Developing a Process to Measure Safety Climate under the Construction Working Environment
Open Access
- Author:
- Niu, Miaomiao
- Graduate Program:
- Architectural Engineering
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 15, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Robert Michael Leicht, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Robert Michael Leicht, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
John Isaac Messner, Committee Member
Somayeh Asadi, Committee Member
Susan Mohammed, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Safety Climate
Construction Safety
Process Model - Abstract:
- Safety climate has been widely used as a leading indicator to predict safety performance across multiple industries. Although extensive studies have focused on safety climate measurement in construction, the interpretations of the results are confusing to project management. There is a lack of theoretical development of safety climate indicators in the dynamic context of the construction industry. This research is aimed at developing a process to measure safety climate under the construction working environment. Four stages are designed to accomplish this research goal, including 1) Problem identification; 2) development of safety climate contextual indicators, where systematic review and focus group discussions were applied to identify the contextual indicators related to safety climate; 3) development of the safety climate measurement process model, where a case study was conducted to implement the process of safety climate measurement in the construction context; 4) process model validation, where the process model was validated by focus group discussion and expert interviews. The results of this research include a framework of contextual indicators of safety climate, as well as a process model of safety climate measurement under the dynamic construction working environment. By implementing the process model through the case study, the relationship between site dynamics and perceived safety was explored. The research contributes to industry applications of using safety climate as a leading indicator to proactively manage site safety under the dynamic working environment. The findings also contribute to a more holistic understanding of the safety climate concept, and serves as a foundation to explain the mechanisms of the industry context influencing safety climate.