Safety Climate in Construction Industry: A Case Study in Hong Kong

TLDR

Decentralization and mobility in construction make safety culture essential. The study surveyed 4,719 employees across 54 sites with a comprehensive safety climate questionnaire and used logistic regression to examine how personal characteristics relate to safety climate. Factor analysis revealed a 15‑factor safety climate structure, emphasizing the influence of fellow workers and safety resources, while logistic regression identified significant links between safety climate and traits such as gender, education, and safety knowledge, demonstrating the model’s applicability for industry safety improvement.

Abstract

Because of the characteristics of decentralization and mobility in the construction industry, safety culture is crucially important. A comprehensive safety climate questionnaire survey was conducted with all sites and employees of a leading construction company and its subcontractors in Hong Kong. In total, 4,719 records were returned from 54 sites. By means of factor analysis, a 15-factor structure that defines the dimensions of the safety climate has been extracted. Compared with previous research studies, the roles and influences of fellow workers, and safety resources on the safety climate are emphasized. The results also confirm the feasibility of exploring common factors of the safety climate in the construction industry. Through further analysis, logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between the safety climate and personal characteristics. Statistically significant relationships were found between safety climate and personal characteristics, including gender, marital status, education level, number of family members to support, safety knowledge, drinking habits, direct employer, and individual safety behavior. This research is a case study and the results are derived from the data of one company, but the methodology of this research may be useful as a model for further research, and the findings may provide useful information for construction managers and safety practitioners in the construction industry to improve their safety culture.