The moderated effect of safety investment on safety performance for building projects

Abstract

Safety investments are aimed at protecting the health and physical integrity of workers and the material assets of a contractor. A popular assumption holds that increased investment in safety improves safety performance. However, close examination of previous studies on safety investments reveals that the relationship between the level of safety investment and safety performance remains debatable. The purposes of this study are therefore to (1) test the relationship between safety investment and safety performance, and (2) identify factors influencing their relationship. The research approach for collecting the data is by means of structured interviews. The findings indicate that safety performance is positively related to safety investments when the influence of project hazard level is removed. The effect of safety investments on safety performance was found to be more significant for projects with high hazard levels than those with low hazard levels. The interactive effects of safety investments and project hazard levels on safety performance imply that in order to achieve good safety performance under different project conditions, different investment decisions in workplace safety need to be made.