The role of safety climate in predicting safety culture on construction sites

Abstract

Although theory and empirical research on safety climate and safety culture have developed considerably, the relationship between them remains debatable. This paper reports on empirical examination of the relationship between safety climate and safety culture. The results of this study indicate that safety climate has an impact on the three dimensions of safety culture, namely psychological, situational/environmental and behavioral aspects of safety culture. Several project specific features, such as project duration, project size, and contractor registration grade, are found to influence the relationship between safety climate and safety culture. It is concluded that the assessment of safety climate could provide a reliable prediction of the level of the overall safety culture of construction organisations. Thus, an effective assessment tool for construction safety culture could be proposed based on the results of this study.