A multi-agent safety response model in the construction industry.

BACKGROUND: The construction industry is one of the sectors with the highest accident rates and the most serious accidents. A multi-agent safety response approach allows a useful diagnostic tool in order to understand factors affecting risk and accidents. The special features of the construction sector can influence the relationships among safety responses along the model of safety influences. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to test a model explaining risk and work-related accidents in the construction industry as a result of the safety responses of the organization, the supervisors, the co-workers and the worker. SAMPLE: 374 construction employees belonging to 64 small Spanish construction companies working for two main companies participated in the study. INSTRUMENTS: Safety responses were measured using a 45-item Likert-type questionnaire. METHODOLOGY: The structure of the measure was analyzed using factor analysis and the model of effects was tested using a structural equation model. RESULTS: Factor analysis clearly identifies the multi-agent safety dimensions hypothesized. The proposed safety response model of work-related accidents, involving construction specific results, showed a good fit. CONCLUSIONS: The multi-agent safety response approach to safety climate is a useful framework for the assessment of organizational and behavioral risks in construction.

Profiling safety behaviors: exploration of the sociocognitive variables that best discriminate between different behavioral patterns.

This study combines contributions from both safety climate literature and prominent social influence theories. It was developed to identify the combination of sociocognitive variables that differentiate between different profiles of safety behaviors. This empirical approach has hardly been explored in the literature on behavioral aspects related to safety. The research setting for this study was a transportation company (N = 356). The results of discriminant analysis showed that different combinations of dispositional and situational influences may lead to diverse profiles of compliance and proactive safety behaviors. Perceived behavioral control was revealed to be the variable that best differentiated the group with more safe behaviors from the others. However, results also revealed that high attitudes and perceived behavioral control are very important, but not sufficient, to promote proactive safety. Co-workers' descriptive safety norms were a major differentiating variable in proactive safety. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Another look at safety climate and safety behavior: deepening the cognitive and social mediator mechanisms.

In this study, safety climate literature and the theory of planned behavior were combined to explore the cognitive and social mechanisms that mediate the relationship between organizational safety climate and compliance and proactive safety behaviors. The sample consisted of 356 workers from a transportation organization. Using a multiple mediation design, the results revealed that proactive and compliance safety behaviors are explained by different patterns of combinations of individual and situational factors related to safety. On the one hand, the relationship between organizational safety climate and proactive safety behaviors was mediated by coworkers' descriptive norms and attitudes toward safety. On the other hand, supervisors' injunctive safety norms and perceived behavioral control were the mediator variables between organizational safety climate and compliance safety behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The "is" and the "ought": How do perceived social norms influence safety behaviors at work?

Despite a widespread view that social norms have an important contextual influence on health attitudes and behaviors, the impact of normative influences on safety behaviors has received very little attention. The current study proposes that supervisors' and coworkers' descriptive and injunctive safety norms influence proactive and compliance safety behaviors. Longitudinal results from 132 workers in a passenger transportation company support the link between coworkers' descriptive safety norms (at Time 1) and proactive safety practices (at Time 2). Crystallization of supervisor' injunctive safety norms (at Time 2) moderated the effect of coworkers' descriptive safety norms (at Time 1) on self-reported proactive safety behavior (at Time 2). These findings emphasize the differences between supervisors' and coworkers' descriptive and injunctive norms as sources of social influence on compliance and proactive safety behavior.

Health behaviour and safety in the construction sector / Conducta saludable y seguridad en el sector de la construcción

Workers’ health behaviour includes habits or actions related to physical exercise, nutrition, smoking, and drug or alcohol consumption. Unhealthy behaviour, and especially alcohol consumption, has been considered a source of accidents and injuries among construction workers. However, unhealthy behaviour can also be seen as a result of the safety and risk conditions of these jobs. The purpose of this paper is to contrast the role of unhealthy behaviour as a source or as an outcome of safety and risk in the construction sector. Data was collected from 180 workers belonging to a Spanish construction company. Two path models representing these two hypotheses were tested. The model in which unhealthy behaviour is an antecedent of injuries did not fit the data (Chi square= 73.798, df= 3,p<0.001). Results support the hypothesis of unhealthy behaviour as a result of safety and risk factors through the mediating effect of the experience of tension (Chi-square= 4.507, df= 2, p= .212). This model not only corroborates the stressful nature of exposure to risk and the absence of supervisors’ safety response, but it also makes it possible to consider injuries as a cause of tension that, in turn, affects the employees’ unhealthy behaviour (AU)

La conducta de salud abarca hábitos relacionados con el ejercicio, nutrición, tabaco y consumo de drogas o alcohol. La conducta no saludable, en especial el consumo de alcohol, se ha considerado una fuente de accidentes en construcción.Sin embargo, la conducta no saludable puede también verse como un resultado del nivel de seguridad y riesgo de esos trabajos. El propósito de este trabajo es contrastar el papel de la conducta no saludable como fuente o resultado de la seguridad y el riesgo en construcción. Los datos fueron obtenidos en180 trabajadores de una empresa constructora española. Dos modelos path representando estas dos hipótesis fueron contrastados. El modelo en que la conducta no saludable es un antecedente de los accidentes no ajusta a los datos (Chi-cuadrado= 73,798, gl= 3, p<0,001). Los resultados apoyan la hipótesis de la conducta no saludable como un resultado de factores de seguridad y mediados por la experiencia de tensión (Chi-cuadrado= 4,507, gl= 2, p= 0,212). Este modelo corrobora la naturaleza estresora de la exposición al riesgo y la ausencia de una respuesta de seguridad de los supervisores, y permite considerar los accidentes como una causa de tensión que, a su vez, afecta la conducta no saludable (AU)

Health behaviour and safety in the construction sector.

Workers' health behaviour includes habits or actions related to physical exercise, nutrition, smoking, and drug or alcohol consumption. Unhealthy behaviour, and especially alcohol consumption, has been considered a source of accidents and injuries among construction workers. However, unhealthy behaviour can also be seen as a result of the safety and risk conditions of these jobs. The purpose of this paper is to contrast the role of unhealthy behaviour as a source or as an outcome of safety and risk in the construction sector. Data was collected from 180 workers belonging to a Spanish construction company. Two path models representing these two hypotheses were tested. The model in which unhealthy behaviour is an antecedent of injuries did not fit the data (Chi square=73.798, df=3, p<0.001). Results support the hypothesis of unhealthy behaviour as a result of safety and risk factors through the mediating effect of the experience of tension (Chi-square=4.507, df=2, p=.212). This model not only corroborates the stressful nature of exposure to risk and the absence of supervisors' safety response, but it also makes it possible to consider injuries as a cause of tension that, in turn, affects the employees' unhealthy behaviour.