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Group-level safety climate in the Australian construction industry: within-group homogeneity and between-group differences in road construction and maintenance

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Listed:
  • Helen Clare Lingard
  • Tracy Cooke
  • Nick Blismas

Abstract

In modern organizations it is overly simplistic to assume that a uniform, organization-wide climate for safety develops. Workgroup-level safety climates are more likely to arise in decentralized organizations and their influence on occupational health and safety (OHS) behaviour is likely to be stronger when work is non-routine, as in construction. The existence of workgroup-level safety climates was examined in the Australian construction industry. A group-level safety climate survey was conducted in a road maintenance and construction organization. The clear factorial structure produced in a larger sample of Australian defence logistics workers was not replicated and factors splintered, possibly due to the subject-to-item ratio in the construction study. However, the internal reliability consistency of the factors produced in the earlier pilot study was found to be acceptable for the construction industry data. Two requisite conditions for the existence of group-level safety climates, i.e. (1) within-group homogeneity; and (2) between-group variation, were satisfied within the road construction and maintenance organization. The results indicate that distinct workgroup safety climates exist in construction, providing a theoretical explanation for why some workgroups perform better in OHS than others, despite having similar risk exposure.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Clare Lingard & Tracy Cooke & Nick Blismas, 2009. "Group-level safety climate in the Australian construction industry: within-group homogeneity and between-group differences in road construction and maintenance," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 419-432.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:27:y:2009:i:4:p:419-432
    DOI: 10.1080/01446190902822971
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Helen Lingard & Steve Rowlinson, 2006. "Letter to the Editor," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(11), pages 1107-1109.
    2. Andrew Neal & Mark A. Griffin, 2002. "Safety Climate and Safety Behaviour," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 27(1_suppl), pages 67-75, June.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ran Gao & Albert P.C. Chan & Wahyudi P. Utama & Hafiz Zahoor, 2016. "Multilevel Safety Climate and Safety Performance in the Construction Industry: Development and Validation of a Top-Down Mechanism," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-14, November.
    2. Chaohua Xiong & Kongzheng Liang & HanBin Luo & Ivan W. H. Fung, 2018. "Identification of Safety-Related Opinion Leaders among Construction Workers: Evidence from Scaffolders of Metro Construction in Wuhan, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Lars Peter Andersen & Line Nørdam & Thomas Joensson & Pete Kines & Kent J. Nielsen, 2018. "Social identity, safety climate and self-reported accidents among construction workers," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 22-31, January.
    4. Carol K.H. Hon & Yulin Liu, 2016. "Exploring Typical and Atypical Safety Climate Perceptions of Practitioners in the Repair, Maintenance, Minor Alteration and Addition (RMAA) Sector in Hong Kong," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-12, September.
    5. Helen Clare Lingard & Tracy Cooke & Nick Blismas, 2010. "Safety climate in conditions of construction subcontracting: a multi-level analysis," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(8), pages 813-825.
    6. Helen Clare Lingard & Tracy Cooke & Nick Blismas, 2010. "Properties of group safety climate in construction: the development and evaluation of a typology," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(10), pages 1099-1112.
    7. Rita Peihua Zhang & Helen Lingard & Steve Nevin, 2015. "Development and validation of a multilevel safety climate measurement tool in the construction industry," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(10), pages 818-839, October.
    8. Valerie Caven, 2012. "Organization Management in Construction," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 494-496, February.
    9. Zongjie Pi & Xin Gao & Linyan Chen & Jinghua Liu, 2019. "The New Path to Improve Construction Safety Performance in China: An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-24, July.
    10. Bumjin Han & Seunghyun Son & Sunkuk Kim, 2021. "Measuring Safety Climate in the Construction Industry: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-22, September.
    11. Graeme D. Larsen & Jennifer Whyte, 2013. "Safe construction through design: perspectives from the site team," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 675-690, June.
    12. Ibrahim Mosly & Anas A. Makki, 2020. "Safety Climate Perceptions in the Construction Industry of Saudi Arabia: The Current Situation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-16, September.
    13. Ibrahim Mosly & Anas A. Makki, 2021. "The Effects of Multi-Sociodemographic Characteristics of Construction Sites Personnel on Perceptions of Safety Climate-Influencing Factors: The Construction Industry in Saudi Arabia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-16, February.

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