Toward a model for forming psychological safety climate in construction project management

Abstract

The nature of construction projects and their delivery poses immense challenges to the safety of construction practitioners. Historically, attempts to reduce accidents in project settings have gone through three overlapping stages, i.e. the technical age, the human error age, and lately the socio-technical age (Reason, 1993). In the technical age people adopted technical measures to mitigate or prevent hazards and risks in the project environment, while the human error age focused on efforts to avoid malpractices of the person (i.e. project participants) in the project delivery process. However, "virtually all work injuries involve person--environment interactions" (DeJoy, 2005, p. 110). In the socio-technical age, great importance is therefore attached to both the person and environment and their interactions. The notion of safety climate, which is derived from the organizational climate theory and serves as a schema for employees to interpret the environment and adapt behaviors accordingly, is central to accident prevention in the socio-technical age.The central tenet of organizational climate is that, faced with stimuli in the environment, individuals generate perceptions, attach meanings, develop expectations regarding behavior-outcome contingencies and ultimately adapt their behaviors (Moran and Volkwein, 1992;Zohar, 1980). An issue of concern with the organizational climate construct is that it is too general to be meaningful (Schneider and Reichers, 1983). Researchers therefore contend that the organizational climate should

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Adjusting Planning Management and Control to the Owner Environment Case Study: Consultant Adjustment to the Owner Environment in Thailand

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