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Influence of knowledge-based
safety culture in the
construction industry:
a stakeholder’s perspective
Deepak M.D.
School of Construction Management,
National Institute of Construction Management and Research, Pune, India, and
Gangadhar Mahesh
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka,
Surathkal, India
Abstract
Purpose –Safety in construction projects is essential and requires more attention towards minimizing the
accident rate. Problems concerning awareness of safety risks, procedures and practices still exist in the
industry, which indicate a shortfall in diffusion of safety-related knowledge in construction industry. Also,
there is dearth of studies on knowledge management strategies to prevent reoccurrence of accidents and
thereby improve safety culture in construction industry. This study attempts to unveil aspects of knowledge
management that are ignored in considering safety culture and discern the differences in the perception of key
stakeholders of construction industry. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify and measure
knowledge-based safety culture elements.
Design/methodology/approach –In this paper,the focus is on the applicationof a reliable,valid and sensitive
knowledge-based safety culture assessment tool on key stakeholders operational in construction industry.
Research method adopted is a questionnaire-based survey to seekresponses from industry professionals. A total
of 199 responses were obtained from 106 different companies operational in Indian construction industry.
Statistical analyses including ranking analysis, t-test, correlation analysis, and ANOVA test are utilized for
comparing and identifying the differences in view of stakeholder’s perceptions concerning workplace safety.
Findings –This study helps to identify and rank critical knowledge-based safety culture elements from the
perspective of key stakeholders of construction industry. This contributes in identifying the most critical and
neglected variables among the key stakeholders regarding aspects of safety culture. Also, the study shows the
importance of knowledge dimension in developing overall safety culture in construction industry.
Originality/value –Results of this study offer valuable insight in enabling key stakeholders of construction
industry to examine and enhance their safety performance. The implications of this study contribute new
knowledge in assessing conditions that will improve worker safety in the construction industry. The paper
should be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the area of occupational health and safety management.
Keywords Safety culture, Knowledge management, Stakeholder, Construction industry
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The construction sector is the most vulnerable segment of unorganized labor in India. The
Indian construction labor force is 7.5% of the total world construction labor force and it
contributes to 16.4% of fatal global occupational accidents. India has the world’s highest
accident rate among construction workers according to a recent study by the ILO
(International Labour Organization) (Kumar and Vishnuvarthan, 2014). Although there are
several Indian regulations dealing concerning the working conditions of construction workers,
their effectiveness is yet to be felt. It is a fact that in spite of all the efforts taken by some of the
elite construction companies and safety enforcement authorities, accidents and illness in
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
111
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm
Received 24 November 2019
Revised 13 March 2020
10 June 2020
27 August 2020
2 October 2020
Accepted 13 November 2020
International Journal of Workplace
Health Management
Vol. 14 No. 1, 2021
pp. 111-128
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1753-8351
DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-11-2019-0150
construction sites are still on the rise and lack of awareness is evident in many cases. Hence,
more attention should be paid to enhance the safety awareness of construction workers.
Generally, in construction industry, there is constant change in the nature of work, place,
and workers involved and thus leading to high rates of work-related health and safety issues
(Hanna and Markham, 2019). These changes seriously affect the performance assessment of
safety culture in construction industry. This often leads to progress related to safety
performance in project sites, but still inevitably causes accidents and fatalities without
learning from previous mistakes. This can be overlooked if there is a suitable mechanism to
“re-invent the wheel”to be able to prevent accidents reoccurring in the near future. This calls
for effective implementation of knowledge management strategies to enforce safety rules and
regulations and develop a positive safety culture to act upon construction projects. Generally,
in safety culture research, the questionnaire has been a predominant measurement
instrument (Guldenmund, 2007). Safety culture survey is quite often used as a predictive
tool to examine the perception of employees to understand how safety is perceived within the
organization (Choudhry et al., 2009).
There are instruments to measure safety culture that is explicitly designed for
construction industry and are customized mostly to suit a particular stakeholder group,
such as contractors, consultants and construction site workers. Along these lines, an
instrument that is appropriate to all key stakeholders would lead to progress in development
of safety culture literature. The research problem that this study address is whether a single
measuring instrument can dependably gauge the cultural differences among key
stakeholders. Such an instrument would measure the differences in identifying
improvement strategies for reducing misalignment between the key stakeholders.
Key stakeholders in construction projects are clients/owners, main contractors, sub-
contractors, consultants, etc. The objectives and involvement of key stakeholders regarding
safety may not be the same in a given project organization. These project participant’s
attitudes and behavior will have significant impact on safety performance. An important
predictor of safe work behavior in construction sites is the misalignment of stakeholder’s
objectives towards safety (Mohamed, 2002;Lingard et al., 2009;Saunders et al., 2017).
Therefore, the objective of this study is to measure and evaluate perceptive knowledge-based
safety culture among key stakeholders operational in Indian construction industry.
2. Literature review
2.1 Safety culture and knowledge management aspects in construction industry
In recent decades, assessing safety culture in organizations has become a vital step to
mitigate accidents, injuries, incidents, etc. (Choudhry et al., 2007). Safety culture as defined by
Fang and Wu (2013) (pp. 141–142) is “a mixture of attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors, and
norms held by the individuals and groups from different parties in a construction project (for
both workers and management) team, and it is gradually formed and evolved in the
construction project environment that would influence the commitment to, and the style and
proficiency of how all parties involved in the project and its personnel act and react in terms of
the ongoing safety performance.”In construction industry, safety culture is part of an
organizational culture that depicts employee’s attitudes, values, and beliefs of the
organization (Choudhry and Masood, 2011).
The components of safety culture which include attitudes and behaviors of individuals
and also the management system significantly influence the development of safety in an
organization (Cooper, 2000). The effectiveness of safe work culture is influenced by
management roles, hazard anticipation, and safety training (Kumar et al., 2012). Inadequate
occupational safety knowledge and awareness, behavior, practices, safety training, and
information provided by the organization are factors that contribute to injuries and accidents
in the workplace (Hui-Nee, 2014).
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Implementation of knowledge management for accumulating, storing, sharing, and
transferring knowledge related to safety is identified as an approach that could lead to
continual improvement in worker safety and development of a broader workplace safety
culture in construction industry (Podg
orski, 2010;J€
arvis et al., 2014;Gopang et al., 2017). The
process of knowledge management contributes to supporting the development of safety
culture in the organization (Gaureanu et al., 2016). There is growing potential in using the
knowledge embedded within the organization that serves as a vital resource in achieving the
goals of occupational safety management (Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2006;Podg
orski, 2010;
J€
arvis et al., 2014;Deepak et al., 2019).
2.2 Perspective of project stakeholders on safety culture
A study conducted by Collinson (1999) identified that there exists difference in perceptions
among project stakeholders on several safety culture constructs and these do not share a
general perspective of safety. Zohar (2000) suggested safety culture in two levels; one
established by top management level that consists of formal organization-wide rules and
regulations, and other is at workgroup level that emerges from the safety rules and
regulations imposed by the organization. Also, Glendon and Litherland (2001) revealed
contrasts between categories at the execution level and that of maintenance level in road
construction industry. However, there exists safety sub-culture within an organization that
can create a barrier for common safety culture (Choudhry and Masood, 2011;Carmichael et al.,
2016). Arboleda and Abraham (2004) considered a differentiation for examining and
classifying safety culture between employee’s behavior and management attitudes; and
demonstrated that, in order to be useful both employee and management activities should be
regarded as separate but as an interrelated phenomenon. These differences among job
positions indicate the presence of multi-level safety cultures that hinder the effectiveness of
safety performance (Findley et al., 2007). A study conducted by Masood et al. (2012) regarding
various construction trades like managers, supervisors and workers indicates that the
variation in agreement level and the perceptional difference of safety culture elements have
an impact on the usefulness of implementation of safety activities at construction projects.
Many studies have established a relationship between safety culture and outcome-based
safety performance (Christian et al., 2009;Nahrgang et al., 2011;Cigularov et al., 2013).
Moreover, Gittleman et al. (2010) gave specific recommendations on safety culture and safety
performance with an aim to enhance the perception of construction workers on safety
practices. In actual practice, this is difficult to achieve because of the fragmented nature of
construction industry. Means to recognize these sources of fragmentation among several
stakeholders can be achieved by developing a safety culture survey instrument. This survey
instrument will be able to assess the perception of individuals related to cultural aspects of
safety in organizations.
2.3 Importance of knowledge management in safety culture studies
Most of the theories developed on safety culture highlight the complex human psychological
attributes that are linked to factors like behavior and organization and thus causing the effect
of interdependency (Cooper, 2000;Teo and Feng, 2009). The major shortfall with most safety
culture models is that they do not include knowledge management aspects that enable safety
culture to be embedded in organizational practice (Deepak and Mahesh, 2019). By embedding
knowledge management aspects, the dynamic interrelationship existing among the safety
culture constructs at the enterprise level is addressed (J€
arvis et al., 2014). However,
considering knowledge as a dimension in achieving positive safety culture in construction
industry is missing in the literature. This establishes a need to formulate an integrated
approach to incorporate knowledge dimension in developing an overall safety culture. Most
safety culture models discuss the consideration of dimensions attributed to the concept of
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
113
safety culture from a general perspective and are more or less not suitable to construction
industry due to their inability to address the unique characteristics of construction projects.
Also, they lack shared learning domains for essential safety training and learning prospects
to aid knowledge management activities within the organization. More importantly, the
process of knowledge management contributes to supporting the development of safety
culture in the organization (Gaureanu et al., 2016). Therefore, it can be hypothesized that
knowledge dimension has a significant relationship with personal, behavioral and
organizational factors that could improve safety culture in the construction industry.
The elements affecting safety culture are categorized under four dimensions. The four
dimensions are Psychological –comprising of psychological aspects of individual’s and
group values, attitude and perception towards safety (P1–P14), Behavioral –dealing with
actual ongoing safety-related actions and behaviors (B1–B16), Organizational –
encompassing situational features that include safety resource allocation, training,
organization structure, management systems, etc. (O1–O23), and Knowledge –include
safety aspects that are present as tacit and explicit knowledge types (K1–K16). The elements
identified under each of these dimensions are summarized in Table 1.
2.4 Assessing safety culture in organizations
Assessing safety culture in organizations is done through an integrated approach to test the
reciprocal effect of personal, behavioral and organizational factors that help the organization
to improve safety. Quantifying safety culture is done by measuring constructs at a certain
point of time for a given set of stakeholders and is presented through safety outcomes
(Dingsdag et al., 2008;Saunders et al., 2017). These outcomes are determined through
assessment methods like safety culture survey instruments (Gittleman et al., 2010), and this
could be utilized to assess dissimilarities in approaches at the organizational level (Dov, 2008).
More explicitly, safety culture can be separated into different factors that measure the
strength of underlying elements and it is possible to recognize specific differences affecting
safety attitudes between construction organizations. However, safety culture instruments
developed by Glendon and Litherland (2001),Mohamed (2002) and Fang et al. (2006) focus on
capturing the perceptions of construction site workers alone. However, these instruments are
concerned with the determinants for the ability to manage safety (top-down organizational
attribute approach), whereas safety climate is concerned with front-line worker’s perception
of the role safety plays in the workplace (bottom-up perceptual approach) and relates to
employee safety training, its implementation and monitoring of safety rules (Oranye et al.,
2017). These instruments consist of measurable items that are specific to construction
activities at the site level, and this may not be applicable to other key stakeholders of
construction industry. Thus, there is a need for a generalized instrument that would be more
significant to an extensive scope of project participants.
These instruments have been utilized to ascertain the most critical and neglected variables
of several constructs existing among key personnel within the construction industry. More
specifically, the data is collected from numerous organizations to analyze safety culture roles
at the industry level. Along these lines, safety culture survey is an instrument to measure
safety at the sub-group level and the industry level is classified by the type of organization.
Thus, a robust tool that measures cultural differences without depending on discrete
instruments for measuring each group would be a theoretical contribution to construction
safety literature.
3. Research method
Most popular method for assessing safety culture is a perception survey (Choudhry et al.,
2009;Mohamed et al., 2009;Zhou et al., 2010). More importantly, a safety culture survey
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Construct/dimension Items/Variables Selected references
Psychological
dimension (P1–P14)
Personal commitment(P1), job
satisfaction(P2), relationship among co-
workers(P3), culture, language and
background of an individual(P4), adaptability
to new systems(P5), employee
compliance(P6), personality and willingness
to share safety knowledge(P7), safety
knowledge and training competence(P8),
financial incentives(P9), employee
recognition(P10), involvement in or exposure
to safety-related issues(P11), participation/
involvement in safety performance
evaluation(P12), Occupational Health and
Safety expertise (OH&S) expertise(P13),
safety mentoring process(P14)
Carillo et al. (2004),Cooper (2000);J€
arvis
and Tint (2009),Hallowell (2011),J€
arvis
et al. (2014),Sherehiy and Karwowski
(2006)
Behavioral
dimension (B1–B16)
Personal responsibility(B1), co-workers peer
support(B2), team working(B3), commitment
towards organization’s safety goals(B4),
better and safe working environment(B5),
safety communication tools(B6), safety
plans(B7), internal safety department(B8),
time and contacts for safety knowledge
sharing(B9), involvement in decision-making
process(B10), embedding safety knowledge
management in work process(B11), risk
management(B12), modelling safe work
practices(B13), safety knowledge
management program(B14), proprietary
orientation and training(B15&B16)
Carillo et al. (2004),Cooper (2000),J€
arvis
and Tint (2009),Hallowell (2011),J€
arvis
et al. (2014),Sherehiy and Karwowski
(2006)
Organizational
dimension (O1–O23)
OH&S management system(O1), information
technology and human resource
management(O2), clear vision and shared
values(O3), leadership(O4), safety
competence and training(O5), clear visions of
safety knowledge management
objectives(O6), safety compliance(O7),
managing conflict(O8), management
commitment and support(O9),
communication and feedback
mechanism(O10), communities of
practice(O11), safety planning(O12), safety
resource allocation(O13), regular discussion/
meetings(O14), organization training and
safety programs(O15), safety knowledge
storage(O16), safety performance
metrics(O17), safety knowledge sharing
mechanism(O18), organization safety
knowledge effectiveness(O19), organizational
memory(O20), knowledge mapping
tools(O21), investment and budgetary
requirements(O22), ease of access and
retrieval of stored safety knowledge(O23)
Carillo et al. (2004),Cooper (2000),
Hallowell (2011),J€
arvis and Tint (2009),
J€
arvis et al. (2014),Sherehiy and
Karwowski (2006),Teo and Feng (2009)
(continued )
Table 1.
Summary of literature
review
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
115
captures the perception of employees regarding safety in the organization’s workplace.
Assessment of safety culture survey instrument is required to distinguish significant safety
issues of concern for effectively implementing safety at various group levels (Gittleman et al.,
2010). This study has adopted a knowledge-based safety culture measurement tool developed
by Deepak and Mahesh (2019) for assessing safety culture in construction industry. The
measurement tool ensures reliability and validity of safety culture dimensions among key
project stakeholders of construction industry. In the present work, the measurement tool is
considered to assess the perception differences existing among key project participants.
Further, the results of the survey help to determine the most critical and neglected variables
related to safety management practices of the organizations.
3.1 Questionnaire survey design and administration
Questionnaire survey is preferred as the main method of data collection as it is an effective
instrument for acquiring data on approaches towards the relationship between variables of
interest (Hair et al., 2007). The survey instrument utilized covers the following sections: (1)
Section A (Background information): This section covers general information about the
respondent and about the company, (2) Section B (Knowledge-based safety culture
dimensions): This section covers measurable items or variables under each dimension or
construct pertaining to construction industry. The measurable items in the instrument were
segregated based on dimensions and are adequately checked for their homogeneity. This can
be maintained by considering the number of items or variables, nearly equal numbers under
each dimension or construct under consideration. And for each item, a statement that defines
the measurable item is given, for which the respondents have to give their level of importance
to the statements with respect to their organization. Likert’s five-point measurement scale is
used for indicating the level of importance to these statements (1 5Not important; 2 5Of
little importance, 3 5Moderately important, 4 5Important and 5 5Very Important).
Further, the questionnaire survey is checked by pilot testing to ensure the statements are
properly framed and are easily understandable for majority of participants. The purpose of
conducting pilot testing highlights the refinement and clarifications required in any section of
the survey. This was done among professionals and experts comprising of two main
contractors, one each of client and academia, and two from consultants of those having
adequate experience in the industry. Based on the feedback received from the respondents,
the average time taken to complete the questionnaire was approximately 30–35 min. It was
therefore considered necessary to remove some of the key statements in the questionnaire to
make it shorter. Also, some of the questions were re-worded and provided with suitable
Construct/dimension Items/Variables Selected references
Knowledge
dimension (K1–K16)
Accidents records(K1), safety
regulations(K2), safety guidelines(K3),
company records(K4), safety databases(K5),
accident analysis and self-inspections(K6),
occupational health and safety policy(K7),
safety documentation system(K8), safety
engineer’s experience(K9), safety hazard
recognition(K10), relatedness to practical
aspects(K11), perceptual and cognitive
skills(K12), physical experience(K13), thumb
rules(K14), safety facts(K15), learn and share
values(K16)
Carillo et al. (2004),Hallowell (2011),
J€
arvis and Tint (2009),J€
arvis et al.
(2014),Owusu-Manu et al. (2018),
Podg
orski (2010),Sherehiy and
Karwowski (2006)
Table 1.
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examples. The result of the pilot study yielded that the set of factors under consideration
covers the extent towards the development of safety culture in construction industry.
The data collection method is based on the population of the study (i.e. Indian construction
organizations) and more specifically the sample size considered for the study. In India, most
construction companies functioning are registered with numerous government organizations
or some other self-governing bodies being controlled under the regulation of the government
of India. This study has selected a sample of construction companies from two such
registered groups. First one consists of members of the Confederation of Real Estate
Developers Association of India (CREDAI), where members of CREDAI are real-estate
professionals and developers and are involved in residential type of construction activities.
The second one consists of members of the Construction Industry Council of India (CIDC),
New Delhi. The members of this council are large government bodies and contractual
organizations involved in all types of construction activities throughout the country and are
actively engaged in safety activities and programs. Hence, the data is collected from a
sampling frame among active members of the two groups under consideration. The target
respondents for questionnaire are professionals and experts from above-registered groups.
Among them, the focus is on clients/owners, contractors, consultants and others, who possess
a minimum of two year’s work experience on the execution of projects; this is to ensure the
reliability of the received responses. In order to minimize the common method variance, at
least two to three responses from each of the organizations were collected. The minimum
sample size that represents the study population is calculated using the formula suggested in
the study carried out by Tripathi and Jha (2019). Using this, the required sample size from two
groups under consideration is 86 members.
A total of 199 responses were obtained from 106 different companies with a response rate
of 51.68%. However, the sample size of 106 companies is greater than the required sample size
calculated. Among them, 151 responses (75.88%) were of clients/owners, 43 responses
(21.61%) were of contractors, and the remaining 5 responses (2.51%) were of consultants. In
this study, majority of respondents comprises of clients/owners, since they have their own
construction wings, i.e. in-house construction groups, and also they hold a proactive role that
can significantly influence safety at construction projects. Moreover, owners are believed to
influence safety perception, behavior and motivation on other stakeholders (Wu et al., 2015).
In comparison to clients and contractors, the respondent’s group of consultants was small
because most of the clients and contractors deploy their own team of consultants for the
projects. Out of these, 88 respondents (44.22%) had less than ten years of experience, 49
respondents (24.62%) had ten to twenty years of experience, 44 respondents (22.11%) had 20–
30 years of experience, and remaining 18 respondents (9.05%) had more than thirty years of
experience. The years of experience of all the respondents had a mean of 13.82 and a standard
deviation of 10.14. The survey was conducted from January to July 2018.
4. Data analysis
Survey responses from questionnaire are analyzed based on two ways: (1) assessing safety
culture variables and (2) analyzing the impact of safety culture dimensions.
4.1 Assessing safety culture variables
Safety culture variables as perceived by different stakeholders are assessed by conducting
ranking analysis and one-sample t-test.
4.1.1 Ranking analysis. The ranking analysis is done in order to ascertain the level of
importance of each of the variables identified for the study. The variables are ranked based on
the mean scores obtained using:
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
117
Mean score ¼Pn
i¼1Ii3Ri
n
where I
i
is the rating indicated on the importance scale, R
i
is the number of respondents
indicating a particular rating, and nis the total number of respondents. The variables are
ranked based on the mean score obtained as per the above formula. If certain variables have
equal mean score value, then the variable with the lower standard deviation was ranked
higher. Table 2 shows the ranking of knowledge-based safety culture variables among key
stakeholders of construction industry.
Based on the computation of mean scores obtained as per equation 1, the safety culture
variables were ranked from 1 to 69 from higher to lower mean scores. The variables ranked
closer to 1 indicated a perception of strengths to achieve a better safety culture, whereas the
variables ranked closer to 69 implied weakness. The ranking analysis revealed that; clients/
owners consider maintaining accident records, safety engineer’s experience and availability
of safety databases in the organization as the most important variables for enhancing safety
culture at the workplace. Whereas contractors consider the understanding of safety thumb
rules, following safety guidelines (rules and regulations) that comply with safety standards,
and safety hazard recognition as the most important variables. Lastly, consultants consider
commitment towards the organization’s safety goals, safe working environment for
employees, and the existence of safety plans for emergencies as the most important
variables for enhancing safety culture at the workplace. Incidentally, from the table, the
majority of variables were categorized under the knowledge dimension. This means that in
order to develop a positive safety culture in construction organizations, knowledge variables
should be given utmost consideration for improvement.
4.1.2 One-sample t-test. One-sample t-test is utilized to examine the statistical significance
of variables having a mean value greater than 3.0 (level of importance). Also, this test is used
to determine whether the sample mean is statistically different from the population mean
(Tripathi and Jha, 2019). The test results are provided in Table 2. As seen from the table, all
variables have a significant impact on safety culture aspects of construction organizations.
4.1.3 Spearman rank-order correlation test. Based on the rank obtained from each of the
respondent groups, Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient (R) was determined to
examine the agreement level among various respondent groups. Also, this correlation value
indicates the strength of the relationship between the respondent’sgroupsunder
consideration (Ho, 2006). This value ranges from 1toþ1. If “R”value is statistically
significant at a significance level (p< 0.05), then it indicates that there is no significant
correlation between the respondent’s group and therefore the defined null hypothesis can be
rejected (Tripathi and Jha, 2019). However, there is a significant agreement between the
respondent’s groups except for the ranking of the contractor and consultant (Table 3). This is
because there exists a remarkable inconsistency between the two groups. These differences
in safety perceptions and attitudes existing among key stakeholders of construction projects
are ascribed to varying management styles and concerns about safety issues (Masood et al.,
2012). If these differences are not seen as essentially bothersome, this could result in
ineffective implementation of safety culture programs in the organization (Findley et al., 2007;
Lin et al., 2017).
4.2 Impact of safety culture dimensions
The mean scores of safety culture dimensions were then computed for different stakeholders
to compare the perceptions of client, contractor and consultant. The mean scores computed
for all the dimensions range from 3.60 to 3.75 for psychological and knowledge dimension
respectively, and these values should be ideally closer to 5 (Likert scale rating from 1 to 5).
Also, the mean scores for the dimensions are considered to be high, when the corresponding
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Sl. No Variable id
Client Contractor Consultant All group One-sample test (test value 53)
Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank tvalue df Sig. (2-tailed)
1 K1 3.742 1 4.302 4 3.600 47 3.859 1 13.00 198 0.000
2 K9 3.709 2 4.326 3 3.800 41 3.844 2 13.08 198 0.000
3 K5 3.709 3 4.233 19 3.800 35 3.824 3 12.37 198 0.000
4 K4 3.682 4 4.279 7 3.800 34 3.814 4 12.32 198 0.000
5 K3 3.596 12 4.349 2 3.800 33 3.764 5 10.62 198 0.000
6 K13 3.636 5 4.256 9 3.200 60 3.759 6 11.82 198 0.000
7 K10 3.623 6 4.233 12 3.600 45 3.754 7 11.65 198 0.000
8 K6 3.616 7 4.233 18 3.600 43 3.749 8 11.16 198 0.000
9 K2 3.583 15 4.256 10 3.800 40 3.734 9 10.95 198 0.000
10 O19 3.589 13 4.209 22 3.800 32 3.729 10 10.80 198 0.000
11 K11 3.589 14 4.256 8 3.400 51 3.729 11 10.40 198 0.000
12 K8 3.596 10 4.233 20 3.400 55 3.729 12 10.35 198 0.000
13 K15 3.596 11 4.233 13 3.000 68 3.719 13 10.45 198 0.000
14 B15 3.556 26 4.256 11 4.000 11 3.719 14 10.23 198 0.000
15 O5 3.583 16 4.140 31 4.000 25 3.714 15 10.84 198 0.000
16 B7 3.583 17 4.093 45 4.200 3 3.709 16 10.02 198 0.000
17 K14 3.523 33 4.372 1 3.400 52 3.704 17 10.79 198 0.000
18 O15 3.523 34 4.302 6 4.000 28 3.704 18 10.42 198 0.000
19 K12 3.570 21 4.140 30 3.800 42 3.698 19 10.70 198 0.000
20 P8 3.570 22 4.163 29 3.400 58 3.693 20 9.78 198 0.000
21 O7 3.556 25 4.140 32 3.800 31 3.688 21 10.28 198 0.000
22 K7 3.576 20 4.116 40 3.400 50 3.688 22 10.00 198 0.000
23 O13 3.576 19 4.047 52 4.000 16 3.688 23 9.95 198 0.000
24 O22 3.530 32 4.233 14 3.800 39 3.688 24 9.95 198 0.000
25 K16 3.556 24 4.140 34 3.600 46 3.683 25 10.31 198 0.000
26 O11 3.543 30 4.140 36 4.000 15 3.683 26 10.14 198 0.000
27 O1 3.550 28 4.186 25 3.400 53 3.683 27 9.47 198 0.000
28 O23 3.576 18 4.047 53 3.400 54 3.673 28 9.97 198 0.000
29 O10 3.523 37 4.163 27 4.000 27 3.673 29 9.70 198 0.000
30 P6 3.510 42 4.302 5 3.200 62 3.673 30 9.27 198 0.000
31 B16 3.517 40 4.186 26 4.000 23 3.673 31 9.23 198 0.000
(continued )
Table 2.
Ranking of knowledge-
based safety culture
variables and one-
sample t-test
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
119
Sl. No Variable id
Client Contractor Consultant All group One-sample test (test value 53)
Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank tvalue df Sig. (2-tailed)
32 O12 3.490 46 4.233 15 4.200 6 3.668 32 9.83 198 0.000
33 O21 3.510 41 4.233 17 3.600 44 3.668 33 9.67 198 0.000
34 O3 3.523 38 4.163 28 3.800 37 3.668 34 9.62 198 0.000
35 O4 3.543 31 4.070 48 4.000 12 3.668 35 9.52 198 0.000
36 O14 3.523 36 4.093 43 4.200 7 3.663 36 9.75 198 0.000
37 B5 3.523 35 4.093 46 4.200 2 3.663 37 9.54 198 0.000
38 B11 3.556 27 4.000 56 3.800 30 3.658 38 9.41 198 0.000
39 O9 3.483 50 4.233 16 4.000 26 3.658 39 9.22 198 0.000
40 P11 3.603 8 3.860 66 3.600 49 3.658 40 9.18 198 0.000
41 P5 3.603 9 3.860 67 3.400 57 3.653 41 9.01 198 0.000
42 P14 3.550 29 4.070 51 3.200 67 3.653 42 8.97 198 0.000
43 B1 3.497 45 4.140 38 4.000 8 3.648 43 9.30 198 0.000
44 O16 3.483 48 4.140 37 4.000 17 3.638 44 9.10 198 0.000
45 B3 3.503 43 4.093 47 3.800 36 3.638 45 8.70 198 0.000
46 P1 3.563 23 3.930 62 3.200 65 3.633 46 9.36 198 0.000
47 B9 3.464 59 4.186 23 4.000 9 3.633 47 8.97 198 0.000
48 O17 3.470 56 4.140 33 4.000 18 3.628 48 9.23 198 0.000
49 B13 3.477 53 4.093 44 4.200 4 3.628 49 8.94 198 0.000
50 B12 3.477 54 4.116 42 4.000 22 3.628 50 8.68 198 0.000
51 O6 3.444 62 4.209 21 4.000 13 3.623 51 9.47 198 0.000
52 B8 3.437 64 4.186 24 4.000 21 3.613 52 8.89 198 0.000
53 B10 3.470 57 4.070 50 4.000 10 3.613 53 8.62 198 0.000
54 O18 3.450 60 4.140 35 3.800 38 3.608 54 9.01 198 0.000
55 B4 3.483 49 3.953 59 4.200 1 3.603 55 8.47 198 0.000
56 P10 3.517 39 3.907 63 3.400 59 3.598 56 8.62 198 0.000
57 O8 3.444 63 4.070 49 4.000 14 3.593 57 8.87 198 0.000
58 B14 3.424 67 4.116 41 4.200 5 3.593 58 8.32 198 0.000
59 O20 3.424 65 4.116 39 4.000 19 3.588 59 8.95 198 0.000
60 P13 3.477 51 4.000 57 3.200 64 3.583 60 8.30 198 0.000
61 P12 3.477 55 3.930 60 3.200 63 3.568 61 7.84 198 0.000
(continued )
Table 2.
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Sl. No Variable id
Client Contractor Consultant All group One-sample test (test value 53)
Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank Mean score Rank tvalue df Sig. (2-tailed)
62 B6 3.424 66 4.000 55 4.000 20 3.563 62 8.21 198 0.000
63 P2 3.470 58 3.884 65 3.600 48 3.563 63 7.38 198 0.000
64 P3 3.450 61 3.953 58 3.400 56 3.558 64 7.89 198 0.000
65 P7 3.477 52 3.884 64 3.000 69 3.553 65 7.74 198 0.000
66 O2 3.391 68 4.023 54 4.000 24 3.543 66 7.91 198 0.000
67 P4 3.503 44 3.721 69 3.200 61 3.543 67 7.37 198 0.000
68 P9 3.490 47 3.744 68 3.200 66 3.538 68 7.88 198 0.000
69 B2 3.318 69 3.930 61 3.800 29 3.462 69 6.67 198 0.000
Table 2.
Influence of
knowledge-
based safety
culture
121
mean value is higher than the mid-point of the response scale (i.e. 3 for a five-point scale)
(Berhan, 2020). The coefficient of variation (CV) is computed as the ratio of standard deviation
to mean for safety culture dimensions (psychological 522.78%, behavioral 522.87%,
organizational 521.21%, and knowledge 520.53%). This indicates that the perception of
clients, contractors, and consultants is significantly different from each other. Due to these
differences, the importance of key dimensions of safety culture as perceived by different
stakeholders are different; and this requires the utmost attention and consideration in
identifying the most critical and neglected among their underlying variables. This warrants
the attention of all stakeholders to work for the improvement of safety culture attributes in
the industry.
4.2.1 Correlation analysis. Correlation analysis of safety culture dimensions is done by
computing Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and this is presented in Table 4, with the
significance values. According to correlation analysis, knowledge dimension turns out to be
significant with all the three dimensions of safety culture. However, there exists a weak
correlation between knowledge and organization dimension (r50.14, p< 0.05). This is
supported by the evidence that despite organizations trying to improve organizational safety
practices, the knowledge shared among individuals (tacit knowledge) needs to be captured
for effective management of safety in the organization. Analysis results indicate that safety
culture dimensions with the influencing variables for one stakeholder might be unique in
relation to the other depending upon the point of view of an individual in an organization.
4.2.2 One-way ANOVA test. One-way ANOVA is used to test whether several independent
groups are equal or not, and to check if there are any significant differences in the feature in
all dimensions of different samples (Hsu et al., 2012). One-way ANOVA test is conducted
using SPSS v.24 to determine if there are any statistically significant differences in means
between groups (i.e. client/owner, contractor, and consultant) in terms of safety culture
dimensions. As indicated in Table 4, there was a statistically significant difference in means
of safety culture dimensions between client/owner, contractor, and consultant. The test
Dimension Mean SD Fvalue PBOK
Psychological (P) 3.60 0.82 5.09 1.00
Behavioral (B) 3.63 0.83 10.79 0.86
**
1.00
Organizational (O) 3.66 0.78 12.78 0.17 0.08 1.00
Knowledge (K) 3.75 0.77 12.41 0.74
**
0.81
**
0.14
*
1.00
Note(s):F-value is significant at 95% confidence level (p< 0.05)
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
Sl.
No
Rank comparison of
stakeholders group
Spearman’s rank
correlation coefficient, R
Significance
level, pConclusion
1 Contractor ranking vs
Client ranking
0.419
**
0.000 Reject H
0
at p55%
2 Contractor ranking vs
Consultant ranking
0.060 0.623 Accept H
0
at p55%
3 Client ranking vs
Consultant ranking
0.332
**
0.000 Reject H
0
at p55%
Note(s):H
0
5no significant correlation on the rankings between stakeholder’s groups
**
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
Table 4.
Correlation analysis
and one-way ANOVA
test of safety culture
dimensions
Table 3.
Spearman-rank order
correlation among key
stakeholders of
construction industry
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results yielded psychological dimension [F(2,196) 55.09, and p50.007], behavioral
dimension [F(2,196) 510.79, and p< 0.05], organizational dimension [F(2,196) 512.78, and
p< 0.05], and knowledge dimension [F(2,196) 512.41, and p< 0.05]. Also, most significant
effect is attributed to higher Fvalue (Deepak et al., 2019); which in this case is organizational
dimension followed by knowledge, behavioral, and psychological dimension. Also, analysis
results show that organizations should give utmost consideration to explicitly manage
knowledge in order to develop a positive safety culture in the organization.
5. Discussion
In construction working system, each organization has a distinct safety culture that adds to
project’s safety culture, and the measurable factors have been utilized to elucidate the missing
links in safety attitudes among key project participants within the construction industry (Chen
and Jin, 2012). There will be a negative effect onoccupational safetyperformance if there exists
a misalignment of safety attitudes among the project participants (Gambatese et al.,2005).
Hence, safety culture is a propermethod to measure this stakeholder alignment. In this regard,
measuring the differences among key stakeholders on safety attitudes by safety culture
survey instrument is regarded as an effective mechanism (Zohar and Luria, 2005;Pousette
et al., 2008;Lingard et al.,2009;Chen and Jin, 2012). This study was conducted to identify the
key variables that affect safety culture in construction industry. However, from the review of
literature, knowledge dimension was found to be a neglected dimension in developing an
overall safety culture in construction industry. This led to the identification of key variables
affecting knowledge-based safety culture in construction organizations. All the variables were
found to have a significant effect on safety culture based on the results of the t-test analysis.
In construction industry, the assessment ofsafety can be benchmarked through inspections
and perception surveys to ensure continuous improvement (Ng et al.,2005). In this regard, a
predictive tool to assess perception of employees to understand how safety is perceived within
the organization is measured using the safety culture survey instrument. Through
comparisons, any deviations from best practices can be investigated to provide
explanations of critical and neglected variables and lessons that provide the stimulus for
learning, innovation, and continuous improvement. Findings of the ranking analysis indicated
the most critical and neglected variables affecting knowledge-based safety culture as perceived
by key stakeholders of construction projects. These variables could be utilized as a basic
guideline for the respective stakeholder to improve in these areas. Alternatively, the variables
that were identified as weakness or barriers require special emphasis as these variables mask
the underlying safety culture, and hinder efforts to improve safety performance.
Important findings from analyzing the impact of safety culture dimensions revealed that
construction contractors are more responsible for shaping a positive safety culture in
construction organizations. This is because they have better and robust safety management
policies, practices, and resources (Chan et al., 2017) and play a vital role in shaping the safety
performance of the project (Gunduz and Ahsan, 2018). Variations based on the mean and
standard deviation were also observed across different project participants showing that the
variations were consistent and comparatively less among project participants for each
dimension of safety culture. This shows that safety culture arising from an individual’s
reaction or response to work influences organization variables, and also nature and attributes
of work. These variables can influence how individuals get safety information and how they
relate between those of other trade groups to understand any safety standards and policies.
The differences arising from these variations are attributed to the working environment
among the working groups of construction projects. Moreover, careful examination of safety
culture perceptions and differences among key stakeholders has revealed potential insight on
safety programs, policies, and strategies of the organization. Therefore, specific measures
and improvement mechanisms are required for specific stakeholders.
Influence of
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based safety
culture
123
6. Implications of the study
Recent studies on safety culture assessment have received significant attention in
construction safety management research (Fang et al., 2006;Mohamed, 2002), little is
known about the importance of knowledge management in shaping safety culture of
construction industry. This study is the first to capture and assess knowledge-based safety
culture and examine the mean differences among key stakeholders in Indian construction
industry. The study is of greater importance to investigate the perception of key project
participants, as this provides an insight into the level of importance of safety culture
attributes. This examination is a pioneer effort to draw the consideration of industry
practitioners and professionals in this area to be able to focus on specific stakeholders of
construction projects. This will likewise help to develop and improvise safety performance in
the industry. Also, the developed survey instrument to assess safety culture will provide a
pragmatic approach for construction project managers to evaluate the effectiveness of their
safety management practices and identify the effort needed from a specific safety agent for
improvement of safety. Moreover, it is generally recognized that safety management and
safety culture starts with the manager and his decision that safety should be an important
parameter in the organization (Jørgensen et al., 2011).
Several construction trades like managers, superiors and workers indicate that there exists
variation in agreement levels and perceptional difference of safety culture elements that have
an impact on the usefulness of implementation of safety activities at construction projects
(Chen and Jin, 2012). The members of workgroup level (workers) develop a common set of
perceptions of safety practices and this clearly differentiates the view of safety culture at
organization level and workgroup level (Zohar, 2000;Glendon and Litherland, 2001;Masood
et al.,2012). Careful examination of safety culture perceptions and differences among key
stakeholders can reveal potential insight on individual or group needs of safety programs,
policies and strategies (Berhan, 2020). This can be identified and specific measures and
improvementmechanisms could be devised accordingly for specific stakeholders of the project.
In actual practice, providing specific recommendations on safety culture and safety
performance with an aim to enhance perceptions of construction workers on safety practices
is difficult to achieve due to fragmented nature of construction industry. Hence, it is
recommended to recognize, identify and prioritize these sources of fragmentation among
several stakeholders by considering the most important factors that contribute toward
developing a positive safety culture at workplace. Assessing or measuring the strength of the
underlying knowledge-based safety culture factors helps to recognize specific differences
affecting safety attitudes between construction workers.
The current findings comply with the existing body of literature emphasizing the
importance of safety culture. The methodology used may be replicated in any culture and the
results provide useful information to stakeholders to enhance safety performance on
construction projects. This research can help construction professionals and practitioners to
identify the difference in perceptions among key stakeholders and enhance managerial
efforts to align dissimilar views towards the success of construction projects. In addition,
managers can propagate their safety values to have impacts on their employees and
superintendents and motivate them through establishing a culture that values safety, high
quality and effective performance.
7. Conclusion
The study has investigated the effects of safety culture variables as perceived by key
stakeholders of construction projects. This study focuses on the need to establish the novel
inclusion of knowledge dimension in safety culture studies of construction industry. In this
way, the variables categorized under knowledge dimension along with variables under
psychological, behavioral, and organizational dimensions were prioritized in a more practical
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way of examining their effect on safety culture in construction projects. Further, compiling
and analyzing the most significant variables affecting construction safety culture is done and
is shown to reflect a significant level of agreement among the key stakeholders of construction
industry. The study also addresses differences in perceiving the importance of safety culture
variables among key stakeholders of construction industry. In this regard, a unified
instrument that measures safety culture with integrated knowledge dimension is utilized for
the study. This instrument indicates a clear list of prioritized safety culture variables that are
appropriate to construction industry. Construction practitioners and professionals can utilize
this list to increase their safety performance by eradicating or alleviating these prioritized
variables effectively. This measurement tool also serves for benchmarking cultural aspects of
safe working system within an organization; thus, can boost overall safety in the industry as a
whole. Moreover, with reasonable modifications, this measurement instrument could be used
in other industries to be able to improve safety performance. Examination among key project
participants helps to recognize gaps in the work system that hinder the alignment of safety
processes within construction projects. The differences arising among key stakeholders and
the organization they serve could be utilized at the onset of projects to align project safety
objectives. The outcome of this study could be utilized to configure targeted safety practices
and enhance the overall safety performance of construction industry.
The study also has several limitations. First, the assessment of safety culture isfocused on
top and middle management levels. However, a clear and realistic approach considering lower-
level management that includes the front-line workers could be assessed by formulating a
safety climate survey. Next is that majority of respondents are comprising of clients/owners.
This is because majority of clients/owners deploy their own consultant group for the execution
of projects. Also, the survey responses obtained only considers responses from key project
participants i.e. clients/owners, contractors, and consultants. However, a wide range of
stakeholders can be taken into consideration for further validation as well.
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Corresponding author
Deepak M.D. can be contacted at: deepakmd.md@gmail.com
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