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The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety

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A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 7386

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Yuting Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

The William States Lee College of Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Interests: construction safety; organizational resilience; individual resilience; transportation safety; automation in construction safety inspection

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A plateau in construction safety (i.e., a minimal decrease in the fatality rate over a period of time) has been observed in many countries and regions over the past decade, such as the US and UK. Due to the nature of the work, besides a high probability of experiencing safety incidents on site, construction workers face many other challenges every day, such as a busy schedule on site, conflicts with their coworkers and supervisors, and now, the social distance mandates because of COVID-19. In this context, it is urgent to find new solutions to overcome the safety plateau and to continuously advance construction safety research and practice.

The goal of this Special Issue is to publish a collection of articles that are related to the following:

First, a detailed introductory paper that references existing research and other published literature to document how organizational and individual factors (e.g., safety climate, organizational resilience, individual personality, interpersonal conflicts at work) can affect construction safety research;
Second, manuscripts on how organizational and individual factors affect construction safety performance from different countries and regions, given that safety problems are location-based and the factors that play a role might be different;
Third, how organizational and individual factors interact with each other, and how those factors interact with other aspects, such as safety management systems and operations of organizations.

Dr. Yuting Chen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

organizational factors
individual factors
construction safety plateau
complexity of construction projects
workplace safety

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 895 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How Can Conflicts with Supervisors or Coworkers Affect Construction Workers’ Safety Performance on Site? Two Cross-Sectional Studies in North America

by Yuting (Tina) Chen, Douglas Hyatt, Arash Shahi, Awad Hanna and Mahdi Safa

Buildings 2024, 14(5), 1245; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14051245 - 27 Apr 2024

Viewed by 539

Abstract

A safety plateau in the construction industry has been reported in the US and Canada, which has prompted researchers to seek new factors affecting construction safety performance. Tapping into advancements in the theory of human and organizational behaviors can yield valuable new perspectives. Therefore, by leveraging the advancement of the Job Demand Control Support model in the field of occupational safety and health, this paper firstly tested the impact of one newly added hindrance stressor (i.e., interpersonal conflicts on construction sites) by researchers on organizational behaviors on the safety performance of construction workers, based on two cross-sectional studies in the US and Canada. Differentiations were made between conflicts with supervisors and conflicts with coworkers. One personal resource factor, i.e., individual resilience, was also considered in this paper. A “causal” chain that shows the mitigation impact of individual resilience on conflicts with supervisors or coworkers, and the adverse impact of conflicts with supervisors or coworkers, on unsafe events were found to hold true for both US and Canadian construction sites, based on the results from measurement invariance tests and structural equation modelling. Recommendations regarding how to improve construction workers’ individual resilience and reduce interpersonal conflicts on site, thereby reducing safety incidents on site, are provided. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety)

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16 pages, 268 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Identification of Desired Qualifications for Construction Safety Personnel in the United States

by Ali Amer Karakhan and Ahmed Jalil Al-Bayati

Buildings 2023, 13(5), 1237; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13051237 - 9 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1250

Abstract

Construction is a hazardous industry with a high number of injuries. Prior research found that many industry injuries can be prevented by implementing an effective safety plan if prepared and maintained by qualified safety personnel. However, there are no specific guidelines on how to select qualified construction safety personnel and what criteria should be used to select an individual for a safety position in the United States (US) construction industry. To fill this gap in knowledge, the study goal was to identify the desired qualifications of safety personnel in the US construction industry. To achieve the study goal, the Delphi technique was used as the main methodology for determining the desired qualifications for construction safety personnel. As a result, a panel of 15 subject-matter experts was selected, and 4 rounds of surveys were carried out. The findings of the study led to the identification of the desired qualifications for three construction safety positions (safety entry, safety professional, and safety manager). The present study contributes to the body of theoretical knowledge on construction safety and presents practical guidelines to assist industry stakeholders select qualified safety personnel for their projects. The selection of qualified safety personnel is expected to improve workplace safety performance and positively reflect on other project outcomes. Construction stakeholders should pay attention to three key aspects (namely, education, experience, and certification) when determining the qualifications for a safety leadership position and take into consideration the type of position intended to be filled. This study fills the gap in knowledge by identifying the desired qualifications and criteria on how to select safety personnel in the US construction industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety)

19 pages, 11807 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Discovering the Research Topics on Construction Safety and Health Using Semi-Supervised Topic Modeling

by Kai Zhou, Jun Wang, Baabak Ashuri and Jianli Chen

Buildings 2023, 13(5), 1169; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13051169 - 28 Apr 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1881

Abstract

Safety and health have been one of the major issues in the construction industry worldwide for decades, and the relevant research has correspondingly drawn much attention in the academic field. Considering the expanding size and increasing heterogeneity of this research field, this paper proposes the topic modeling approach to cluster latent topics, extract coherent keywords, and discover evolving trends over the past three decades. Focusing on a total of 1984 articles published in 27 different journal sources until February 2023, this paper applied both unsupervised topic modeling techniques—Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Correlation Explanation (CorEx)—and their semi-supervised versions—Guided LDA and Anchored CorEx. The evolving trends and inter-relationship of 15 research topics generated by the Anchored CorEx model (the best-performing model) were analyzed. Top-listed documents of major topics were analyzed to discuss their standalone research focuses. The results of this paper provided helpful insights and implications of existing research and offered potential guides for future research on construction safety and health by helping researchers (1) select research topics of interest and clearing decaying topics; (2) extract the top words of each research topic using systematic approaches; and (3) explore the interconnection of different research topics as well as their standalone focuses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety)

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15 pages, 986 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influencing Factors of Human Errors in Metro Construction Based on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)

by Xiaobo Shi, Yan Liu, Dongyan Zhang, Ruixu Li, Yaning Qiao, Alex Opoku and Caiyun Cui

Buildings 2022, 12(10), 1498; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12101498 - 21 Sep 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1553

Abstract

Safety problems in metro construction occur frequently, causing substantial economic losses and even resulting in injuries and fatalities. Studies have shown that human errors, which are usually caused by complex reasons, are an important cause of safety related accidents. However, little research has analyzed the causes of accidents from the perspective of human errors. To explore the factors influencing human errors, the factors were systematically sorted out and studied based on theoretical analysis. Firstly, the theoretical hypothesis and model were formulated through a literature review. Secondly, the scale was developed for mental factors, physical factors, technical factors, environmental factors, organizational factors, cultural factors, and human errors. Thirdly, the research data were obtained by distributing questionnaires, and the validity and reliability tests were conducted using the data and the structural equation model was tested and run. Finally, the theoretical hypotheses were tested using the structural equation models and came up with the paths of the six factors of human errors. The results of the study showed that mental factors, physiological factors, and technological factors are found to be the direct influencing factors of human errors. However, environmental and cultural factors are the indirect influencing factors. The influencing paths are environment-mental-human errors, environment-physiological-human errors, culture-physiological-human errors, and culture-technology-human errors. Organizational factors can affect human errors directly or indirectly through cultural factors. These findings could provide practical implications for reducing the safety related accidents caused by human errors during metro construction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety)

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Review

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15 pages, 1269 KiB

Open AccessReview

Towards a Multilevel Framework of Teamwork Processes Affecting Construction Safety Outcomes

by Qin Yin, Esther Obonyo and Somayeh Asadi

Buildings 2023, 13(7), 1728; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071728 - 7 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1118

Abstract

The construction industry has one of the highest fatality and injury rates, highlighting the urgent need for research to reduce work-related injuries and fatalities. Given the complex nature of construction teams operating at different project levels, teamwork processes are crucial for ensuring construction safety. However, a comprehensive examination of teamwork processes concerning construction safety is lacking. Contemporary construction literature has a primary focus on a few key team-level factors. This study addresses this research gap by conducting a more holistic literature review, benchmarking knowledge from other industries, and proposing a framework specific to construction safety. The proposed framework integrates insights from team science and construction safety science, taking into consideration the industry’s complex team structure and dynamic nature. This study contributes to the improvement of safety outcomes in the construction industry by enhancing the understanding of teamwork processes’ impact on construction safety. The findings have practical implications for enhancing safety performance and reducing injuries and fatalities among construction workers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Organizational and Individual Factors on Construction Safety)

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