Empirical investigation of construction safety management activities and performance in Australia

Abstract

The construction industry seems to suffer from a general inability to manage workplace health and safety to a level where an achieved improvement in safety performance by a way of pro-active measures can result in zero accidents. This paper investigates the effectiveness of safety management activities as currently adopted by Australian contracting organisations. A safety management survey has been conducted of contracting organisations operating in the State of Queensland, Australia. Based on a research model depicting statistical analysis techniques, a safety management index reflecting the intensity of level of safety management activities has been developed to provide a means whereby individual organisations can be assessed and graded on their safety management commitment and attitudes. The paper reports on a detailed empirical analysis carried out to examine the relationship between the intensity of safety management commitment and the overall safety performance, pro-activeness and record.