Core Dimensions of the Construction Safety Climate for a Standardized Safety-Climate Measurement

Abstract

The prevalent disparity and divergence in the identification of safety-climate dimensions in the academia cause general confusion and inconvenience to both construction researchers and practitioners in terms of safety-climate measurement. Existing review studies identified several key dimensions or common features of safety climate, but only in a qualitative way. Whether these common features fit the reality and reflect the essence of construction safety climate is still to be verified by empirical studies. This research defined the core dimension and specific dimension of safety climate, identified the four most commonly used dimensions, and built a core dimension structure of safety climate accordingly. Empirical data collected from 21 Chinese construction enterprises were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling. The proposed core dimension structure and the corresponding measurement scale were validated rigorously by structural equation modeling approaches. Furthermore, two specific subgroups of the enterprises were analyzed to prove that the core dimension structure also applies to specific construction enterprise types, such as building contractors and specialty trade contractors. It is concluded that the proposed core dimension structure of safety climate is applicable in construction practices, especially to building enterprises. Practical implications of the safety-climate core dimension research are discussed in detail. This study contributes to the construction safety-climate study primarily by depicting relationships among the common dimensions as well as relationships between common dimensions and specific dimensions, which have rarely been involved or interpreted deeply in the past research. This can in turn facilitate the standardization of construction safety-climate measurement by providing a unified criterion (core dimension structure of safety climate) for both researchers and practitioners. It is a valid starting point to design specific measurement scales in different settings.