Safety leadership in the construction industry
Managing safety at Swedish and Danish construction sites
Abstract
The overall aim of this thesis was to identify and describe essential components of safety leadership behavior in the construction industry in Sweden and Denmark. The methods used were semi-structured interviews, cross-sectional and longitudinal questionnaire studies, and behavioral observations. The results of Paper I indicate that participative leadership and rule-oriented leadership may be vital for occupational safety at construction sites. The results of Paper II indicate that participative leadership is learned by future construction managers and employees during their vocational education and training. The results of Paper III indicate that transformational, active transactional, participative, and rule-oriented leadership were positively associated with occupational safety at construction sites; and that laissez-faire leadership was negatively associated with occupational safety at construction sites. The results of Paper IV provides qualitative context-specific descriptions of how transformational, active transactional, and passive/avoidant leadership are enacted by construction site managers. In addition, Paper IV confirm the positive association between transformational leadership and construction site safety climate as well as the negative association between passive/avoidant leadership and construction site safety climate. The results of Papers I and III indicate that a high occurrence of rule-oriented and participative leadership behaviors among construction managers at Swedish construction sites may help explain the relatively low injury rates in the Swedish construction industry.
Parts of work
I. Grill et al. Approaching safety in the Swedish and Danish construction industry: professionals’ perceptions of safety culture differences. Safety Science Monitor. 2015;19(2):1–17. II. Grill et al. Supervisors and teachers’ influence on expectations on empowering leadership among students in vocational education and training. Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training. 2017;9(2):1–15. ::doi::10.1186/s40461-017-0046-3 III. Grill et al. Safety leadership at construction sites: the importance of rule oriented and participative leadership. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. 2017;43(4):375–384. ::doi::10.5271/sjweh.3650 IV. Grill et al. Construction site managers' leadership practices and their influence on safety climate: an observational study of transformational, active transactional and passive/avoidant leadership. Submitted manuscript.
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine)
University
University of Gothenburg. Sahlgrenska Academy
Institution
Institute of Medicine. Department of Public Health and Community Medicine
Disputation
Hörsal Europa, Konferenscentrum Wallenberg, Medicinaregatan 20A, den 26 januari, klockan 9:00.
Date of defence
2018-01-26
martin.grill@gu.se
Date
2018-01-02Author
Grill, Martin
Keywords
occupational safety
safety leadership
construction manager
participative leadership
rule-oriented leadership
transformational leadership
transactional leadership
passive leadership
safety climate
Publication type
Doctoral thesis
ISBN
978-91-629-0371-8 (pdf)
978-91-629-0370-1 (tryckt)
Language
eng
Metadata
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