Factors influencing supervisor's behavior on safety actions at construction sites in Vietnam

Abstract

Supervisors play a significant role in controlling safety in construction project. They provide good advice on safety practices and check the safety condition of equipment. The carelessness of supervisors may cause several accidents. Therefore, accident prevention is required the encouragement of supervisor to have good behavior on safety action. Although several research studies mention about the importance of supervisor behaviors, few research studies are focused on factors influencing supervisor’s behavior on safety action. This research aims to explore current supervisor’s behavior on safety action, identify factors influencing their behavior and develop a model to explain the relationships between these factors and supervisor’s behavior on safety action based on both perception and practice. The questionnaire is developed from literature related to factors influencing safety behavior and issues represented supervisors’ behavior on safety. The survey is performed within two months March and April 2010 in Vietnam. Finally, 434 respondents are collected and 403 data are used for factor analysis, only 214 respondents are used to adopt structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical results demonstrate the current issue of construction accident, site supervisors have moderately accomplished their safety obligation. From perception data, six factors influencing supervisor’s behavior on safety are explored from factor analysis technique. Meanwhile, eight factors are explored from practice data. Furthermore, two models for explaining supervisors’ behavior were developed by SEM, one is based on their perception and another is based on actual practice on safety issue. The perception model can help to understand on what supervisor perceive on factor influencing safety behavior. On the other hand, the practice model helps researcher understand how actual practice influencing supervisor’s behavior.