Does the built-environment industry attract risk-taking individuals?

Abstract

This exploratory research examines whether or not those attracted to professional-level occupations in the built-environment industry are innately physical risk-takers and hence potentially, thereby, more likely to countenance or contribute to physically risky workplace climates. Using individual-level data, the occupational attractiveness of the built-environment industry subsectors of construction management and architecture are each found positively and significantly to be predicted by physical risk-taking propensity, but not by a comparator risk-taking propensity, gambling. Conversely, the occupational attractiveness of a comparator profession in financial services is found to be significantly predicted by gambling risk-taking propensity, but not by physical risk-taking propensity. Although exploratory, our finding that two key professions in the built-environment industry are each discretely found to be attractive to physical risk-takers suggests not only that constituent occupations within the industry, but that the industry as a whole might perhaps engender a self-reinforcing suboptimal workplace safety climate. Accordingly, constituent subsectors of the industry may need both separately and collectively to consider the phenomenon of physical risk-taking propensity amongst the professionals it attracts in order effectively to set and manage the site work-place safety climate that such professionals are ultimately responsible for creating and delivering in a sector fraught with physical risks for site workers. The relationship between integrated design and construction and safety on construction projects. Construction Management and Economics, 28(9), 1007-1017. Behm, M. (2005) Linking construction fatalities to the design for construction safety concept. Safety Science, 43(8), 589-611. Beus, J.M., Dhanani, L.Y. and McCord, M.A. (2015) A meta-analysis of personality and Risk-taking -2 nd Revision.

Prevalence of problem gambling in an employed population in Brittany, France

“…A study performed among 904 workers in an academic health center in the United States of America in 2000 showed a lifetime rate for problem and pathologic gambling of 3.0% and 1.8% respectively 20) . Phua has shown that occupational attractiveness of the profession of banking is predicted by gambling 21) . A French nationwide cross-sectional study performed in 2010 has shown that teachers were less likely to gamble regularly (OR [95%CI]=0.41 [0.25-0.68]) 22) .…”

Site operatives’ attitudes towards traditional masculinity ideology in the Australian construction industry

“…For example, Safe Work Australia (2015) found that construction workers were more likely than workers in other industries to agree that taking risks was a normal part of their daily work, that their workplace does not suit those overly concerned about risk, that risk taking at work is acceptable, especially if it means getting the project finished on time. More recently, Phua's (2017) comparative research into the risk-taking propensity of professionals who work in construction also found that the construction industry is attractive to physical risk-takers, which she argues has important implications for safety performance in the industry. The importance of sex as a form of masculine identity in our results also reflects recent research by Datta (2009), Farrell (2010), Rumens (2013), Chan (2013), Wright (2013) and Galea et al (2017) which has provided ethnographic and other empirical evidence of overt sexuality, sexual story-telling, vulgar sexual behaviour and joking and even sexual harassment at play in construction site interactions between men, and men and women.…”

The role of organizational climate in socially embedding construction firms’ sustainability goals

“…In CM, such studies are drawing more scholarly attention in recent years (e.g. Toor and Ofori 2009;Phua, 2017). Similarly, for the purpose of testing the propositions here, such an approach is useful for shedding light on our understanding of how and why different internal procedures/processes of organizational climates (e.g.…”

“…As the sustainability agenda gathers pace in recent years (e.g. Department of Business, Enterprise andRegulatory Reform 2008, Department for Business, Energy andIndustrial Strategy, 2013), so does the amount of research aimed at exploring the factors that either promote or inhibit it at regional, national and even international levels (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2010-2017United Nations, 2015). In the construction management (CM) and building disciplines, the majority of this work is centred on the technical, economic and policy aspects (e.g.…”