2020 Best Paper Award

The Editorial Board of the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020 best paper award: Helen Lingard and David Oswald for an article entitled “Safety at the Front Line: Social Negotiation of Work and Safety at the Principal Contractor–Subcontractor Interface,” which appeared in the April 2020 issue of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001799.

The authors documented an ethnographic study that examines ways that actors at the prime contractor/subcontractor interface understand and respond to safety; it illuminates how social relationships shape safely practices on a construction site. The methodology relies on over 100 h of social embedment at four construction sites over a 6-month period with the researcher accompanying construction site leaders for both prime and subcontractors in a variety of formal and informal settings, especially safety walks. This research found that safety culture is developed by prime and subcontractors though a process of negotiation that is influenced greatly by requirements for productivity, and the stakeholders’ personal preferences and previous experience in maintaining safety, in addition to prescriptive rules developed by the prime contractor. This contrasts with other theories that emphasize the development of worksite safety though the enforcement of universal rules with little context and flexibility. The results highlight that a desirable culture of safety develops on a worksite though effective social interaction and a measure of flexibility in addition to relying on rules enforced in a top down manner.

This paper was selected from a field of 163 technical papers and case studies that were published from July 2019 through June 2020 in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. For this awards cycle, the Awards Committee included the following editorial board members: Dr. Young Hoon Kwak, Dr. Young Bai, Dr. Michael Garvin, Dr. Carolyn M. Clevenger, Dr. Eddy M. Rojas, Dr. Carlos H. S. Caldas, Dr. Seungjun “Jun” Ahn, Dr. Changbum “Ryan” Ahn, and Dr. Reza Akhavian with Dr. Charles T. Jahren serving as the Chair. Special thanks are due to Dr. Daniel Tran, Dr. Baabak Ashuri, Dr. Gunnar Lucko, and Dr. Ali Touran for providing additional reviews for this and other ASCE awards. Taryn Dollings provided administrative support as an ASCE journals staff member. Thanks to the other editorial board members, authors, reviewers, and readers who help to make this journal a success and this award meaningful.