Investigation of multi-level safety culture in the Indian construction industry: a multi-level employees’ perception-based approach

Abstract

Inadequate compliance with safety practices is a major hurdle in the construction industry, and a single-level source of input to assess safety culture is a major limitation of the literature. Therefore, this study aimed to capture multi-level employees’ (top management, middle management and workers) perceptions to assess multi-level safety culture (organizational level, project level and personnel level) in the construction industry. This study considered the Indian construction industry as the study area and used a questionnaire survey and interview technique as research instruments. In total, 184 responses were collected from multi-level employees. Data analysis was performed using a descriptive statistical method and hypothesis testing using the Mann–Whitney U test followed by the Kruskal–Wallis and post hoc tests. Findings highlighted inadequate safety compliances and significant (p < 0.05) perception differences among multi-level employees. Further, root cause analysis for observed perception differences was performed, and managerial implications were discussed from implementation perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• safety culture
• construction safety
• safety management
• perception-based study
• building project

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Some of the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.