Participant observation can be an excellent way to gather qualitative data and observe real behaviours, provided the participant observer does not cause a behavioural change from the norm. Such a change in behaviour is known as the Hawthorne effectwhere people modify their behaviour when they know they are being watched or studied. The Hawthorne effect is one of the greatest challenges research observers face when gathering data and has long been described as the 'Achilles heel' of participant research (Coombs and Smith, 2003). This challenge is discussed based on experiences from gathering data on behavioural safety and attitudes on a very large civil engineering construction project currently underway in the UK. The proposed six-stage protocol helped the participant observer witness real behaviours and true attitudes of the workforce while limiting the potential negative consequences of the Hawthorne effect. A case study example using this protocol suggests that it is important that the researcher becomes successfully immersed in the social setting by gaining trust and making the workers feel relaxed and unthreatened. The paper also discusses other challenges associated with an ethnographic approach including validity, bias, interpreting evidence and analysing the data collected.

Developments in safety management on large UK construction sites have seen a paradigm shift from enforcement-based systems to safety-culture programmes, which seek to engage with the workforce to create fully cooperative and safety-conscious sites. Founded in social constructionism, recent research sought out the master discourses of safety on large UK construction sites through the examination of safety signage, talk around safety and safety documentation. Two of the most prominent discourses of safety on sites were found to be safety as enforcement and safety as engagement, reflecting the change in safety management strategies. These discourses were found to be interrelated in their constructions of safety, yet also varied in their associations with practice, responsibility, social interactions and the management hierarchy of the sites. These findings develop the current understanding of safety found on sites, with relation to the hierarchical structures of safety management and the discourses of enforcement and engagement in practice. The findings have significance for the safety practices of large UK contractors in developing and improving their safety-culture programmes, as well as suggesting potential new directions in the academic research of safety in construction.

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The health and safety (H&S) of workers is a critical project management goal in construction. As globalisation and migrant movement increases, construction projects are becoming more nationally diverse. Amongst multinational workforces, language barriers present an obvious but largely unresolved H&S communication challenge, with current strategies in use yet to be assessed. On a large construction project in the United Kingdom, H&S communication strategies were explored through an ethnographic approach. This paper contributes by revealing the impracticalities of using employees as interpreters in workgroups of six or more; the limitations of technologies in a dynamic construction site environment, and highlights the unresolved challenge of translating safety videos in multiple languages. Challenges arose including translators refusing to translate, as they were not receiving extra financial benefits and it was not recognised as part of their workload; and translators being given favourable treatment during disciplinary processes as they were crucial to the continued operation of the site team. This reveals the complexities involved in implementing effective H&S communication strategies on international and multinational projects, which have previously remained largely ignored.

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