Technical Papers
Dec 19, 2022

Construction of a Bayesian Network Based on Leadership-Culture-Behavior Model to Improve Owner Safety Management Behavior

Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149, Issue 3

Abstract

The positive influence of owners’ safety management on the safety performance of construction projects has gained significant attention. Considerable research has been performed to examine the relationship of owners’ safety leadership (SL), safety culture (SC), and safety management behavior (SMB). However, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanisms of influence of owners’ leadership–culture behavior (LCB) and recommendations to improve owners’ safety management behavior. This study developed the influence mechanism of owner LCB and explored the optimal intervention plan to improve owners’ SMB. First, a longitudinal survey was undertaken, which included more than 2,000 construction projects across China, to collect data. Subsequently, a Bayesian network (BN) was constructed to characterize the influence mechanism of owner LCB. Finally, the effects of different intervention plans on SMB were compared. The results proved that the owners’ SL had considerable effects on behavioral improvement when SL and SC were at low levels, whereas SC became prominent when SL and SC were at medium or high levels. This shows that safety leadership and safety culture successively play a role in behavior improvement. Additionally, the combined improvement of role modeling and safety training achieved the best improvement effect on SMB in case projects, which reveals that a combination of safety leadership and safety culture plays a greater role in behavior improvement. This study contributes to the LCB approach and proposes a selection scheme for intervention measures to improve owners’ safety management behavior.

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Data Availability Statement

Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

Acknowledgments

This study was jointly supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (Grant No. 8224048) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. L1824041 and 72091511). We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.

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Go to Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149Issue 3March 2023

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Received: Mar 18, 2022
Accepted: Oct 19, 2022
Published online: Dec 19, 2022
Published in print: Mar 1, 2023
Discussion open until: May 19, 2023

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Dongping Fang, M.ASCE [email protected]
Professor and Chair, School of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. Email: [email protected]
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Construction Management, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6827-0651. Email: [email protected]
McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning, Univ. of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2711-6540. Email: [email protected]
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Construction Management, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. Email: [email protected]
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Construction Management, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4178-672X. Email: [email protected]
Yuecheng Huang [email protected]
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Construction Management, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China (corresponding author). Email: [email protected]

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