Factors Affecting Safety Performance of Construction Workers

127 Pages·2017·1.93 MB·English

by  Sheng Huang

Factors Affecting Safety Performance of Construction
Workers: Safety Climate, Interpersonal Conflicts at Work,
and Resilience
by
Yuting Chen
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Civil Engineering
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Yuting Chen 2017
Factors Affecting Safety Performance of Construction Workers:
Safety Climate, Interpersonal Conflicts at Work, and Resilience
Yuting Chen
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Civil Engineering
University of Toronto
2017
Abstract
A safety plateau in safety performance has been observed in many countries or regions. In
order to continuously improve safety performance, the key is to identifying factors affecting
safety performance. This research examined four factors, namely, safety climate, individual
resilience (IR), interpersonal conflicts at work (ICW), and organizational resilience (OR) that
may contribute to explaining safety outcomes. A self-administered survey was used. From 2013
to 2016, 1281 surveys were collected from 180 construction sites of Ontario, Canada.
This thesis composed three papers, which leads to the following conclusions:
 Safety climate not only affects physical safety outcomes but also employees’ job stress
level.
 ICW is a risk factor for safety performance.
 IR has the potential to mitigate post-trauma job stress and interpersonal conflicts of
construction workers.
 Management commitment is the key to promoting a good safety culture.
 Safety awareness is the most important individual factor affecting construction workers’
safety performance.
 Team support, especially the support from coworkers, has a significant positive impact
on construction worker’s safety awareness.
Several original contributions were made:
 This study designed and tested questions of individual resilience.
 This study is the first empirical study investigating the impact of individual resilience on
safety outcomes.
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 This study is the first study testing the antecedents of interpersonal conflicts at work and
the resulting safety outcomes in the construction industry.
 This study designed and tested organizational resilience questions in the context of
construction industry.
 This is the first study testing the mechanism about how the resilience factors interact
with each other and eventually affect safety outcomes.
 This study is the first study using structural equation modeling (SEM) to quantify
organizational resilience.
Accordingly, the following recommendations were provided:
 Construction organizations need to not only monitor employees’ safety performance but
also their psychological well-being.
 Safety professionals may consider adding coping skill training programs to improve the
individual resilience of their workforce and reduce conflict-related safety outcomes.
 Construction organizations can improve employees’ safety awareness by promoting a
good team-level safety culture, and by building a good reporting and learning culture.

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Acknowledgments
I have been enjoying my life in the University of Toronto, where I met lots of genius professors,
kind friends, and smart colleagues. However, life is not always easy. I started my Ph.D. in 2012,
and I was lost in the beginning. I did not know where my research could go, and I was not sure
whether I am a person who can do research and who can do research well. Language was also
a problem for me then.
Fortunately, life is beautiful in spite of bumps. In 2014 June, I was fortunate enough to join Dr.
McCabe’s group when I was on the edge of quitting. Since then, suddenly, the door of a new life
was opened for me. I worked with Dr. McCabe on a safety research project, where my Ph.D.
thesis was based. Dr. McCabe has been teaching me how to write proposal, how to write
papers, and demonstrating how to be a good teacher. She works so hard and always used her
weekend and vacation time to modify my papers and thesis. Her engagement, encouragement
and patience has helped me not only progress my research but also build my confidence. There
are so many things I want to list but cannot exhaust. I really want to express my sincere
gratitude to Dr. McCabe for her generous support and for her love to students. Without her, I
wouldn’t have finished my Ph.D.
My special thanks also go to Prof. Douglas Hyatt. As a co-investigator of my research project
and a member of my doctoral committee, he provided so many constructive and valuable
suggestions, especially on quantitative research methods. I am also very grateful for the advice
received from Prof. Kim Pressnail and Prof. Daman Panesar. As members of my doctoral
committee, they reviewed my thesis very thoroughly and provided their insights into my
research from different perspectives. I would also like to thank Prof. Aminah Robinson Fayek
from the University of Alberta for her thoughtful advice, especially her advice on safety
performance measures.
I am very grateful for the support of colleagues and friends in our research group: Hesam
Hamledari, Patrick Marquis, Hiba Ali, Pouya Zangeneh, Farid Mirahadi, Arash Shahi, Kamelia
Shahi, and Eric Junting Li. Especially, I would like to thank Hesam for his encouragement and
inspiration. Hesam is a great friend and sometimes a good teacher. He is very talented and
productive. I am impressed by his hard work. I always learned a lot from him during our
discussion of logic development in academic research. He is studying in Standford as a Ph.D.
student now. I wish him best wishes for his bright future. I would also like to thank Patrick for his
support and efforts to collect safety data from Ottawa, and I would also like to thank Hiba for her
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great advice on my defense presentation slides. I am also very grateful that I always learn a lot
from Farid and Pouya during our discussion of working conditions on remote construction sites.
My special thanks also go to Bangbiao Wu, Ze Wang, and Ruochen Nan. They are great
friends. I am very happy and lucky to meet them in Toronto and have them being with me. I am
very grateful for the help and support from them. I really enjoyed the time when we played board
games together, when we had hot pots together, and when we played in Treetop treckking
zipline parks, etc. My dull Ph.D. life becomes more colorful because of them.
A deep and heartfelt thank you go to my families, especially my parents. They always support
me for any decisions I made. I am very happy to live in such a love family!
Finally, I would like to thank Sheng, my love and friend. His encouragement and support made
me overcome all bumps and difficulties in the past four years. I also wish him best wishes for his
fascinating research journey.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... vi
List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. x
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... xii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ......................................................................................... xiii
List of Symbols.......................................................................................................................... xv
Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
1.1. Research objectives ..................................................................................................... 3
1.2. Thesis overview ........................................................................................................... 4
1.2.1. Data collection ...................................................................................................... 7
1.2.2. Data analysis ........................................................................................................ 8
1.3. Chapter Summaries ....................................................................................................12
1.3.1. Chapter 2 “Impact of individual resilience and safety climate on safety
performance and psychological stress of construction workers: a case study of the Ontario
construction industry” .........................................................................................................13
1.3.2. Chapter 3 “The relationship between individual resilience, interpersonal conflicts at
work, safety outcomes of construction workers” .................................................................14
1.3.3. Chapter 4 “Resilience on construction sites: testing a structural equation model” 15
Chapter 2 Impact of individual resilience and safety climate on safety performance and
psychological stress of construction workers: a case study of the Ontario construction industry
.................................................................................................................................................20
2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................21
2.1.1. Safety climate dimensions ...................................................................................23
2.1.2. Safety climate and safety outcomes .....................................................................24
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2.1.3. Individual resilience, safety outcomes, and psychological stress..........................24
2.1.4. Injuries and psychological stress ..........................................................................25
2.2. Methods ......................................................................................................................25
2.2.1. Data and procedure .............................................................................................25
2.2.2. Measures .............................................................................................................29
2.2.2.1. Individual resilience ..........................................................................................29
2.2.2.2. Safety climate ...................................................................................................30
2.2.3. Data analysis .......................................................................................................31
2.3. Results ........................................................................................................................33
2.3.1. Measurement model ............................................................................................33
2.3.2. Inter-correlations among the variables .................................................................34
2.3.3. Structural model ...................................................................................................38
2.4. Discussion ..................................................................................................................40
2.5. Conclusions ................................................................................................................41
Chapter 3 The relationship between individual resilience, interpersonal conflicts at work, safety
outcomes of construction workers .............................................................................................42
3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................42
3.1.1. ICW, safety outcomes, and stress ........................................................................44
3.1.2. Antecedents of ICW .............................................................................................45
3.2. Methods ......................................................................................................................46
3.2.1. Data and collection procedures ............................................................................46
3.2.2. Data analysis .......................................................................................................51
3.3. Results ........................................................................................................................53
3.3.1. Measurement model ............................................................................................53
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3.3.2. Descriptive statistics ............................................................................................54
3.3.3. Structural model ...................................................................................................56
3.4. Discussion ..................................................................................................................58
3.5. Conclusions ................................................................................................................60
Chapter 4 Resilience on construction sites: testing a structural equation model ........................61
4.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................61
4.1.1. Resilience indicators ............................................................................................63
4.1.2. Hypotheses ..........................................................................................................64
4.2. Methods ......................................................................................................................65
4.2.1. Data and procedures ...........................................................................................65
4.2.2. Measures .............................................................................................................69
4.2.3. Data analysis .......................................................................................................70
4.3. Results ........................................................................................................................72
4.3.1. Measurement model ............................................................................................72
4.3.2. Descriptive statistics ............................................................................................75
4.3.3. Structural model ...................................................................................................77
4.4. Discussion ..................................................................................................................81
4.5. Conclusions ................................................................................................................83
4.6. Limitations and future work .........................................................................................83
Chapter 5 Conclusions, recommendations, and future work......................................................85
5.1. Conclusions ................................................................................................................85
5.1.1. Impacts on physical injuries and unsafe events ...................................................85
5.1.2. Impacts on job stress ...........................................................................................86
5.2. Conference paper conclusions ....................................................................................86
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5.3. Contributions ...............................................................................................................87
5.4. Recommendations ......................................................................................................87
5.5. Future work .................................................................................................................87
References ...............................................................................................................................89
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................. 100
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................. 111
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................. 112

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List of Tables
Table 1-1. Focus of this research ............................................................................................... 4
Table 1-2. Survey details ........................................................................................................... 6
Table 1-3. Number of surveys by year and location ................................................................... 7
Table 1-4. SEM model fit indices ...............................................................................................12
Table 1-5. Hypotheses and testing results ................................................................................16
Table 2-1. Demographics of respondents ..................................................................................27
Table 2-2. Data representativeness ..........................................................................................27
Table 2-3. Frequency of safety outcomes .................................................................................28
Table 2-4. Frequency of job stress ............................................................................................29
Table 2-5. Comparisons of the hypothesized six-factor model of safety climate with selected
alternative models .....................................................................................................................35
Table 2-6. Measurement model: squared multiple correlations (SMCs) and factor loadings ......35
Table 2-7. Descriptive statistics and correlations .......................................................................37
Table 2-8. Comparisons of model 1 and model 2 ......................................................................39
Table 2-9. Direct and indirect effect testing of the hypothesized model relationships ................40
Table 3-1. Demographics of respondents ..................................................................................48
Table 3-2. Frequency of physical safety outcomes ....................................................................50
Table 3-3. Frequency of job stress ............................................................................................51
Table 3-4. Fit indices for the measurement models ...................................................................53
Table 3-5. Measurement model: square multiple correlations (SMC) and factor loadings .........53
Table 3-6. Descriptive statistics of variables ..............................................................................54
Table 3-7. ICW individual statement frequency distribution (%) .................................................55
Table 3-8. Direct and indirect effect testing of the hypothesized model relationships ................58
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