The role of communication in managing the safety climate of construction site environments
Greeff, Wilhelmina
Managers in the construction sector are met with a critical charge: they are responsible for
the safety of employees in one of the most notoriously dangerous industries in the world. In
terms of managing the safety climate of construction site environments, no recommendations
have been made in the literature that truly elucidate the role of organisational communication
therein. The aim of this research was to fill this void by enriching the seminal work of Mohamed
(2002) which focusses on the nature of the safety climate in construction organisations,
and the factors it is comprised of. To this end, the research comprised a data-triangulated
qualitative and quantitative empirical study undertaken at nine different construction sites in
South Africa, which allowed for the reformulation of the model for safety climate management
in construction environments, with an added understanding of the role of communication
therein. The findings indicated that communication is conducive to a positive safety climate
when it is managed to be strategic, holistic, relational and symmetrical. The model put
forward in this article offers an empirical application of the four identified constructs of
communication, which gives way to data-driven recommendations for use in construction
organisation settings
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