Management commitment to establish safety culture in construction industry

Abstract

The Management commitment to establish safety culture in construction industry. The construction industry is the largest accident prone industry in the world. It is also one of the least safe industry with a high frequency of accidents resulting in financial loses, injuries, disabilities and deaths. Hence, it is clear from the construction industry’s safety records that there is room for improvement through the implementation of the management commitment which is a part of the safety culture. In recent years, many construction companies have recognized this importance of the establishment of good safety culture through better management commitment can help in reducing the construction costs by controlling the safety risks, minimising workplace accidents and increasing the efficiency of enduring project operations in the long term. A better safety culture with the strong management commitment provides significant benefits to the construction industry. The features of management commitment of the safety culture and its applicability have dynamic impact in construction industry. Establishing safety culture through management commitment elements in construction industry faced some barriers due to various reasons. The aim of this research is to investigate the elements of management commitment and its barriers to propose a framework in order to establish the safety culture in construction industry. The safety culture through management commitment which could be implemented in the construction sites were identified through mixed methodology approach. The expert interview was carried out among twelve experts as semi-structured interview and a questionnaire survey was conducted among forty respondents. The outcome of this research has proposed a framework to establish safety culture through management commitment in construction industry. More over the RII was used for data analysis to prioritize the factors and one sample t-test was carried out to identify the significant management commitment elements and its barriers. 27 management commitment elements and 30 barriers were identified through the literature review. Out of these, 21 elements and 18 barriers were identified as significant following the semi-structured interviews and the questionnaire survey and was used in developing the framework. Accordingly this frame work has contributed to fulfill the aim of the research and subsidized to knowledge by adding up a developed guidelines which could be used in establishing safety culture in construction industry.