Roles of organizational factors on workplace safety work behaviors of construction workers : a bayesian belief network approach | |
| Author | Pongkorn Jitpornkulwasin |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.CM-12-01 |
| Subject(s) | Industrial safety Construction industry--Safety measures |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Engineering in Construction , Engineering and Infrastructure Management, School of Engineering and Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. CM-12-01 |
| Abstract | Development and promoting occupational safety in construction industry have been conducted by cooperative endeavors from all stakeholders as intrinsic criteria. In Thailand, both governmental and non - governmental agencies are responsible for encou raging and promoting the implementation of safety management system through enforcement of occupational safety regulation. However, there is still a backlog to reach the desirable outcomes, even occupational accidents in downward trend. Definitely, not onl y people are acknowledged as contributing factors but also organizational factors shape the context that contributes to at - risk work behavior . Additionally, they are also significant contributors to human errors in safe work behavior . Several efforts have been made to define and determine the body of knowledge linked between management and organization that are vital for organization safety effectiveness. Although the importance of organizational factors in safe work behavior s has been acknowledged, the inf luence of organizational factors in area of work behavior in construction industry has rarely been examined. It could be stated that this study has an original contribution to the existing body of knowledge. For this reason, first step of systematic approa ch for assessing the influence of organizational factors must adequately identify the relevant organization factors. Accordingly, the questions are what organizational factors should be taken into account and how these influence the behavioral enactions. C ase studies are used to identify and categorize organizational factors. This identification process begins with literature reviews as commonly performed. The literature related with organizational factors was used as a primary source to investigate the inf luences of organizational factors on at - risk work behavior s. Hence, semi - structured interviews and reviews of the company’s documents were conducted involving safety experts and workers to gain experiential and practical knowledge. The obtained results ide ntified seven important factors of Thailand construction industry: communication, culture, management commitment, leadership, organization learning, empowerment, and reward system. The implications of particular applications from these factors are consider ed as critical features for handling work behavior s. In addition, empirical findings provide particularly insight factors from expertise in a practical way. Validations with previous publications of some factors are also discussed. The identified contribut ing determinants from empirical findings can be expected to be influential at different levels within an organization. These findings are further used to quantify and investigate the role of organizational factors as an integral feature of safety intervent ion. At the second phase, the direction and magnitude of relationship between organizational factors and safe work behaviors were determined. The disparity in the influences of organizational factors will be considered when developing the interventions to reduce risk work behavior or to promote safe work behaviors. Furthermore, the expected results and explanations allow the safety professionals to provide strategy and guidelines to improve safe work behaviors by considering the certain implications of con tributing factors. As a result, organizational factors have positive associations with safe work behaviors, while negative directions with at - risk work behaviors. To some extent, implications of organizational factors about occupational health and safety v ary considerably among organizational factors. Subsequently, best practices of organizational factors were also identified by case studies from the safety expert of oil and gas industry. As a consequence, high risk industry's practices tend to higher atten tion than from those of the medium and low risk industries. Practical guideline could be established by identifying the best practices from the better - performance industry which experiences with handling occupational risks. The obtained implications and pr actices could be considered effective because it particularly reduce at - risk behaviors at workplace. Thus, adaptation and appl ication of certain practices by safety professionals are strongly recommended. Nevertheless, results of this phase are based on si mple analysis of inferential statistic as initial phase for development the predictive network at the further phase. Occupational behaviors and implications associated with organizational factors implemented in this study are probably different from other industries and therefore could be the area of further research. At final phase, appropriate analytical approach should be capable for handling the complex causality and providing the strategies to enhance the safety work behaviors from their interactions among organizational factors, psychological precursors and individual safety work behaviors within a built environment. For this reason, Bayesian network was selected as analytical technique for providing an insight of the influence of the relevant contrib utories by investigating variation in the output of network. Bayesian Belief Networks have been extensively applied in research because its capabilities capture the sophisticated inference to utilize the knowledge acquired in the built environment. Network presented a basis on which to consider the influences of organizational factors through psychological precursors. The empirical materials utilized in this study consist of 802 data sets from self - administrated survey. Once Bayesian network were developed, considerable investigations are allowed to identify the appropriate combination of favorable states according to controlling variables. The obtained schemes enable safety professional achieve the attainment of high level probability of safety work behavio rs. Realizing that there is an optimistic perspective in alternative scenarios, favorable state are assigned into potential variables, which might play an important role in establishing the safety environment and encouraging safe work behaviors. The prese nt alternatives highlight the useful implications that might lead to high probability of safety work behavior which are greater than 70%. According to first alternative, 73.3% of safety work behavior was reached by manipulating management commitment, leade rship, learning and participation node simultaneously. The second alternative accomplished about 74.6% of safety work behavior when the leadership, management commitment, participation and intention node are assigned to favorable state. For the third alter native, 77.7% of safe work behavior could be obtained by controlling leadership, management commitment, participation and perceived behavioral control node. According to the obtained results from network, researchers could deliberate the expected consequen ce from uncertainty prior to an effective intervention can be established. As a result, it is increasingly being acknowledged that management have to demonstrate substantive and visible commitments to occupational safety as well as manager at all levels pl ay an important role in establishing supportive and participative atmosphere which can encourage subordinates to be motivated to work in a safer way. This application and findings concluding from the empirical evidence of Bayesian Belief Network is able to explore the influence of organizational factors and their impacts on safety work behaviors through manipulating more or less a combination of organizational factors. |
| Year | 2012 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. CM-12-01 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management (CM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Hadikusumo, B.H.W.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Chotchai Charoenngam ;Sununta Siengthai; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Royal Thai Government Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2012 |