Research on the influence of role stressors on unsafe behavior among construction workers in China

Abstract

Individuals’ unsafe behavior is identified as one of the important reasons leading to construction industry accidents. The purpose of the present study is to explore the mechanism of role stressors’ impact on unsafe behavior, the mediating role of psychological strain and the moderating role of empowering leadership among construction workers. The sample used for the analyses in this study includes 600 employees from 10 different construction companies in China. Bootstrap analysis was performed to explore the mediating role of psychology strain, and hierarchical linear regression analysis was performed to explore the moderating role of empowering leadership. The results showed that role stressors were positively related to unsafe behavior; psychology strain mediates the relationship between role stressors and unsafe behavior; and empowering leadership moderates the relationship between psychological strain and unsafe behavior. The findings indicate that empowering leadership can decrease unsafe behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• role stressors
• psychological strain
• unsafe behavior
• empowering leadership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science project [grant number 22YJC630194] (‘Research on the influence mechanism of psychosocial safety climate on employees’ safety citizenship behavior in high-risk industries’); Shanxi Province Philosophy and Social Science project [grant number 2021YY165]; Taiyuan University of Technology, Youth Foundation [grant number 2022RS011].