal safety issues in an organization and closely related to, but not restricted to, the management and supervisory systems, 3. Safety culture emphasizes the contribution from everyone at every level of an organization, 4. The safety culture of an organization has an impact on its members’ behavior at work, 5. Safety culture is usually reflected in the contingency between reward systems and safety performance, and 6. Safety culture is reflected in an organization’s willingness to develop and learn from errors, incidents, and accidents” (Wiegmann et al., 2004, p. 123). Zohar, (1980) first defined safety climate as a summary of “perceptions that employees share about their work environment” (p. 96). Flin, Mearns, Gordon and Fleming, (1998) defined safety climate as the perceived state of safety of a particular place at a particular time. It is therefore relatively unstable and subject to change depending on features of the operating environment. More recently, Zohar, (2003) suggested, “safety climate relates to shared perceptions with regard to safety policies, procedures and practices” (p. 125). According to Wiegmann et al., (2004), although literature has not presented a generally accepted definition of safety climate, “many definitions do have commonalities and do differ from safety culture in important ways” (p. 124). These commonalities include: 1. “Safety climate is a psychological phenomenon that is usually defined as the perceptions of the state of safety at a particular time; 2. Safety climate is closely concerned with intangible issues such as situational and environmental factors; and 3. Safety climate is a temporal phenomenon, a ‘snapshot’ of safety culture, relatively unstable and subject to change” (p. 124). The aforementioned commonalities extracted from various definitions of safety culture and safety climate indicate that the two terms should not be viewed as alternatives. Safety climate is only a surface manifestation of safety culture (Schein, 1990). Cox and Flin, (1998) further suggested that the nature of culture and climate and their relationship has also been related to the concepts of personality and mood, whereas culture represents the more trait-like properties of personality and climate the

Volume 52, Number 1, 2009

more state-like properties of mood. Most recently, Choudhry et al., (2007) expressed safety climate as exactly the ‘snapshot’ that describes ‘the way we do things’.

Models of Safety Culture

According to Cooper, (2000), “The prevailing organizational culture is reflected in the dynamic reciprocal relationships between members’ perceptions about, and attitudes towards, the operation of organizational goals; members’ day-to-day goal-directed behavior; and the presence and quality of the organization’s systems and sub-systems to support the goaldirected behavior” (p. 118). The reciprocal relationships between the three factors have been recognized and reflected in several major models of safety culture (Bandura, 1986; Cooper, 2000; Geller, 1994; Geller, 1996). The model of reciprocal determinism developed by Bandura, (1986) offers the framework in which the psychological, behavioral and situational elements and their interactions precisely reflect those accident causation relationships found by many researchers (e.g., Heinrich, Peterson & Roos, 1980; Reason, 1990). In order to reflect the concept of safety culture, Bandura’s model was adapted by Cooper, (2000; see Figure 1), who suggested that “organizational culture is the product of multiple goal-directed interactions between people (psychological); jobs (behavioral); and the organization (situational)” (p.118). In the adapted model by Cooper (Figure 1), the internal psychological aspects of safety culture, such as attitudes and perceptions, can be assessed by safety climate questionnaires (Zohar, 1980). The observable behavioral aspects of safety culture can be assessed through peer observations, self-report measures and/or outcome measures (Komaki, Barwick & Scott, 1978; Sulzer-Azaroff, 1987); and the objective situational aspects of safety culture, such as safety rules and procedures, can be assessed through safety management systems audits/ inspections (Cooper, 1997; Teo & Ling, 2006). Other researchers, such as Geller (1994, 1996) and Choudhry et al., (2007) also put forward models to reflect the concept of safety culture. The Total Safety Culture model by Geller, (1994, 1996) distinguished three dynamic and interactive factors: Person, Behavior, and Environment (Figure 2). The only difference between Geller’s model and Cooper’s model is that the term environment is used in the former model while the term situation is used instead in the latter model. Another model presented by Choudhry et al., (2007) was built upon Geller’s model and Cooper’s model and in the context of construction industry, with the distinction that the construct environment in Geller’s model and situation in Cooper’s model are incorporated into a new construct – situation/environment – to reflect not only the situational aspects of the organization but also the specific conditions of the construction project (Figure 3). The reciprocal interactions among psychological, behavioral and environmental/situational variables, which have been recognized and reflected in the major safety culture models, indicate that the three dimensions to measure the overall safety culture of an organization are psychological, behavioral and situational/environmental aspects of safety culture. Therefore, in order to validate the assessment of safety climate as an

Evelyn Ai-Lin Teo and Yingbin Feng

Safety Climate on Construction Sites

Internal PERSON Safety Climate:

Psychological Factors

Perceptual Audit

External SITUATION Observable

CONTEXT Safety Management System:

Factors

Objective Audit BEHAVIOR Safety Behavior: Behavioral Sampling

Figure 1: Reciprocal safety culture model by Copper (2000). Figure 1: Reciprocal safety culture model by Cooper, (2000).

effective means of measuring the overall safety culture, three hypotheses are postulated here: H1: Safety climate has an impact on the psychological aspect of safety culture H2: Safety climate has an impact on the behavioral aspect of safety culture H3: Safety climate has an impact on the situational/ environmental aspect of safety culture

Research Methodology: Research Design and Instrumentation

Survey research using a questionnaire is an effective method to acquire data on attitudes toward issues and relationships between variables. It is a widely used method to describe general perceptions about workplace health and safety practices (Fang, Yang & Wong, 2006; Mohamed, 2002; Ojanen, Seppala & Aaltonen, 1988). For this particular phase of a three-year research project, a questionnaire was selected as the method of collecting the data. The questionnaire was designed to explore the relationship between safety climate and overall safety culture. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part required

respondents to provide information about themselves, their projects, and firms for the purpose of data classification. The second part comprised ten statements measuring the effects of safety climate upon the overall safety management outcomes of their sites. To ensure that the respondents understood the exact meaning of safety climate, detailed explanations of safety climate were provided in the questionnaire. The respondents were requested to provide their perceptions of these statements. If the respondents did not understand the meaning of safety climate, they were asked not to proceed to answer the questions in that section. Five ordered response levels were used in this survey, although some researchers (e.g., Babbie, 2005; Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000; Latham, 2006; Meyers, Guarino & Gamst, 2005) advocate using seven or nine levels. A recent empirical study (Dawes, 2008) found that data from 5-point, 7-point and 10-point scales showed very similar characteristics in terms of mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis. Thus, for simplicity, respondents were required to rank the factors on a 5-point Likert-type scale between 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree to each of the statements found in the questionnaire.

PERSON

ENVIRONMENT

Knowledge, Skill, Abilities, Intelligence, Motives and Personality

SAFETY CULTURE

Equipment, Tools, Physical layout, Procedures, Standards, and Temperature

BEHAVIOR Complying, Coaching, Recognizing, Communicating, Demonstrating “Actively caring”

Figure 2: Geller’s total safety culture model (Geller, 1994, 1996). Figure 2:

Geller’s Total Safety culture model (Geller, 1994, 1997).

26



Internal PERSON Safety Climate:

Psychological Factors

Perceptual Audit

External ENVIRONMENT/SITUATION Observable

CONTEXT Safety Management System:

Factors

Objective Audit BEHAVIOR Safety Behavior: Behavioral Sampling

Figure 3:

Construction safety culture model (Choudhry et al., 2007).

Figure 3: Construction safety culture model (Choudhry et al., 2007).

Data Sample Characteristics

The population or sampling frame (2515) for this study comprised all construction firms operating in Singapore and the sample of (420) comprised construction firms that registered with the Building and Construction Authority, Singapore (BCA). Questionnaires were sent by post, with self-addressed and prestamped envelopes, to 420 randomly selected BCA registered construction firms. Only 28 respondents replied (7% response rate). One of the possible reasons for the relatively low response rate was that only those who understood the exact meaning of safety climate answered and returned the questionnaires. Some may argue that the conclusions concerning the relationship between safety climate and the overall safety culture of a construction organization can not be supported fully given the relatively small sample size (n=28). However, Cheah, Garvin and Miller, (2004) claimed that research of this nature with smaller sample sizes are valid provided wider generalisations are not made. Furthermore, the main data analysis method adopted for this study was Factor Analysis (see Results and Discussion section) and the problem of small sample size in Exploratory Factor Analysis has been investigated by some researchers (MacCallum, Widaman, Zhang & Hong, 1999; Preacher & MacCallum, 2002), who found that such method of analysis does not require a very large sample size. In 1999, MacCallum et al., used a Monte Carlo approach to investigate the determinants of population factor recovery in Exploratory Factor Analysis. They demonstrated that at high levels of communality (0.6 to 0.8), factor recovery drops off only slightly as n (the sample size) is lowered. This conclusion might be somewhat surprising to those familiar with conventional rules of thumb regarding sample size in factor analysis. In another paper entitled, Exploratory factor analysis in behavior genetics research: Factor recovery with small sample sizes (Preacher & MacCallum, 2002), the authors concluded that, “as long as communalities are high, the number of expected factors is relatively small, and model error is low (a condition which often goes hand-in-hand with high communalities), researchers should not be overly concerned about small sample sizes” (p. 160). Hence, with 28 responses,

the data collected are deemed adequate to meet the objectives of this particular study despite the small sample size because the study’s communalities are high and the number of factors is relative small (see Results and Discussion, and Conclusions sections). Up to 70% of the respondents held managerial posts at the senior management level. Their average working experience was 15 years. The experience of the respondents ranged from the minimum 2 years to the maximum 30 years and 61% of them had more than 15 years experience in the construction industry (Table 1).

Results and Discussion

The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Statistical t-test of the mean was carried out to check the entire population’s likely response to the issues raised in the questionnaire, based on the sample’s ratings. The significance level of hypothesis testing was set as 0.05, which means that there is only a 5% probability that the relationship was due to a chance occurrence. The critical rating was set as ‘3’ because by the definitions of the rating scale, ratings above ‘3’ represented ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ with the statements of the questionnaire. The survey and test results show that all ten statements are statistically significant (Table 2). This indicates that all factors are important in determining the effects of safety 28 climate. Factor analysis was applied to the ten factors stating the effects of positive safety climate on construction organizations to identify the underlying patterns. It is a data reduction method, which operates to measure the correlation of the different factors and thus weed out the ones that are not related to each other. The principal objective of factor analysis is to determine the number and nature of common factors (principal components) that results in correlations among the factors (ten statements). This will allow the analysis to be focused on the principal factors to obtain an understanding of the nature and dynamics of their relationships. From the results, factors can be analyzed and the principal reasons explaining the effects of safety climate can be scrutinized. The combination of the factors into a principal component will help to explain the ‘essence’ of the combined



Table1: Characteristic 1: Characteristicofofprojects. projects. Table Profile Project type Residential Commercial Factory Institution Heavy Construction Extension Work Unknown Project size (Sing dollars) Up to $1 mil > $1 mil $3 mil $10 mil $30 mil $65 mil Project duration Up to 12 months 13-24 months More than 24 months Unknown Full-time workers 1 to 25 26 to 50 51 to 75 More than 75 Percentage of foreign workers 0% 1% to 25% 26% to 50% 51% to 75% More than 75% Firm’s BCA grade (tender limit in SGD*) A1 (unlimited) A2 (S$65 million) B1 (S$30 million) B2 (S$10 million) C1 (S$3 million) C2 (S$1 million) C3 (S$ 500, 000)

Frequency

Percentage

8 7 3 2 1 6 1

28.6 25.0 10.7 7.1 3.6 21.4 3.6

6 6 3 8 3 2

21.4 21.4 10.7 28.6 10.7 7.1

14 10 3 1

50.0 35.7 10.7 3.6

12 4 3 9

42.9 14.3 10.7 32.1

3 3 2 5 15

10.7 10.7 7.1 17.9 53.6

7 3 4 3 5 2 4

25 10.7 14.3 10.7 17.9 7.1 14.3

* 1USD (US$) = 1.4SGD (S$)

Table 2:

One-sample t-test of ten Safety Climate Statements.

factors. Principal components are extracted by varimax rotation of the original variable and each consecutive component is uncorrelated to the other. For this study, the Kaiser method was used, which essentially picked factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. This method is particularly useful as it reduces the huge amount of data and separates them into single uncorrelated component. Factor loadings above 0.6 are usually considered ‘high’ and those below 0.4 are ‘low’. After factor analysis was applied, ten factors were grouped into principal components under each main category. Three principal components were extracted out and the related factors are shown in Tables 3, 4 and 5. Table 3 shows that the communalities are high (0.720 to 0.944), the number of expected factors is relatively small (3), and the model error is low due to the high communalities. Therefore,

the population factor structure can be adequately recovered with 30 the relatively small sample size (N=28) of this study.

Safety Climate and Situational/Environmental Aspects of Safety Culture The first principal component is extracted out and the related factors are shown in Table 6. This principal component is related to the situational/environmental aspects of safety culture. According to previous studies (Bandura, 1986; Choudhry et al., 2007; Cooper, 2000; Geller, 1994; Geller 1996), situational/ environmental aspects of safety culture refer to the factors related to working environment, organization structure, production systems and safety management systems. The statistical t-test results presented in Table 2 show that all related factors (SC_1,

10



Table 2: One-sample t-test of ten safety climate statements. Test value = 3 Item SC_1 SC_2 SC_3 SC_4

SC_5

SC_6

SC_7 SC_8 SC_9 SC_10

Statements

Mean difference

Positive safety climate promotes the commitment to accident prevention activities. Positive safety climate enhances the effectiveness of risk management on site. Under positive safety climate, safety procedures and standards tends to be followed by workers. Positive safety climate makes it possible to get the job done with complying and demonstrating “Actively Caring”. Positive safety climate makes it possible that safety rules and regulations are followed even when job is rushed. Positive safety climate contributes to nonrestrictive and non-superficial safety management systems. Positive safety climate helps in increasing productivity while maintaining safe work standards. Positive safety climate contributes to my work satisfaction. Positive safety climate inspires me to work safely. Positive safety climate has positive influence on morale of workers.

SC_2, SC_3, SC_5, and SC_6) are statistically significant (have positive effect on safety climate). Thus, hypothesis 1 was not rejected and safety climate was established to have impacts on the situational/environmental aspects of safety culture. Firstly, positive safety climate promotes the commitment of management to accident prevention activities, such as safety training, equipment and tools. Secondly, the effectiveness of risk management on site will be enhanced under positive safety climate. Thirdly, under positive climate, workers are more ready to follow safety procedures, standards, rules and regulations, even when job is ‘rushed’. This is in line with the research finding by Bailey, (1997) that employees’ perceptions of safety related issues influence their likelihood to comply with safety policies and rules. Furthermore, positive safety climate contributes to the nonrestrictive and non-superficial safety management systems. This could be explained by two possible reasons. One is that positive safety climate enhances employees’ willingness to understand and accept safety management systems, be it regulatory or in-house. Another lies in the fact that safety management systems could be improved through better communication and feedback between management and workers under positive safety climate. In order to determine if project specific features (such as project size, number of full-time employees, number of foreign workers employed, site safety rate, project duration, and BCA grade) influence the effects of safety climate on the situational/ environmental aspects of overall safety culture, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results

t

Sig.

-1.607

-10.225

0.000

-1.393

-8.861

0.000

-1.250

-7.456

0.000

-1.250

-7.833

0.000

-1.000

-4.583

0.000

-1.000

-5.862

0.000

-1.036

-5.484

0.000

-1.321

-7.727

0.000

-1.500

-9.000

0.000

-1.464

-10.408

0.000

Table Table3:3: Communalities. Communalities. Table 3: Communalities. Table 3: Communalities. Initial Initial Extraction Extraction Initial Extraction SC_1 0.870 SC_1 1.000 1.000 0.870 SC_1 1.000 0.870 SC_2 0.790 SC_2 1.000 1.000 0.790 SC_3 1.000 0.852 SC_3 1.000 0.852 SC_2 0.790 SC_4 0.748 SC_4 1.000 0.748 SC_3 1.000 0.852 SC_5 0.776 SC_5 1.000 0.776 SC_4 1.000 0.748 SC_6 0.720 SC_6 1.000 0.720 SC_5 1.000 0.776 SC_7 0.762 SC_7 1.000 0.762 SC_6 1.000 0.720 SC_8 0.835 SC_8 1.000 0.835 SC_7 1.000 0.762 SC_9 0.904 SC_9 1.000 0.904 SC_8 1.000 0.835 SC_10 0.944 SC_10 1.000 0.944 SC_9 1.000 0.904 SC_10 1.000 0.944 Extraction method: Principal component analysis.

Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Extraction method: Principal component analysis. 31

of ANOVA (Table 7) show that the project duration was found to influence the effects of safety climate on situational/ environmental aspects of safety culture. According to the correlation analysis between project duration and SC_2, the correlation coefficient between the two is 0.3 (positive value, and statistically significant at 95% confidence level, see Table 8), which means that the longer the project duration is, the more likely the safety climate will be to influence the effectiveness of risk management system on site. This finding



Table 4: Total variance explained. Table 4: Total variance explained. Table 4: Total variance explained. Component Initial eigenvalues Component Initial eigenvalues Total % of Cumulativ Total % of Cumulativ Variance e% Cumulative Variance e% SC_1 SC_1 SC_2 SC_3 SC_2 SC_4 SC_3 SC_5 SC_4 SC_6 SC_5 SC_7 SC_6 SC_8 SC_7 SC_9 SC_8 SC_10 SC_9 SC_10

6.125 6.125 1.416 1.066 1.416 0.609 1.066 0.342 0.609 0.262 0.342 0.234 0.262 0.191 0.234 0.107 0.191 0.053 0.107 0.053

61.253 61.253 14.159 6.603 14.159 6.094 6.603 3.416 6.094 2.621 3.416 2.337 2.621 1.912 2.337 1.074 1.912 0.531 1.074 0.531

61.253 61.253 75.412 82.016 75.412 88.109 82.016 91.525 88.109 94.146 91.525 96.483 94.146 98.395 96.483 99.469 98.395 100.000 99.469 100.000

Rotation sums of squared loadings Rotation sums of squared loadings Total % of Cumulativ Total % of Cumulativ Variance e% Cumulative Variance e% 3.475 3.475 2.669 2.058 2.669 2.058

34.752 34.752 26.687 20.577 26.687 20.577

34.752 34.752 61.439 82.016 61.439 82.016

Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Extraction method: Principal component analysis.

Table 5:

Rotated component matrix.

Table 5: Rotated component matrix. Component

SC_1 SC_2 SC_3 SC_4 SC_5 SC_6 SC_7 SC_8 SC_9 SC_10

1

2

3

0.862 0.880 0.682 0.415 0.716 0.644 0.067 0.325 0.245 0.029

0.331 0.005 0.532 0.723 0.451 0.404 0.792 0.246 0.769 0.318

0.135 0.124 0.323 0.228 0.246 0.377 0.362 0.859 0.428 0.918

Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Rotation method: Varimax.

Table 6:

Rotation converged in 7 iterations. Situational/Environmental aspects of Safety Culture (principal component 1).

Table 6: Factors

Situational/Environmental aspects of Safety Culture (principal component 1). Factor loading

Factors

Factor loading

Positive safety climate promotes theaspects commitment to culture accident(principal prevention Table 6: Situational/environmental of safety component0.862 1). activities. (SC_1) Positive safety climate promotes the commitment to accident prevention activities. (SC_1) Positive safety climate enhances the effectiveness of risk management on site. (SC_2) Positive safety climate enhances the effectiveness of standards risk management Under positive safety climate, safety procedures and tends toon site. (SC_2) be followed by workers (SC_3) Under safety climate, procedures andrules standards tends to Positivepositive safety climate makes itsafety possible that safety and regulations be followed workers are followedby even when (SC_3) job is rushed (SC_5) Positive safety climate makes it possible that safety and rulesnon-superficial and regulations contributes to nonrestrictive are followed even when job is(SC_6) rushed (SC_5) safety management systems. Positive safety climate contributes Accumulative Variance explained: 34.75%to nonrestrictive and non-superficial safety management systems. (SC_6) Accumulative Variance explained: 34.75%

0.862 0.880 0.880 0.682 0.682 0.716 0.716 0.644 0.644

33 33

11

12



Table 7. Table 7.

ANOVA between the effect of Safety Climate and Project Features. ANOVA between the effect of Safety Climate and Project Features. Table 7: ANOVA between the effect of safety climate and project features. Project Full-time Foreign workers Site safety Project size employees employed duration Project Full-time Foreign workers Siterate safety Project size employees employed rate duration F F F F F F SC_1 1.142 0.512 0.399 SC_1 1.142 0.512 0.399 SC_2 1.373 1.149 0.543 SC_2 1.373 1.149 0.543 SC_3 2.000 0.806 0.704 SC_5 1.424 0.043 0.291 SC_3 2.000 0.806 0.704 SC_6 1.624 0.597 0.617 SC_5 1.424 0.043 0.291 SC_6 1.624 0.597 * Statistically significant with 95% confidence level.0.617

F F 1.060 1.060 0.347 0.347 1.412 0.652 1.412 0.257 0.652 0.257

F F 1.237 1.237 3.155(*) 3.155(*) 0.110 0.520 0.110 1.149 0.520 1.149

BCA grade BCA grade F F 0.475 0.475 1.748 1.748 1.389 1.729 1.389 1.484 1.729 1.484

* Statistically significant with 95% confidence level.

Table correlationbetween betweenProject project duration Table8: 8: Spearman’s Spearman's rho rho correlation Duration and SC_2. and SC_2. Variables SC_2

Project duration Correlation coefficient

0.300(*)


suggests that positive safety climate could play a more effective role to manage risk for the projects with longer duration than those with shorter duration.

Safety Climate and Behavioral Aspects of Safety Culture According to Geller, (2001), the behavioral aspects of safety culture refers to complying, coaching, recognizing, communicating, demonstrating, and actively caring about safety issues. The related factors of this principal component are shown in Table 9. These three factors shed light on the relationship between safety climate and the behavioral aspects of safety culture. In addition, the results of statistical t-test (Table 2) show that the three factors (SC_4, SC_7, and SC_ 9) are all significantly important. Thus, hypothesis 2 was not rejected and safety climate was established to affect the behavioral aspects of safety culture. Zohar, (2000) claimed, “Since organizational-level climate perceptions related to instituted procedures, it follows that these

perceptions inform employees of desired role behavior” (p. 589). This position was reinforced by Mullen, (2004), who concluded that perceptions of performance over safety (safety climate) directly influenced the safety work behavior of employees. The relationship was elaborated in a quantitative study by Johnson, (2007), who presented that, under positive organizational climate, “employees become aware of procedural patterns suggesting priorities among competing goals and a standard for action which, in turn, should drive behavior” (p. 519). In the case of safety, this means that supervisors who are more attentive to safety reflected a higher priority for safety and these supervisors making ‘safety first’ a preferred procedural pattern for their workers, and hence the workers will be more likely to behave in a safe manner (Johnson, 2007). This relationship between safety climate and the behavioral aspects of safety culture was also confirmed in this study, as the survey results show that positive safety climate inspires the workers to work safely and actively care about safety issues. In addition, the emphasis on safe work behavior does not necessarily result in the reduction of productivity, as the statistics

Table 9:

Behavioral aspect of Safety Culture (principal component 2).

Table 9:

Behavioral aspect of Safety Culture (principal component 2).

Table 9: Behavioral aspect of safety culture (principal component 2). Factors Factors Positive safety climate makes it possible to get the job done with complying and demonstrating “Actively caring”. (SC_4) Positive safety climate makes it possible to get the job done with complying and demonstrating “Actively caring”. (SC_4)

Positive safety climate helps in increasing productivity while maintaining safe work standards. (SC_7) Positive in me increasing while maintaining Positive safety safety climate climate helps inspires to workproductivity safely. (SC_9) safe work standards. (SC_7) Accumulative Variance explained: 61.44% Positive safety climate inspires me to work safely. (SC_9)

36 36

Factor loading Factor loading 0.723 0.723 0.792 0.792 0.769 0.769

Accumulative Variance explained: 61.44%

37


Table 10.


ANOVA between the effect of Safety Climate and Project Features

Full-time Foreign Project Table 10. Project ANOVA between the effect of Safety ClimateSite andsafety Project Features

Table 10: ANOVA the effect of safety climate and project size between employees workers rate features. duration

BCA grade

Project size

Full-time employees

employed Foreign workers employed

Site safety rate

Project duration

BCA grade

F

F

F

F

F

F

1.023 F 0.330 1.469 1.023 0.330 1.469

0.606 F 0.631 0.250 0.606 0.631 0.250

1.799 F 1.917 0.772 1.799 1.917 0.772

SC_4 0.897 0.117 1.013 F F F SC_7 3.345(*) 0.553 1.060 SC_9 1.200 2.097 0.719 SC_4 0.897 0.117 1.013 * Statistically significant with 95% confidence level. SC_7 3.345(*) 0.553 1.060 SC_9 1.200 2.097 0.719

13


Table 11: Spearman’s rho correlation between project size Table 11: Spearman's rho correlation between Project Size and SC_7. and SC_7.

admin! 2

Comme

Variables

Project size Correlation coefficient

SC_7

correct

0.390(*)


show that positive safety climate in the workplace helps to increase the productivity while maintaining safe work standards. In order to determine if project specific features (such as project size, number of full-time employees, number of foreign workers employed, site safety rate, project duration, and BCA grade) influence the effects of safety climate on the behavioral aspects of overall safety culture, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results of ANOVA (Table 10), show that not all the project specific features influence the effects of safety climate on the behavioral aspects of overall safety culture. The only project specific feature that was found to be significantly influencing the effects of safety climate on behavioral aspects of safety culture was project size. According to the correlation analysis between project size and SC_7 (Table 11), the correlation coefficient was 0.39 (positive value, and statistically significant at 95% confidence level), which means that the larger the project size is, the more likely the safety climate will influence the productivity while maintaining safe work behavior on site. Compared with the smaller projects, the productivity of the workers in the larger projects are more likely to be improved under the positive safety climate.

Table 12:

Safety Climate and Psychological Aspects of Safety Culture

The third component encompasses two safety climate statements (Table 12), which describes the impacts of positive safety climate on the internal psychological factors of safety culture, such as knowledge, skill, abilities, intelligence, motives, and personality of management and workers (Geller, 1994, 1996). Table 2 indicates that both of the two safety climate statements (SC_8 and SC_10) are statistically significant based on the t-test results. Thus, hypothesis 3 was not rejected and safety climate was established to influence the psychological aspects of safety culture. Positive safety climate were perceived to contribute to the morale of workers as well as their work satisfaction, which was shown to be related directly to safety performance (Hinze, 1997). The close relationship between safety climate and psychological aspect of safety culture is further supported by many other studies. The assessment of safety climate has been recognized 39 as an effective means to measure the psychological aspects of safety culture by these studies (Cooper, 2000; Guldenmund, 39 2000; Zohar, 1980).

Psychological aspect of Safety Culture (principal component 3).

Table 12: Psychological aspect of safety culture (principal component 3). Factors

Factor loading

Positive safety climate contributes to my work satisfaction (SC_8)

0.859

Positive safety climate has positive impact on morale of workers (SC_10)

0.918

Accumulative Variance explained: 82.02%

40

14


Table 13.


ANOVA between the effect of Safety Climate and Project Features

Table 13: ANOVA between the effect of safety climate and project features. Project size

Full-time employees

Foreign workers employed

Site safety rate

Project duration

BCA grade

F

F

F

F

F

F

1.394 1.214

0.710 1.907

1.486 1.043

1.323 1.151

2.114 0.564

4.449(*) 0.833

SC_8 SC_10


Table 14:

Spearman's rho correlation between Project Size and SC_8.

Table 14: Spearman’s rho correlation between project size and SC_8. Variables SC_8

BCA grade Correlation coefficient

0.670(*)


Safety Climate and Overall Safety Culture

From the results of ANOVA (Table 13), it is shown that only one of the project specific features, the BCA grade of the contractor, affects the effect of safety climate on the psychological aspects of overall safety culture. As indicated in Table 14, the correlation coefficient between BCA Grade of the contractor and the effect of safety climate on the work satisfaction of the workers is 0.67 (positive value, and statistically significant at 95% confidence level), which means that higher BCA grade of the contractor tends to result in stronger effects of safety climate on job satisfaction of workers. In other words, the correlation between SC_8 and BCA grade implies that, in comparison with the contractors with lower BCA grade, positive safety climate has more potential to raise the workers’ job satisfaction in those contractors with higher BCA grade.

Based on the above analysis and building upon the existing model of construction safety culture as shown in Figure 3, a new model that recognizes and reflects the relationship between safety climate and safety culture was proposed (Figure 4). As described in this proposed model, safety climate has significant impacts on all the three aspects of overall safety culture, namely situational/environmental aspects, behavioral aspects and psychological aspects. Some project specific features, such as project duration, project size, and BCA grade are identified to affect the effects of safety climate on overall safety culture. Specifically, project duration has an impact on the relationship between safety climate and the situational/ environmental aspects of safety culture; project size influences

SITUATION /ENVIRONMENT

Project duration 42 SAFETY CLIMATE

BCA Grade

PERSON

SAFETY

/PSYCHOLOGY

CULTURE

Project size BEHAVIOR

Figure 4: Proposed model of safety climate and safety culture relationship.

Figure 4: Proposed model of safety climate and safety culture relationship.


the effects of safety climate on the behavioral aspects of safety culture; and finally yet importantly BCA grade of the contractor impacts the relationship between safety climate and the psychological aspects of safety culture. Thus, it can be concluded that the assessments of safety climate could provide reliable prediction of the level of overall safety culture of construction organizations.

Conclusions

In this paper, empirical examination of the relationship between safety climate and the overall safety culture was conducted. The results indicate that safety climate has significant impacts on all the three aspects of overall safety culture, explicitly the situational/environmental aspects, behavioral aspects and psychological aspects of safety culture. This finding further clarifies the distinction between safety climate and safety culture in construction environment and sheds light on the development of methods or tools for measuring overall safety culture of construction organisations. In addition, the relationship between project specific features and the effects of safety climate on each aspect of safety culture was investigated. Results of ANOVA and correlation analysis suggest that several project specific features, such as project duration, project size, and contractor’s BCA grade are identified to affect the effects of safety climate on overall safety culture. Project duration has an impact on the relationship between safety climate and the situational/environmental aspects of safety culture. Project size influences the effects of safety climate on the behavioral aspects of safety culture. Contractor’s BCA grade affects the relationship between safety climate and the psychological aspects of safety culture. A model was proposed to describe the relationship between safety climate and the overall safety culture. It was concluded that the assessments of safety climate could provide reliable prediction of the level of overall safety culture of construction organizations. However, the findings and conclusions of this research are reached based on the low response rate (7%) and the use of a single data collection method (questionnaire survey). Hence, the findings being ‘indicative’ based on the 7% response rate have to subject to more research. In order to verify them, multiple data collection methods could be used with a larger and more representative sample, in the subsequent study.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Gary Moore, and the anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and suggestions. The authors gratefully acknowledge the National University of Singapore (R296-000-094-112) for providing funding for this research project. Professor Runeson’s and Mr. Lin’s participation in various parts of the research project is also gratefully acknowledged.

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