- Title
- High reliability organisational theory as a safety management strategy in construction
- Creator
- Enya, Andrew Aji
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Construction activities involve a lot of risk as workers are exposed to a wide range of job hazards, such as working at height, moving vehicles, toxic substances, and confined spaces. The hazards related to construction projects are mostly unpredictable because construction projects move quickly due to project deadlines, and changing work environments. As a result, the industry is known for high fatality rates, and accounts for one of the highest numbers of work-related claims, and the fourth highest incidence rate of serious claims in Australia. Therefore to minimise injuries and fatalities associated with construction activities, it is important to implement result oriented strategy to improve construction safety management. High reliability organisations (HROs) are known to function in an unforgiving social, political and hazardous environment, where the potential for failure is very high with catastrophic consequences, and to manage the complexity embedded in their operations, they have unique safety management systems in place. The construction industry is a high risk industry and also operates in a complex and hazardous environment, and to manage the risk associated with their activities they have established safety management systems that are strictly regulated. The high risk operational environment and established safety management systems are the similarities that exist between HROs and construction. However HROs are able to find the balance between safety and production performance, which is rarely achievable in the construction industry. This unique attributes of HRO makes it a viable model for the improvement of construction safety management. The aim of this thesis is to identify HRO principles of collective mindfulness present in the construction industry, and investigate how key safety management factors can measure and predict collective mindfulness in construction. This study used the convergent parallel mixed method for the collection of primary data from construction organisations in New South Wales. Consistent with the pragmatic paradigm, mixed methods was chosen because it supports the use of the most suitable methods in conducting research. In the first study semi-structured interviews were conducted with middle management construction workers, and the data obtained was analysed thematically using NVivo11 to identify the key themes. The second study used survey questionnaire for data collection from frontline managers and frontline construction workers. Descriptive data analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted in SPSS 24. Structural equation modeling was conducted in AMOS 24 to test the measurement model, structural model assessment was conducted in SmartPLS to access the model fit. The findings identified five key themes that represented HRO principles in the construction industry, and the safety management constructs measured the principles. Preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify and sensitivity to operations were the most prevalent and commitment to resilience and deference to expertise were the least prevalent. The model had a strong predictive power and was able to predict collective mindfulness in construction from the safety management factors. The study has proposed a Reliability enhancing strategy framework that can be used as a safety management strategy to improve safety in the construction industry. Implementation of the strategy has the potential to address the problem of under reporting of incidents as a result of blame apportioning culture in construction, and improve workers attitude towards safety.
- Subject
- construction; collective mindfulness; HRO; safety management
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1494263
- Identifier
- uon:53755
- Rights
- Copyright 2021 Andrew Aji Enya
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 5 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 438 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |