Effects of Safety Climate and Safety Behavior on Safety Outcomes between Supervisors and Construction Workers

Abstract

Safety climate and safety performance in construction projects vary at an organization level and group level. However, the differences between supervisors and construction workers are rarely examined. This study compared the safety climate, safety behavior (safety compliance and safety participation), and safety outcomes (injuries, unsafe events, and stress) between these two social groups. The relationships among these variables were also contrasted with each other using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The data were collected from 119 supervisors and 536 site workers at 22 construction projects in China. The results show that four dimensions of safety climate were distinctly different between supervisors and workers, which is consistent with the social identity theory. Two dimensions of the supervisors’ safety behavior were significantly better than those of the workers’ behavior, while supervisors suffered higher stress. The relationships between safety climate and safety behavior were positively associated for both groups. However, the links from safety climate to safety outcomes and from safety behavior to safety outcomes significantly differed between supervisors and construction workers, which revealed a complementation phenomenon. This study sheds light on group-level safety performance research. It also suggests that safety professionals should take group-targeted safety intervention measures and pay more attention to supervisors’ psychological well-being.