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International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/nics20
Use of safety management practices for improving project performance a
b
Eddie W.L. Cheng , Stephen Kelly & Neal Ryan
c
a
Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong b
SCU Business School, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus, Southern Cross Drive, Bilinga, QLD 4225, Australia c
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Division of Research, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia Published online: 18 Oct 2013.
To cite this article: Eddie W.L. Cheng, Stephen Kelly & Neal Ryan (2013): Use of safety management practices for improving project performance, International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, DOI: 10.1080/17457300.2013.844715 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457300.2013.844715
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International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457300.2013.844715
Use of safety management practices for improving project performance Eddie W.L. Chenga*, Stephen Kellyb and Neal Ryanc a
Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong; bSCU Business School, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus, Southern Cross Drive, Bilinga, QLD 4225, Australia; cDivision of Research, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia
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(Received 12 June 2013; accepted 11 September 2013) Although site safety has long been a key research topic in the construction field, there is a lack of literature studying safety management practices (SMPs). The current research, therefore, aims to test the effect of SMPs on project performance. An empirical study was conducted in Hong Kong and the data collected were analysed with multiple regression analysis. Results suggest that 3 of the 15 SMPs, which were ‘safety committee at project/site level’, ‘written safety policy’, and ‘safety training scheme’ explained the variance in project performance significantly. Discussion about the impact of these three SMPs on construction was provided. Assuring safe construction should be an integral part of a construction project plan. Keywords: safety management; safety performance; project management; construction industry; multiple regression
Introduction Construction workers have the highest fatality rate, compared to workers of other sectors. This is evidenced in many countries including Britain, Australia, and the United States (Ahmed, Kwan, Ming, & Ho, 2000). One of the possible reasons for unsafe construction work is that a construction site is crowded with workers. They are often exposed to high-risk duties (Tam, Zeng, & Deng, 2004) and are also required to perform overtime work. In the UK construction industry, the safety issue has long been a prime concern even though fatal accidents were reported to fall recently to around 90 deaths per annum (Cameron & Duff, 2007). Sustainable building and sustainable construction are terms that have been widely used nowadays to identify responsible construction project owners and contractors. In order for construction projects to be considered sustainable, project managers should take safety into account over the entire project life cycle (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). Therefore, assuring safe construction is inevitably a required sustainable practice and should be planned as early as possible. Unsafe operations are usually associated with such negative outcomes as reduced productivity, increased labour turnover, tarnished reputation, and increased cost of insurance and cost of capital (Beheiry, Chong, & Haas, 2006). These negative impacts call for the necessity to examine the effectiveness of safety practices, which aim at safeguarding workers from work-related hazards
through the establishment of positive work behaviour by use of an appropriate management system (Krause, 1993; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). The existing literature has focused on the examination of factors, affecting safety at work and the establishment of construction safety rating systems. For example, in a study of 32 Indian construction projects, six factors were found to be important for improving safety performance (Hasan & Jha, 2013). These factors are incentive distribution method, proper labour training, special attention to risky situations, role of safety committee and subcontractors, specialised works and safety equipments, and right form of safety incentive and penalty. Another study examined the relational approach in managing construction project safety and found that shared understanding and trust are important in facilitating participations’ adaptation and cooperation, which are essential in enhancing safety performance (Koh & Rowlinson, 2012). Moreover, 13 safety and health categories were identified for developing a sustainable construction safety and health rating system (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). Other researchers have further proposed the study of the role played by construction parties on safety at work, such as designers (Seo & Choi, 2008) and owners (Huang & Hinze, 2006). Safety management practices (SMPs) refer to a set of work-related means that help prevent and reduce accidents in the workplace (e.g. Cheng, Ryan, & Kelly, 2012; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). According to the Code of
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 17457300.2013.873165). Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
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Practice on Safety Management developed by Occupational Safety and Health Branch Labor Department of the Hong Kong Government (2002), SMPs include, but are not limited to, safety policy, safety training, safety inspection, accident investigation, safety committees, and safety audit. Vinodkumar and Bhasi (2010) studied the relationship between six SMPs and safety behaviour. They used a sample of employees belonging to the eight major accident hazard process industrial units in the southern part of India, and found that safety training is the most important SMP that affects safety knowledge, safety motivation, safety compliance, and safety participation. Despite their perceived importance, the study of SMPs in construction projects is infrequent (Cheng et al., 2012). This research, therefore, aims at using the SMPs to improve project performance. With this aim, two research objectives are derived (1) to identify the SMPs that are perceived to be important for project success and (2) to test the effect of the SMPs on project performance. It is expected that the findings would help site managers to identify the key SMPs, which help to reduce accidents and injuries and can improve project performance. Safety is crucial for ensuring project success (Barraza, Back, & Mata, 2004). Once safety performance has been enhanced in the workplace, companies would benefit through improved work performance (Jaselskis, Anderson, & Russell, 1996). Safety awareness and its subsequent effect on injury and illness rates can be improved by increasing commitment to safety management (Abudayyeh, Fredericks, Butt, & Shaar, 2006; Krause, 1993).
Method
assumed to be incorporated into ‘safety manual’. In the second round, they repeated the process until they accepted the final set of practices and criteria. Third, after the questionnaire was developed based on the outcomes of the above two stages, the same group of construction professionals was invited to participate in the pilot test to validate and refine the questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaire consists of three sections (demographic variables, measures of the SMPs, and measures of the project performance criteria). Table 1 lists the 15 selected SMPs, which was not exhaustive but was perceived by the selection panel as more relevant to Hong Kong. They also selected four common project performance criteria (time, scope of work, cost, and quality) that are discerned to be positively related to the SMPs. Respondents were required to state whether the fifteen SMPs were used in a recently completed project with a dichotomous scale (i.e. yes or no), and were asked to rate the performance of the same project in terms of the four project performance criteria from lowest (¼ 1) to highest (¼ 5). A large number of companies, which were involved in construction projects, found from different sources were invited via emails and telephones to participate in this research. Finally, 15 companies including clients, general contractors, consultants, specialty contractors, and subcontractors were agreed to participate. According to their request, each of these companies was sent by post a number of questionnaires, together with the same number of self-addressed stamped envelopes. Of the 772 sent questionnaires, 235 were returned. After removing three questionnaires with incomplete data, 232 responses were used for subsequent analyses, resulting in a response rate of approximately 30%.
Data collection A questionnaire-based survey was carried out in Hong Kong. The questionnaire was developed based on a mixed-method approach. First, a pool of SMPs and project performance criteria were developed based on the review of the existing literature (e.g. Barraza et al., 2004; Beheiry et al., 2006; Cheng et al., 2012; Cheng, Li, Fang, & Xie, 2004; Oberlander, 1993; Teo & Ling, 2006; Teo, Ling, & Chong, 2005; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010; Wentz, 1998). Second, a selection process that involved Delphi technique was adopted. Such a technique involves at least two rounds of expert judgment until the achievement of consensus (Powell, 2003). In this study, 10 local construction professionals, including project managers, surveyors, and construction engineers, were invited to select a list of those SMPs and project performance criteria they perceived to be relevant to the local context. In the first round, they removed similar and less relevant SMPs and considered whether there were any ‘missing’ SMPs with regard to the context of Hong Kong. For example, the term ‘safety procedure’ was removed because it is
Analysis To test the individual effect of the 15 SMPs on the four criteria, the independent-samples t-test was conducted using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) (Cavana, Delahaye, & Sekaran, 2001; Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Taham, 2009). Altogether 60 t-tests were computed. To reveal the explanatory power of the SMPs on each of the four project performance criteria, multiple regression models were established. Since the independent variables were non-metric, replacement predictor variables were formed based on the premise that any non-metric variable with k categories can be represented as k 1 dummy variables (Hair et al., 2009). Given the dichotomous nature of the SMPs, each SMP needed to form only one dummy variable. The regression coefficients for the dummy variables represent the difference between means for the dummy group (i.e. the dummy variable) and the comparison group (i.e. the omitted group) on the dependent variable. A regression equation was then formed for
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Table 1. Use of the safety management practices. Safety management practice Written safety policy Safety manual
Safety meeting Safe promotion Safe work practices Safe inspection
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Safety checklist Safety records Safety training scheme Safety audit Formal safety organisation structure Accident investigation and report Accident statistical analysis Safety committee at company level Safety committee at project/site level
Description The policy states the safety requirements for a construction project. Safety manual reflects the safety objectives and procedures that are mandated for all safety activities. It provides the means by which a firm’s safety policy can be communicated, the safety factors can be identified, and the safety responsibility and control can be defined (Tam et al., 2004). Regular safety meetings are organised for communicating safety information to project involved parties (Tam et al., 2004). This is the promotion of safety to all project participants covering all ages, levels, and backgrounds by developing an advertising campaign, such as the use of safety posters and stickers and safety contests. This is safety practices at work level. This refers to the regular safety surveillance including safety violations identification and correction. This is the checklist of the important safety procedures having been taken by workers. This refers to a database that specifies all accidents including information such as time, location, works-site condition, cause, and results of safety analysis. This involves training in occupational safety and health for designers, field supervisors, other project personnel, and workers. This refers to a structured process of collecting independent information on the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of safety management and formulating plans for correction actions (Teo & Ling, 2006). A formal safety organisation is referred to as the implementation of a safety management system in order to comply with occupational safety and health legislation, codes, and standards. This is the regular reporting of all accidents including accident and near miss investigation. Accident statistical analysis is the outcome of the accident investigation. The internal safety committee, consisting of those who are involved in safety issues within the company, can enhance employee commitment to safety (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). The project safety committee, consisting of those who are involved in the project’s safety issues, conveys safety information to project members, who then pass such information on to employees via internal safety committee (Teo et al., 2005).
each dependent variable. This study estimated the regression equations by use of SPSS. For each of the four individual regression equations, if not all the SMPs could significantly explain the variance in the dependent variable, a further test will be conducted to separate the explanatory power of the significant variables from the insignificant variables by means of hierarchical regression analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). This will help to find the explanatory power of the significant variables and the impact of the insignificant variables in the regression model. To perform this test, the significant variables were entered as the first block, while the insignificant variables were entered as the second block.
Results Demographic characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 2. The table indicates that the survey was dominated by male construction professionals (90.5%), reflecting the context of the Hong Kong construction industry. According to the key statistics made by the Census and Statistics Department (Census and Statistics Department [CSD], 2012), 91.5% of those who worked in the
construction industry in 2011 were male. The sample was also revealed to comprise mostly non-managerial staff (90.9%), reflecting that it was composed of a group of frontline construction professionals with timely experience in handling safety issues, thereby more appropriate to the present research. Table 3 indicates that most of the SMPs were used by less than half of all respondents, except for safety meeting (n ¼ 156) and safety promotion (n ¼ 135). Yet, all practices were used considerably in the construction industry despite varying degrees of usage (from 39.4% to 88.6%). More often used SMPs were perceived to better convey the importance of safety to project participants. Results of the independent-samples t-tests reveal that 59 relationships were significant (either p < 0.01 or p < 0.05), except for the non-significant relationship between safety promotion and cost. In other words, those projects that had not used safety promotion did not seem to be affected in their cost performance, while the use of other SMPs helped to improve all four project performance criteria. Results of multiple regression analysis indicate that the 15 SMPs jointly explained the variance in the four
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Table 2. Demographic profile. Characteristic Gender Age
Work experience of current position Total work experience
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Type of company
Size of company
Managerial work
Category
Frequency
Percentage (%)
Male Female Less than 25 25–34 35–44 At least 45 Less than two years Two years or more Less than two years Two years or more Clients Consultants Main contractors Subcontractors Others n < 100 100–499 500–999 n > 999 Yes No
210 22 30 114 55 33 104 128 64 168 35 43 108 35 11 67 111 9 45 21 211
90.5 9.5 12.9 49.1 23.7 14.2 44.8 55.2 27.6 72.4 15.1 18.5 46.6 15.1 4.7 28.9 47.8 3.9 19.4 9.1 90.9
Note: n ¼ 232.
project performance criteria considerably (R2 change being from 0.363 to 0.431, all significant at p < 0.01). In other words, the SMPs jointly explained 36–43% of the variance in individual project performance criteria. The amount of effect differed for each SMP on the basis of the regression coefficient (see Table 4). Some SMPs have a positive effect upon individual project performance criteria, while others have negative effects.
Table 3. Use of the safety management practices (SMPs). Safety management practice (SMP) Safety meeting Safety promotion Safety manual Safe inspection Safety records Written safety policy Safety audit Accident investigation and report Safety checklist Safety training scheme Safe work practices Accident statistical analysis Formal safety organisation structure Safety committee at company level Safety committee at project/ site level
Yes
No
156 (67.2%) 135 (58.2%) 111 (47.8%) 106 (45.7%) 94 (40.5%) 91 (39.2%) 89 (38.4%) 88 (37.9%)
76 (42.8%) 97 (41.8%) 121 (52.2%) 126 (54.3%) 138 (59.5%) 141 (60.8%) 143 (61.6%) 144 (62.1%)
85 (36.6%) 83 (35.8%) 80 (34.5%) 78 (33.6%) 67 (28.9%)
147 (63.4%) 149 (64.2%) 152 (65.5%) 154 (66.4%) 165 (71.1%)
54 (23.3%)
178 (76.7%)
52 (22.4%)
180 (77.6%)
Pertaining to the four individual regression equations, not all the SMPs could significantly explain the variance in dependent variables. Therefore, a further test was conducted to separate the explanatory power of the significant
Table 4. Beta coefficients of the 15 SMPs with respect to each performance criterion.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 R2 change
Time
Scope
Cost
Quality
0.197 0.061 0.001 0.095 0.136 0.092 0.074 0.062 0.120 0.011 0.096 0.036 0.130 0.047 0.476 0.363
0.033 0.048 0.105 0.093 0.118 0.047 0.086 0.022 0.222 0.058 0.013 0.040 0.070 0.004 0.569 0.431
0.151# 0.032 0.046 0.150 0.004 0.092 0.004 0.062 0.051 0.074 0.182 0.012 0.039 0.109 0.281# 0.365
0.208 0.048 0.005 0.069 0.074 0.033 0.013 0.094 0.091 0.073 0.193 0.025 0.163 0.181 0.489 0.382
Note: 1 ¼ Written safety policy, 2 ¼ Safety manual, 3 ¼ Safety meeting, 4 ¼ Safe promotion, 5 ¼ Safe work practices, 6 ¼ Safe inspection, 7 ¼ Safety checklist, 8 ¼ Safety records, 9 ¼ Safety training scheme, 10 ¼ Safety audit, 11 ¼ Formal safety organisation structure, 12 ¼ Accident investigation and report, 13 ¼ Accident statistical analysis, 14 ¼ Safety committee at company level, 15 ¼ Safety committee at project/site level. Denotes p < 0.05. Denotes p < 0.01. # Denotes p ¼ 0.06.
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Table 5. Hierarchical regression results for the four project performance criteria. Performance criterion Time Scope Cost
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Quality
Block
R2
R2 change
p-Value
Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables
0.330 0.363 0.408 0.431 0.331 0.363 0.353 0.377
0.330 0.033 0.408 0.023 0.331 0.032 0.353 0.024
0.000 0.592 0.000 0.776 0.000 0.539 0.000 0.743
variables from the insignificant variables. With respect to the ‘time’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.363; significant at p < 0.01) shows that only the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/ site level’ was positive and significant. As shown in Table 5, results indicate that R2 change of the first block was 0.330 (significant at p < 0.01), while that of the second block was 0.033 (insignificant at p > 0.05). Thus, the addition of other SMPs could only improve the ‘time’ criterion to a very small extent. With respect to the ‘scope’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.431; p < 0.01) shows that the effect of ‘safety committee at project/site level’ and ‘safety training scheme’ were positive and significant. Similarly, a new hierarchical regression model with these two SMPs as the first block and other SMPs as the second block was developed. Results indicate that R2 change of the first block was 0.408 (significant at p < 0.01), while that of the second block was 0.023 (insignificant at p > 0.05). This suggests that the two significant variables were the key predictor of scope. With respect to the ‘cost’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.365; p < 0.01) shows that the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/site level’ was positive and marginally significant (p ¼ 0.06). Unexpectedly, the effect of ‘safe promotion’ was significant in the opposite direction. Entering the two positive and significant SMPs as the first block in a new hierarchical regression model obtained R2 change of 0.331 (significant at p < 0.01), while the second block of other SMPs obtained R2 change of 0.032 (insignificant at p > 0.05). This also suggests a trivial improvement with the addition of other SMPs. With respect to the ‘quality’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.382; p < 0.01) shows that only the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/site level’ was positive and significant. Likewise, hierarchical regression analysis supports that the first block of the two significant variables had R2 change of 0.353 (significant at p < 0.01) and the second block of other insignificant variables had R2 change of 0.024 (insignificant at p > 0.05). The addition of other SMPs could generate minor improvement in quality.
On the whole, the above results support that 3 of the 15 SMPs were most relevant to project performance. They were ‘written safety policy’, ‘safety committee at project/site level’, and ‘safety training scheme’. Discussion This research examined the effect of 15 SMPs on four project performance criteria. The results suggest that the SMPs should be used in order to improve project performance. Individual regression models support that three individual SMPs superseded the influence of other SMPs on project performance. Interestingly, they represent three separate but major areas in safety management – policy, committee, and training. The first SMP that was shown to have a significant effect on safety was the presence of a written safety policy. Organisational safety policy was found to be one of the five factors that could influence workers’ attitudes toward safety (Langford, Rowlinson, & Sawacha, 2000). Similarly, inadequate safety policy is perceived to induce more accidents (Teo et al., 2005). Safety policy can help to promote a safe working environment, which is seen as one of the major requirements of the social ‘pillar’ of sustainable construction (while the other three ‘pillars’ are economic, biophysical, and technical) (Hill & Bowen, 1997). Safety policy supports management to devise safety guidelines and manuals and to implement safety programmes and training for employees and workers. An additional SMP that played a significant role was the presence of a safety committee at project/site level. The safety committee organised at project sites is responsible for dealing with all on-site safety issues. It helps to strengthen site supervision and leadership and promote site safety programmes that were found to be essential in reducing accidents (Baxendale & Jones, 2000; Hasan & Jha, 2013; Jannadi & Bu-Khamsin, 2002), but its criticality is overlooked by construction parties (Cheng et al., 2012). When worker representatives are involved in a safety committee, this greatly increases their commitment to enhance site safety (Mohamed, 2002). Similarly, increasing their commitment to sustainability could strengthen safety compliances and foster the need for safe
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operations (Beheiry et al., 2006). In the sustainable construction safety and health rating system, safety representatives from owners, contractors, and subcontractors are key elements in 1 of the 15 safety and health categories (i.e. safety and health professionals), as these representatives are involved in addressing safety issues during the planning and design stages of the project and their commitment to safety is, therefore, crucial (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). The third SMP that was significantly associated with construction site safety was the use of a safety training scheme. Safety training has been found to be a key predictor of safety performance in construction projects (e.g. Baxendale & Jones, 2000; Cheng et al., 2004; Hasan & Jha, 2013; Laukkanen, 1999; Toole, 2002). According to European Commission (Laukkanen, 1999), more than 75% of European Union construction workers have not received sufficient training in occupational safety and health. Safety practices should not ignore safety knowledge and training of workers (Teo et al., 2005; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). Training in occupational safety and health should be provided to designers, field supervisors, other project personnel, and workers. A learning-by-doing approach is more suitable in safety training (H€akkinen, 1995) because knowledge and skills of safety practices are often learned on the job and trainees usually require experience to deal with real work situations (Wilson & Koehn, 2000). Therefore, the safety knowledge and skills learned can be applied to the construction site immediately. Moreover, training and education should include appropriate learning assessment to make sure that trainees have acquired necessary safety training. All studies come with some limitations. The current research is no exception. One limitation is about the measuring scale of the SMPs. This research measured the SMPs based on whether the respondents used them in a project. Since the employment of the SMPs does not automatically guarantee that they were used correctly or satisfactorily, their effectiveness was not measured in the current study. One way to investigate if the SMPs were used properly is to measure the extent to which the respondents were satisfied with them in a project with a five-point scale from ‘totally unsatisfied’ to ‘totally satisfied’. By doing this, it would change the measure of the observed variables from an actual (an objective measure) to a perceived (a subjective measure) one (Cavana et al., 2001). In fact, the use of which scale is dependent on what research objectives the researcher would like to achieve (Hair et al., 2009). Another limitation lies in the propositions set in this study. The direct relationship between the SMPs and project performance might be roughly hypothesised. Their relationship may be established through some variables. In other words, the SMPs may affect some mediating factors, which in turn affect project performance. For
example, individual safety practices may be determinants of site safety, work-in-progress, site environment, work procedures, project workflow, rework, and so forth, which in turn affect project performance. Furthermore, the SMPs may exert influence on each other, leading to a more complicated conceptual framework. For example, the safety training scheme and safe work practices are derived from the safety policy, while formal safety organisations are responsible for analysing accidents, promoting safety, and organising safety meetings. On-going research may explore the above-mentioned relationships. This would help to develop a more comprehensive model for studying safety management. Acknowledgements This research was partially supported by Southern Cross University under a departmental grant. The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
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Use of safety management practices for improving project performance a
b
Eddie W.L. Cheng , Stephen Kelly & Neal Ryan
c
a
Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong b
SCU Business School, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus, Southern Cross Drive, Bilinga, QLD 4225, Australia c
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Division of Research, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia Published online: 18 Oct 2013.
To cite this article: Eddie W.L. Cheng, Stephen Kelly & Neal Ryan (2013): Use of safety management practices for improving project performance, International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, DOI: 10.1080/17457300.2013.844715 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457300.2013.844715
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International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457300.2013.844715
Use of safety management practices for improving project performance Eddie W.L. Chenga*, Stephen Kellyb and Neal Ryanc a
Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong; bSCU Business School, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus, Southern Cross Drive, Bilinga, QLD 4225, Australia; cDivision of Research, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia
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(Received 12 June 2013; accepted 11 September 2013) Although site safety has long been a key research topic in the construction field, there is a lack of literature studying safety management practices (SMPs). The current research, therefore, aims to test the effect of SMPs on project performance. An empirical study was conducted in Hong Kong and the data collected were analysed with multiple regression analysis. Results suggest that 3 of the 15 SMPs, which were ‘safety committee at project/site level’, ‘written safety policy’, and ‘safety training scheme’ explained the variance in project performance significantly. Discussion about the impact of these three SMPs on construction was provided. Assuring safe construction should be an integral part of a construction project plan. Keywords: safety management; safety performance; project management; construction industry; multiple regression
Introduction Construction workers have the highest fatality rate, compared to workers of other sectors. This is evidenced in many countries including Britain, Australia, and the United States (Ahmed, Kwan, Ming, & Ho, 2000). One of the possible reasons for unsafe construction work is that a construction site is crowded with workers. They are often exposed to high-risk duties (Tam, Zeng, & Deng, 2004) and are also required to perform overtime work. In the UK construction industry, the safety issue has long been a prime concern even though fatal accidents were reported to fall recently to around 90 deaths per annum (Cameron & Duff, 2007). Sustainable building and sustainable construction are terms that have been widely used nowadays to identify responsible construction project owners and contractors. In order for construction projects to be considered sustainable, project managers should take safety into account over the entire project life cycle (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). Therefore, assuring safe construction is inevitably a required sustainable practice and should be planned as early as possible. Unsafe operations are usually associated with such negative outcomes as reduced productivity, increased labour turnover, tarnished reputation, and increased cost of insurance and cost of capital (Beheiry, Chong, & Haas, 2006). These negative impacts call for the necessity to examine the effectiveness of safety practices, which aim at safeguarding workers from work-related hazards
through the establishment of positive work behaviour by use of an appropriate management system (Krause, 1993; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). The existing literature has focused on the examination of factors, affecting safety at work and the establishment of construction safety rating systems. For example, in a study of 32 Indian construction projects, six factors were found to be important for improving safety performance (Hasan & Jha, 2013). These factors are incentive distribution method, proper labour training, special attention to risky situations, role of safety committee and subcontractors, specialised works and safety equipments, and right form of safety incentive and penalty. Another study examined the relational approach in managing construction project safety and found that shared understanding and trust are important in facilitating participations’ adaptation and cooperation, which are essential in enhancing safety performance (Koh & Rowlinson, 2012). Moreover, 13 safety and health categories were identified for developing a sustainable construction safety and health rating system (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). Other researchers have further proposed the study of the role played by construction parties on safety at work, such as designers (Seo & Choi, 2008) and owners (Huang & Hinze, 2006). Safety management practices (SMPs) refer to a set of work-related means that help prevent and reduce accidents in the workplace (e.g. Cheng, Ryan, & Kelly, 2012; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). According to the Code of
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 17457300.2013.873165). Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
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Practice on Safety Management developed by Occupational Safety and Health Branch Labor Department of the Hong Kong Government (2002), SMPs include, but are not limited to, safety policy, safety training, safety inspection, accident investigation, safety committees, and safety audit. Vinodkumar and Bhasi (2010) studied the relationship between six SMPs and safety behaviour. They used a sample of employees belonging to the eight major accident hazard process industrial units in the southern part of India, and found that safety training is the most important SMP that affects safety knowledge, safety motivation, safety compliance, and safety participation. Despite their perceived importance, the study of SMPs in construction projects is infrequent (Cheng et al., 2012). This research, therefore, aims at using the SMPs to improve project performance. With this aim, two research objectives are derived (1) to identify the SMPs that are perceived to be important for project success and (2) to test the effect of the SMPs on project performance. It is expected that the findings would help site managers to identify the key SMPs, which help to reduce accidents and injuries and can improve project performance. Safety is crucial for ensuring project success (Barraza, Back, & Mata, 2004). Once safety performance has been enhanced in the workplace, companies would benefit through improved work performance (Jaselskis, Anderson, & Russell, 1996). Safety awareness and its subsequent effect on injury and illness rates can be improved by increasing commitment to safety management (Abudayyeh, Fredericks, Butt, & Shaar, 2006; Krause, 1993).
Method
assumed to be incorporated into ‘safety manual’. In the second round, they repeated the process until they accepted the final set of practices and criteria. Third, after the questionnaire was developed based on the outcomes of the above two stages, the same group of construction professionals was invited to participate in the pilot test to validate and refine the questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaire consists of three sections (demographic variables, measures of the SMPs, and measures of the project performance criteria). Table 1 lists the 15 selected SMPs, which was not exhaustive but was perceived by the selection panel as more relevant to Hong Kong. They also selected four common project performance criteria (time, scope of work, cost, and quality) that are discerned to be positively related to the SMPs. Respondents were required to state whether the fifteen SMPs were used in a recently completed project with a dichotomous scale (i.e. yes or no), and were asked to rate the performance of the same project in terms of the four project performance criteria from lowest (¼ 1) to highest (¼ 5). A large number of companies, which were involved in construction projects, found from different sources were invited via emails and telephones to participate in this research. Finally, 15 companies including clients, general contractors, consultants, specialty contractors, and subcontractors were agreed to participate. According to their request, each of these companies was sent by post a number of questionnaires, together with the same number of self-addressed stamped envelopes. Of the 772 sent questionnaires, 235 were returned. After removing three questionnaires with incomplete data, 232 responses were used for subsequent analyses, resulting in a response rate of approximately 30%.
Data collection A questionnaire-based survey was carried out in Hong Kong. The questionnaire was developed based on a mixed-method approach. First, a pool of SMPs and project performance criteria were developed based on the review of the existing literature (e.g. Barraza et al., 2004; Beheiry et al., 2006; Cheng et al., 2012; Cheng, Li, Fang, & Xie, 2004; Oberlander, 1993; Teo & Ling, 2006; Teo, Ling, & Chong, 2005; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010; Wentz, 1998). Second, a selection process that involved Delphi technique was adopted. Such a technique involves at least two rounds of expert judgment until the achievement of consensus (Powell, 2003). In this study, 10 local construction professionals, including project managers, surveyors, and construction engineers, were invited to select a list of those SMPs and project performance criteria they perceived to be relevant to the local context. In the first round, they removed similar and less relevant SMPs and considered whether there were any ‘missing’ SMPs with regard to the context of Hong Kong. For example, the term ‘safety procedure’ was removed because it is
Analysis To test the individual effect of the 15 SMPs on the four criteria, the independent-samples t-test was conducted using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) (Cavana, Delahaye, & Sekaran, 2001; Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Taham, 2009). Altogether 60 t-tests were computed. To reveal the explanatory power of the SMPs on each of the four project performance criteria, multiple regression models were established. Since the independent variables were non-metric, replacement predictor variables were formed based on the premise that any non-metric variable with k categories can be represented as k 1 dummy variables (Hair et al., 2009). Given the dichotomous nature of the SMPs, each SMP needed to form only one dummy variable. The regression coefficients for the dummy variables represent the difference between means for the dummy group (i.e. the dummy variable) and the comparison group (i.e. the omitted group) on the dependent variable. A regression equation was then formed for
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Table 1. Use of the safety management practices. Safety management practice Written safety policy Safety manual
Safety meeting Safe promotion Safe work practices Safe inspection
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Safety checklist Safety records Safety training scheme Safety audit Formal safety organisation structure Accident investigation and report Accident statistical analysis Safety committee at company level Safety committee at project/site level
Description The policy states the safety requirements for a construction project. Safety manual reflects the safety objectives and procedures that are mandated for all safety activities. It provides the means by which a firm’s safety policy can be communicated, the safety factors can be identified, and the safety responsibility and control can be defined (Tam et al., 2004). Regular safety meetings are organised for communicating safety information to project involved parties (Tam et al., 2004). This is the promotion of safety to all project participants covering all ages, levels, and backgrounds by developing an advertising campaign, such as the use of safety posters and stickers and safety contests. This is safety practices at work level. This refers to the regular safety surveillance including safety violations identification and correction. This is the checklist of the important safety procedures having been taken by workers. This refers to a database that specifies all accidents including information such as time, location, works-site condition, cause, and results of safety analysis. This involves training in occupational safety and health for designers, field supervisors, other project personnel, and workers. This refers to a structured process of collecting independent information on the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of safety management and formulating plans for correction actions (Teo & Ling, 2006). A formal safety organisation is referred to as the implementation of a safety management system in order to comply with occupational safety and health legislation, codes, and standards. This is the regular reporting of all accidents including accident and near miss investigation. Accident statistical analysis is the outcome of the accident investigation. The internal safety committee, consisting of those who are involved in safety issues within the company, can enhance employee commitment to safety (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). The project safety committee, consisting of those who are involved in the project’s safety issues, conveys safety information to project members, who then pass such information on to employees via internal safety committee (Teo et al., 2005).
each dependent variable. This study estimated the regression equations by use of SPSS. For each of the four individual regression equations, if not all the SMPs could significantly explain the variance in the dependent variable, a further test will be conducted to separate the explanatory power of the significant variables from the insignificant variables by means of hierarchical regression analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). This will help to find the explanatory power of the significant variables and the impact of the insignificant variables in the regression model. To perform this test, the significant variables were entered as the first block, while the insignificant variables were entered as the second block.
Results Demographic characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 2. The table indicates that the survey was dominated by male construction professionals (90.5%), reflecting the context of the Hong Kong construction industry. According to the key statistics made by the Census and Statistics Department (Census and Statistics Department [CSD], 2012), 91.5% of those who worked in the
construction industry in 2011 were male. The sample was also revealed to comprise mostly non-managerial staff (90.9%), reflecting that it was composed of a group of frontline construction professionals with timely experience in handling safety issues, thereby more appropriate to the present research. Table 3 indicates that most of the SMPs were used by less than half of all respondents, except for safety meeting (n ¼ 156) and safety promotion (n ¼ 135). Yet, all practices were used considerably in the construction industry despite varying degrees of usage (from 39.4% to 88.6%). More often used SMPs were perceived to better convey the importance of safety to project participants. Results of the independent-samples t-tests reveal that 59 relationships were significant (either p < 0.01 or p < 0.05), except for the non-significant relationship between safety promotion and cost. In other words, those projects that had not used safety promotion did not seem to be affected in their cost performance, while the use of other SMPs helped to improve all four project performance criteria. Results of multiple regression analysis indicate that the 15 SMPs jointly explained the variance in the four
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Table 2. Demographic profile. Characteristic Gender Age
Work experience of current position Total work experience
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Type of company
Size of company
Managerial work
Category
Frequency
Percentage (%)
Male Female Less than 25 25–34 35–44 At least 45 Less than two years Two years or more Less than two years Two years or more Clients Consultants Main contractors Subcontractors Others n < 100 100–499 500–999 n > 999 Yes No
210 22 30 114 55 33 104 128 64 168 35 43 108 35 11 67 111 9 45 21 211
90.5 9.5 12.9 49.1 23.7 14.2 44.8 55.2 27.6 72.4 15.1 18.5 46.6 15.1 4.7 28.9 47.8 3.9 19.4 9.1 90.9
Note: n ¼ 232.
project performance criteria considerably (R2 change being from 0.363 to 0.431, all significant at p < 0.01). In other words, the SMPs jointly explained 36–43% of the variance in individual project performance criteria. The amount of effect differed for each SMP on the basis of the regression coefficient (see Table 4). Some SMPs have a positive effect upon individual project performance criteria, while others have negative effects.
Table 3. Use of the safety management practices (SMPs). Safety management practice (SMP) Safety meeting Safety promotion Safety manual Safe inspection Safety records Written safety policy Safety audit Accident investigation and report Safety checklist Safety training scheme Safe work practices Accident statistical analysis Formal safety organisation structure Safety committee at company level Safety committee at project/ site level
Yes
No
156 (67.2%) 135 (58.2%) 111 (47.8%) 106 (45.7%) 94 (40.5%) 91 (39.2%) 89 (38.4%) 88 (37.9%)
76 (42.8%) 97 (41.8%) 121 (52.2%) 126 (54.3%) 138 (59.5%) 141 (60.8%) 143 (61.6%) 144 (62.1%)
85 (36.6%) 83 (35.8%) 80 (34.5%) 78 (33.6%) 67 (28.9%)
147 (63.4%) 149 (64.2%) 152 (65.5%) 154 (66.4%) 165 (71.1%)
54 (23.3%)
178 (76.7%)
52 (22.4%)
180 (77.6%)
Pertaining to the four individual regression equations, not all the SMPs could significantly explain the variance in dependent variables. Therefore, a further test was conducted to separate the explanatory power of the significant
Table 4. Beta coefficients of the 15 SMPs with respect to each performance criterion.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 R2 change
Time
Scope
Cost
Quality
0.197 0.061 0.001 0.095 0.136 0.092 0.074 0.062 0.120 0.011 0.096 0.036 0.130 0.047 0.476 0.363
0.033 0.048 0.105 0.093 0.118 0.047 0.086 0.022 0.222 0.058 0.013 0.040 0.070 0.004 0.569 0.431
0.151# 0.032 0.046 0.150 0.004 0.092 0.004 0.062 0.051 0.074 0.182 0.012 0.039 0.109 0.281# 0.365
0.208 0.048 0.005 0.069 0.074 0.033 0.013 0.094 0.091 0.073 0.193 0.025 0.163 0.181 0.489 0.382
Note: 1 ¼ Written safety policy, 2 ¼ Safety manual, 3 ¼ Safety meeting, 4 ¼ Safe promotion, 5 ¼ Safe work practices, 6 ¼ Safe inspection, 7 ¼ Safety checklist, 8 ¼ Safety records, 9 ¼ Safety training scheme, 10 ¼ Safety audit, 11 ¼ Formal safety organisation structure, 12 ¼ Accident investigation and report, 13 ¼ Accident statistical analysis, 14 ¼ Safety committee at company level, 15 ¼ Safety committee at project/site level. Denotes p < 0.05. Denotes p < 0.01. # Denotes p ¼ 0.06.
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Table 5. Hierarchical regression results for the four project performance criteria. Performance criterion Time Scope Cost
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Quality
Block
R2
R2 change
p-Value
Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables Significant variables Other variables
0.330 0.363 0.408 0.431 0.331 0.363 0.353 0.377
0.330 0.033 0.408 0.023 0.331 0.032 0.353 0.024
0.000 0.592 0.000 0.776 0.000 0.539 0.000 0.743
variables from the insignificant variables. With respect to the ‘time’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.363; significant at p < 0.01) shows that only the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/ site level’ was positive and significant. As shown in Table 5, results indicate that R2 change of the first block was 0.330 (significant at p < 0.01), while that of the second block was 0.033 (insignificant at p > 0.05). Thus, the addition of other SMPs could only improve the ‘time’ criterion to a very small extent. With respect to the ‘scope’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.431; p < 0.01) shows that the effect of ‘safety committee at project/site level’ and ‘safety training scheme’ were positive and significant. Similarly, a new hierarchical regression model with these two SMPs as the first block and other SMPs as the second block was developed. Results indicate that R2 change of the first block was 0.408 (significant at p < 0.01), while that of the second block was 0.023 (insignificant at p > 0.05). This suggests that the two significant variables were the key predictor of scope. With respect to the ‘cost’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.365; p < 0.01) shows that the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/site level’ was positive and marginally significant (p ¼ 0.06). Unexpectedly, the effect of ‘safe promotion’ was significant in the opposite direction. Entering the two positive and significant SMPs as the first block in a new hierarchical regression model obtained R2 change of 0.331 (significant at p < 0.01), while the second block of other SMPs obtained R2 change of 0.032 (insignificant at p > 0.05). This also suggests a trivial improvement with the addition of other SMPs. With respect to the ‘quality’ criterion, the regression equation (R2 change ¼ 0.382; p < 0.01) shows that only the effect of ‘written safety policy’ and ‘safety committee at project/site level’ was positive and significant. Likewise, hierarchical regression analysis supports that the first block of the two significant variables had R2 change of 0.353 (significant at p < 0.01) and the second block of other insignificant variables had R2 change of 0.024 (insignificant at p > 0.05). The addition of other SMPs could generate minor improvement in quality.
On the whole, the above results support that 3 of the 15 SMPs were most relevant to project performance. They were ‘written safety policy’, ‘safety committee at project/site level’, and ‘safety training scheme’. Discussion This research examined the effect of 15 SMPs on four project performance criteria. The results suggest that the SMPs should be used in order to improve project performance. Individual regression models support that three individual SMPs superseded the influence of other SMPs on project performance. Interestingly, they represent three separate but major areas in safety management – policy, committee, and training. The first SMP that was shown to have a significant effect on safety was the presence of a written safety policy. Organisational safety policy was found to be one of the five factors that could influence workers’ attitudes toward safety (Langford, Rowlinson, & Sawacha, 2000). Similarly, inadequate safety policy is perceived to induce more accidents (Teo et al., 2005). Safety policy can help to promote a safe working environment, which is seen as one of the major requirements of the social ‘pillar’ of sustainable construction (while the other three ‘pillars’ are economic, biophysical, and technical) (Hill & Bowen, 1997). Safety policy supports management to devise safety guidelines and manuals and to implement safety programmes and training for employees and workers. An additional SMP that played a significant role was the presence of a safety committee at project/site level. The safety committee organised at project sites is responsible for dealing with all on-site safety issues. It helps to strengthen site supervision and leadership and promote site safety programmes that were found to be essential in reducing accidents (Baxendale & Jones, 2000; Hasan & Jha, 2013; Jannadi & Bu-Khamsin, 2002), but its criticality is overlooked by construction parties (Cheng et al., 2012). When worker representatives are involved in a safety committee, this greatly increases their commitment to enhance site safety (Mohamed, 2002). Similarly, increasing their commitment to sustainability could strengthen safety compliances and foster the need for safe
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operations (Beheiry et al., 2006). In the sustainable construction safety and health rating system, safety representatives from owners, contractors, and subcontractors are key elements in 1 of the 15 safety and health categories (i.e. safety and health professionals), as these representatives are involved in addressing safety issues during the planning and design stages of the project and their commitment to safety is, therefore, crucial (Rajendran & Gambatese, 2009). The third SMP that was significantly associated with construction site safety was the use of a safety training scheme. Safety training has been found to be a key predictor of safety performance in construction projects (e.g. Baxendale & Jones, 2000; Cheng et al., 2004; Hasan & Jha, 2013; Laukkanen, 1999; Toole, 2002). According to European Commission (Laukkanen, 1999), more than 75% of European Union construction workers have not received sufficient training in occupational safety and health. Safety practices should not ignore safety knowledge and training of workers (Teo et al., 2005; Vinodkumar & Bhasi, 2010). Training in occupational safety and health should be provided to designers, field supervisors, other project personnel, and workers. A learning-by-doing approach is more suitable in safety training (H€akkinen, 1995) because knowledge and skills of safety practices are often learned on the job and trainees usually require experience to deal with real work situations (Wilson & Koehn, 2000). Therefore, the safety knowledge and skills learned can be applied to the construction site immediately. Moreover, training and education should include appropriate learning assessment to make sure that trainees have acquired necessary safety training. All studies come with some limitations. The current research is no exception. One limitation is about the measuring scale of the SMPs. This research measured the SMPs based on whether the respondents used them in a project. Since the employment of the SMPs does not automatically guarantee that they were used correctly or satisfactorily, their effectiveness was not measured in the current study. One way to investigate if the SMPs were used properly is to measure the extent to which the respondents were satisfied with them in a project with a five-point scale from ‘totally unsatisfied’ to ‘totally satisfied’. By doing this, it would change the measure of the observed variables from an actual (an objective measure) to a perceived (a subjective measure) one (Cavana et al., 2001). In fact, the use of which scale is dependent on what research objectives the researcher would like to achieve (Hair et al., 2009). Another limitation lies in the propositions set in this study. The direct relationship between the SMPs and project performance might be roughly hypothesised. Their relationship may be established through some variables. In other words, the SMPs may affect some mediating factors, which in turn affect project performance. For
example, individual safety practices may be determinants of site safety, work-in-progress, site environment, work procedures, project workflow, rework, and so forth, which in turn affect project performance. Furthermore, the SMPs may exert influence on each other, leading to a more complicated conceptual framework. For example, the safety training scheme and safe work practices are derived from the safety policy, while formal safety organisations are responsible for analysing accidents, promoting safety, and organising safety meetings. On-going research may explore the above-mentioned relationships. This would help to develop a more comprehensive model for studying safety management. Acknowledgements This research was partially supported by Southern Cross University under a departmental grant. The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
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