INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Safety cultural divergences among management, supervisory

and worker groups in Hong Kong construction industry
Ivan W.H. Fung *, C.M. Tam, Karen C.F. Tung, Ada S.K. Man
Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Received 15 September 2004; received in revised form 10 November 2004; accepted 22 March 2005

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between peoplesÕ behaviors, attitudes and perceptions towards safety culture and to com-
pare safety culture divergences among three levels of construction personnel: top management, supervisory staff and frontline
worker by conducting safety culture survey. The questionnaire comprising general information and 36 safety attitude statements
were distributed to 423 construction personnel working in ten different construction sites in Hong Kong.
The results from this study indicate that the 8 testable factors, including organizational commitment and communication, line
management commitment, supervisorÕs role, personal role, workerÕs influence, risk taking behavior, obstacles to safe behavior
and accident reports, have high inter-correlations and the three groups of respondents hold quite different regarding safety culture.
These findings can give invaluable indication to the construction personnel to have better understanding of safety culture in Hong
Kong construction industry.
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Safety; Culture divergences; Construction personnel

1. Introduction ceeds, the relative rewards will be achieved in terms of

According to the occupational safety and health sta-
tistics of 2003, a total of 30% of the industrial accidents
were related to the construction industry. Although
Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region, China)
government has contributed to the safety and health
policy to reduce the annual accident and fatality rate,
there are still at an unacceptable high level. In order
to improve the current situation, one of the ways is to
cultivate a good organizational safety culture.
Developing a proactive safety culture may take long
time and spend large sum of money for planning, inves-
tigating and implementing into each level within the
organizations. It, however, is worthy compared with
invaluable health and life of human beings. Once it suc-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2788 7036; fax: +852 2788 7612.
E-mail address: bcivan@cityu.edu.hk (I.W.H. Fung).
competitive advantage, quality, reliability and profit-
ability. Hinze [1] advocated the idea that safety is no lux-
ury but a necessity. In recent years, many Hong Kong
construction companies have got to recognize that
establishment of good safety culture can help controlling
and reducing the construction costs and increase the effi-
ciency of their ongoing operations in long term.
Unfortunately, many of them may not really know
how to establish a form of safety culture – same as the
culture of a country or a society [2]. Safety culture re-
lates to the humanitarian aspects of safety as an integral
component. The interactive relationships between how
people behave, the attitudes and perceptions that people
hold, and the situation or environment that people work
in should be taken into account [3].
With reference to the previous research works and
studies, some essential determinants of safety culture were
evaluated. However, there is no form which can be used to

0263-7863/$30.00 Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2005.03.009
 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512
create a measure of safety culture, but it can be reflected
through human behavior, perceptions and attitudes [4].
In this study, peopleÕs behaviors, attitudes and per-
ceptions towards safety culture are investigated by
means of conducting safety culture survey. The inter-
correlations among 8 factors, including organizational
commitment and communication, line management
commitment, supervisorÕs role, personal role, workerÕs
influence, risk taking behavior, obstacles to safe behav-
ior and accident reports, are then explored. Finally, the
divergences of safety attitude among the three work-
force levels are compared.
Basing on these determinants, a number of hypothe-
ses are derived as follows:
H1: Organizational commitment and communication
are positively correlated to line management com-
mitment, supervisorÕs role and personal role.
H2: Organizational commitment and communication
are positively correlated to accident reporting
system.
H3: Personal role is positively correlated to work-
forcesÕ influence.
H4: Personal role is negatively correlated to risk taking
behavior and obstacles to safe behavior.
H5: There are differences in safety attitudes among the
three workforce levels: top management, supervi-
sory staff and workers.
2. Literature review
2.1. A review of the existing safety culture in Hong Kong
Hong Kong construction site safety is mainly gov-
erned by the Factories and Industrial Undertakings
Ordinance (F&IUO), chapter 59 and its subsidiary Reg-
ulations through the Labour Department. Prosecutions
would be taken out against any breach of the statutory
provisions. Besides, a self-regulatory safety management
system has been enacted by HKSAR government. The
system basically follows the Quality Assurance System
in which it forces on asking construction firms to define,
document and implement top managementÕs commit-
ment in safety management system, safety training, for-
mation of safety committee, implementation of safety
audit, setting up of safety benchmark, etc. [5].
HKSAR government has introduced a ‘‘Pay for
Safety Scheme’’. Contractors who are going to tender
for public works can include a number of safety related
tasks as a part of the Bills of Quantities. The contractors
are paid for those items when the specified activities are
successfully performed and certified [6]. Apart from
these, the Labour Department, Occupational Safety
and Health Council (OSHC) and the Construction
Industry Training Authority (CITA) organize many site
505
safety training courses to personnel working in con-
struction industry, which aim at educating site personnel
the importance of site safety, their rights and duties on
site safety issue and raise their safety awareness.
2.2. A review of concepts and theories of safety culture
The concept of safety culture promotes universal
understanding of the accident phenomenon since it helps
clarify peopleÕs perception of safety and behavior related
to safety.
The term ‘‘safety culture’’ has many definitions
according to the past researchers and they are summa-
rized as follows:
 Perceptions and beliefs, behavior and management
systems are the elements which combine to form an
organizationsÕ ‘‘safety culture’’ [7].
 ‘‘Safety culture’’ is the ‘‘collective behaviors of people
in the organization that over time becoming patterns,
typical or habit’’. Employees always behave in ways
that the company requires them to, without consider-
ing why they need to do [8].
 A safety culture is the set of assumptions and their
associated practices, which permit beliefs about dan-
ger and safety to be constructed [9–11].
 Safety culture is an environment in which people do
their tasks safely and for the right reasons [12].
These definitions shape a theme of relationships and
patterns of behavior that are learnt, shared, and passed
on. Thus, in terms of different degrees of sharing atti-
tudes, safety culture can be established.
There are several features which are essential to pro-
mote a sound safety culture according to Turner [11].
 Leadership and commitment from the top that is gen-
uine and visible.
 Changing a safety culture is a long-term strategy that
requires sustained effort and interest.
 Policy statement of high expectations and conveying a
sense of optimism about what is possible are required.
 The sense of ‘‘ownership’’ of safety and health must per-
meate all levels of the workforce. This requires employee
involvement, suitable training and communication.
 Realistic and achievable targets have to be set and the
corresponding performance has to be measured.
 Consistency of behavior against agreed standards
should be achieved by audition and good safety
behavior should be a condition of employment and
considered in performance appraisals.
 All accidents and near misses have to be thoroughly
investigated.
 Management must receive adequate up-to-date infor-
mation so as to be able assess the performance and
review the safety and health system.
506 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512
PERSON ENVIRONMENT
Knowledge, Skill, Equipment, Tools,
Abilities, Intelligence, Physical Layout,
Motives and Procedures, Standards,
Personality and Temperature
SAFETY
CULTURE
BEHAVIOR
Complying, Coaching, Recognizing,
Communicating, Demonstrating
“Actively Caring”
Fig. 1. GellorÕs safety triad [13].
2.3. Safety triad theory
Gellor [13] investigated a safety triad theory (see Fig. 1)
in which he thought that a ‘‘Totally Safety Culture’’
should maintain a continue monitoring process to three
domains which are environment, person factors and
behavior factors. They are dynamic and interactive and
the changes in either one factor will eventually impact
the other one. Once people choose to act safety, they act
themselves into safe thinking and the corresponding
behaviors often result in some environmental change.
2.4. Behavior and attitudes of safety culture
Culture is an outgrowth of attitudes and behavior. It
indicates how employees act and how they are treated. It
demonstrates company and employee values, and deter-
mines whether a job will be performed safely. The con-
cept of behavior and attitude are inter-correlated [14].
 Attitudes influencing behavior – the change of a per-
sonÕs attitude to something then this will also influ-
ence the relevant behavior.
 Behavior influencing attitude – the ways that change
peopleÕs behavior, their attitudes will change to corre-
spond with that behavior.
 Attitudes and behavior influencing each other – the
notion of consistency between attitudes and behavior.
 Other types of influence factors – while the impor-
tance of cognitive consistency is implicitly acknowl-
edged, the possibility of additional factors which
could influence both attitudes and behavior.
3. Methodology
Summarizing the experience from the previous
research works, a questionnaire survey was developed
and conducted during the period of September 2003 to
August 2004 for construction personnel who had been
selected randomly from ten different construction sites
in Hong Kong. The targeted respondents are classified
into three groups: top management, supervisory staff
and workers. The questionnaire (see Fig. 2) are divided
into two parts; Part 1: general information and Part 2:
36 attitude statements on a 1–5 Likert scale, ranging
from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
The first part of questionnaire are designed to iden-
tify the project type which the respondents are involved
currently, respondentsÕ personal and safety-related
characteristics, including education level, any involve-
ment in site safety promotion activities and job posi-
tion. The 36 attitude statements in second part of
questionnaire were designed on the basis of the hypoth-
eses set in this study and the software developed by the
Health & Safety Executive in United Kingdom HSE
[15]. It is aimed at evaluating construction personnelÕs
attitude towards construction safety culture, including
the respondentsÕ views of how they behave and their
attitudes and perceptions they hold on key aspects of
the safety culture. A total of 8 testable factors that
summarizes as groups of statements have been identi-
fied in Part 2 of the survey. These factors are described
as follows:
 Factor 1 (F1): Organizational commitment and com-
munication (Q1–Q7; 7 items)
 Factor 2 (F2): Reporting of accidents and near misses
(Q8 and Q9; 2 items)
 Factor 3 (F3): Line management commitment (Q10
to Q12; 3 items)
 Factor 4 (F4): SupervisorÕs role (Q13–Q14; 2 items)
 Factor 5 (F5): Personal role (Q15–Q21; 7 items)
 Factor 6 (F6): WorkmatesÕ influence (Q22–Q26; 5
items)
 Factor 7 (F7): Risk taking behavior and some con-
tributory influence (Q27–Q31; 5 items)
 Factor 8 (F8): Obstacles to safe behavior (Q32–Q36;
5 items)
The parametric tests, independent sample t-test and
analysis of variance (ANOVA), were employed to deter-
mine if any difference occurred in the sample would also
reflect the same results in a real population or only oc-
curred by chance. All data collected from the survey
was analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences
Version 11.0 (SPSS 11.0).
4. Results and discussion
A total of 423 construction personnel responded in
this survey, in which there were 61 managers, 103 super-
visors and 259 workers. Within the three groups, there
 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512 507

List of Question
Section I:
1. Career position
2. Type of project presently involved
3. Education Level
4. Time of safety training you have received (except the compulsory Safety Card Training)

Section II:
1. Senior management takes safety seriously.
2. There are sufficient resources available for safety in your company.
3. Management places a low priority on safety training.
4. The company shows interest in your views on safety.
5. You are always informed of the outcome of meetings which address safety.
6. The safety committee makes an important contribution to safety in your company.
7. Productivity is usually seen more important than safety.
8. Accidents, happen in the site, are always reported
9. Near misses are always reported.
10. Your immediate boss would be very helpful if you asked for advice on safety matters.
11. Your immediate boss is receptive to ideas on how to improve safety.
12. Your immediate boss does not do enough to ensure safety.
13. The supervisors in your company are good at detecting unsafe behavior.
14. The supervisors in your company are good at ensuring safety at work.
15. There is nothing you can do to further improve safety in your company.
16. There are some safety procedures/ instructions/ rules do not need to be followed to get the job done
safely.
17. There are too many safety procedures/ instructions/ rules helped to reduce the real risks of the jobs for
which you are responsible.
18. The safety training covers all the risks associated with the work for which you are responsible.
19. You are sometimes feeling uncertain what to do to ensure the safety in the work for which you are
responsible.
20. Your own contribution recognizes the relative importance of safety.
21. You are clear about your health and safety responsibilities and fully understand the safety procedures.
22. All the people who work in your team are fully committed to safety.
23. You trust your workmates with your safety.
24. It is important for you to work safely if you are kept the respect of the others in your team.
25. Your workmates react strongly against people who break safety procedures/ instructions/ rules.
26. There is some workmates’ influence you to work safely.
27. Some of the workforces pay little attention to safety.
28. Some people have a poor understanding of the risks associated with their work.
29. Not all the safety procedures/ instructions/ rules are strictly followed by people.
30. People are sometimes pressured to work unsafely by their colleagues.
31. People who work in your company sometimes take risks at work which you could not take yourself.
32. Some safety procedures/ instructions/ rules are difficult to follow.
33. There are some physical conditions at the workplace restrict people’s ability to work safely.
34. There are some safety procedures/ instructions/rules not really practicable.
35. There are some jobs difficult to do safety.
36. It is sometimes necessary to take risks to get the job done.

Fig. 2. Questionnaire for the safety culture survey (partly adopted from HSE [15]).

are 125 respondents from the civil construction firms,
207 from private building construction firms and 91
from government authorities.
4.1. Reliabilities of the safety culture survey
to make random errors and simple mistakes, which af-
fected the reliability of the survey.
4.2. Mean scores for the three groups of respondents with
respect to 8 testable factors

Before examining the results of the findings, the inter-
nal-consistency reliability of the safety culture survey
was tested. Referring to Table 1, almost all of the coef-
ficient alphas (where a P 0.5) regarding the perceptions
were acceptable except perception of supervisorÕs role
(for F4, a = 0.237).
One of the reasons for low reliability results for
‘‘supervisorÕs role’’ may be due to insufficient number
of statements in the questionnaire (Q17 and Q18 only)
for the reliability analysis. Moreover, distractions and
misunderstandings would increase peopleÕs tendencies
Referring to Table 2, the range of mean scores of 8
testable factors got from all targeted respondents was
from 3.250 to 3.790 (average scores = 3.493). For ease
of comparison, the mean scores were resulted from the
sum of scores by the numbers of statements for each
testable factor. The overall results indicated that the
management group got higher mean scores for each of
the factors than the supervisory staff, followed by the
worker group. It reflects that the safety perception for
the management group is higher than that of the super-
visory staff group, followed by the worker group. Safety
508 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512

Table 1 Hypothesis 3. Gellor [13] also concluded that peer pres-

Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alphas for all factors sure increases when the group members become relatively
Factors N = 423 competent and experienced. It shows that active personal
Alpha, a Mean scores Standard deviation role is associated with strong workmatesÕ influence.
F1 0.643 3.420 3.569
F2 0.543 3.795 1.713 4.3.3. Relationship among personal role (F5), risk taking
F3 0.576 3.630 2.114 behavior (F7) and obstacles to safe behavior (F8)
F4 0.237 3.455 1.320 Personal role (F5) is negatively correlated to and sta-
F5 0.615 3.412 3.456
F6 0.556 3.544 2.789
tistically significant with obstacles to safe behavior (F8)
F7 0.721 3.386 2.830 [r = 0.23] as shown in Table 3. However, it is nega-
F8 0.621 3.172 3.497 tively correlated to but not statistically significant with
risk taking behavior (F7) [r = 0.08]. Therefore,
culture divergences among the three groups, thus, would Hypothesis 4 can be partially supported. This can be
be occurred. The degree of significance for their differ- interpreted that active personal role was generally asso-
ences on each of the testable factors and the implications ciated with low obstacles to safe behavior but not neces-
will be discussed in the section of ‘‘safety culture diver- sarily with risk taking behavior. On of the reasons may
gences among three groups of respondents’’. be due to different inherent personalities of the respon-
dents. To certain extent, their past experiences may also
4.3. Inter-correlation between 8 testable factors affect their risking taking behaviors. Generally, an indi-
vidual who have experienced accident in the past would
4.3.1. Relationships among organizational commitment & have higher safety awareness.
communication (F1), accident reporting (F2), line
management commitment (F3), supervisorÕs role (F4) 4.3.4. Other implications based on the findings
and personal role (F5) The above results show that a good organizational
Referring to Table 3, organizational commitment and commitment to health and safety plays a vital role for
communication (F1) is positively correlated to and statis- cultivating a positive safety culture. It is positively corre-
tically significant with accident reporting (F2) [r = 0.57], lated to 4 testable factors: accident reporting system, line
line management commitment (F3) [r = 0.54], supervi- management commitment, supervisorÕs role and per-
sorÕs role (F4) [r = 0.21] and personal role (F5) sonal role. Since the extent of peopleÕs commitment to
[r = 0.53], respectively. The outcomes match Hypotheses an organization has important implications on function-
1 and 2. This is reinforced that high organizational com- ing of many aspects of organization life, each of which
mitment and communication would be associated with exerts effects on safety related issue to certain extent.
effective accident reporting, high line management com- Based on the above findings, it is believed that if the
mitment, active supervisorÕs role and active personal more communication between the management team and
role. Siu [16] also revealed that a good flow of safety supervisory and their subordinates (worker), the more
knowledge and policy within an organization will en- organizational committed for their employees becomes.
hance workerÕs awareness and behavior towards safety. Gradually, a good safety culture can be built up within
the organization and the employees, in turn, are willing
4.3.2. Relationships between personal role (F5) and to follow the guidance as stated in the safety policies (i.e.,
workmatesÕ influence (F6) accident reporting system) set up by their organizations.
The results (see Table 3) also indicate that personal role Apart from these, peer groupÕs pressure also influence
(F5) is positively correlated to and statistically significant their workmatesÕ behavior to one another. When more
with workmatesÕ influence (F6) [r = 0.44] which confirms and more employees behave safely on their works, they will
Table 2
Mean scores for the three groups of respondents with respect to 8 testable factors
Factors Mean scores for Mean scores for supervisory Mean scores for worker Mean scores for all
management group (N = 61) staff group (N = 103) group (N = 259) respondents (N = 423)
F1 3.819 3.632 3.572 3.520
F2 3.532 3.716 3.370 3.805
F3 3.710 3.467 3.330 3.530
F4 3.587 3.726 3.325 3.452
F5 3.664 3.594 3.295 3.512
F6 3.992 3.463 3.420 3.644
F7 3.728 3.427 3.406 3.387
F8 3.542 3.282 3.217 3.202
Average scores 3.790 3.440 3.250 3.493
 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512 509

Table 3
Inter-correlation among 8 testable factors
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8
* * * * *
F1 Pearson (r) correlation 1.000 .574 .541 .218 .531 .381 .149 .348*
Sig. (2-tailed) – .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .081 .000
F2 Pearson (r) correlation .574* 1.000 .370* .337* .453* .469* .037 .124
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 – .000 .005 .000 .000 .677 .175
F3 Pearson (r) correlation .541* .370* 1.000 .333 .423* .370* .309* .398*
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 – .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
F4 Pearson (r) correlation .218* .337* .333* 1.000* .299* .283* .175 .114
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .005 .000 – .000 .001 .053 .194
F5 Pearson (r) correlation .531* .453* .423* .299* 1.000 .440* .078 .229*
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 – .000 .322 .006
F6 Pearson (r) correlation .381* .469* .370* .283* .440* 1.000 .077 .044
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .001 .000 – .356 .599
F7 Pearson (r) correlation .149 .037 .309* .175* .078 .077 1.000 .514*
Sig. (2-tailed) .081 .677 .000 .053 .322 .356 – .000
F8 Pearson (r) correlation .348* .124 .398* .114* .229* .044 .514* 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .175 .000 .194 0.06 .599 .000 –
*
Correlation is significant at 0.05 level (2-tailed).

lead as good examples. It helps to raise the safety awareness
for the rest of the employees. Furthermore, once the safety
concept is established in the employeesÕ minds, with an
effective administration and management system of the
organization, staff will have much more confident to tackle
any obstacles and difficulties relating to safety issue.
4.4. Safety culture divergences among three groups of
respondents
In order to investigate safety cultural divergences be-
tween three groups of respondents, including managers,
supervisory staffs and workers, ANOVA was used to car-
ry out the analysis. The Tukey test was then used to exam-
ine which specific pairs of means are significantly different
with respect to 8 testable factors at 5% significant level.
The difference in the average scores of 8 testable factors
for three groups of respondents has been shown in Table 2
before. To further investigate the safety culture divergence
among the respondents, the corresponding F values and
significant differences regarding each factor for three
groups of respondents are tested as shown in Table 4.
The results indicate that there is significant difference in
factors of ‘‘organizational commitment and communica-
tion’’ (F1), ‘‘accident reporting and near misses’’ (F2),
‘‘line management commitment’’ (F3), ‘‘personal role’’
(F5) and ‘‘workmatesÕ influence’’ (F6) among the three lev-
els of the respondents. This is in line with the Hypothesis 5.
The safety culture divergences for the three groups of
respondents were further explored by Tukey test with re-
spect to 8 testable factors. The results shown in Table 5
indicate that the management group and the worker
group have significant difference in the 5 testable factors
(F1, F2, F3, F5 and F6). The significant difference is also
found between supervisory staff group and worker
group for F1 and F2 factors. However, there is no sig-
nificant difference between management group and
supervisory staff group in all testable factors. It demon-
strates that safety culture divergences are mainly oc-
curred between management and worker group, and
supervisory staff and worker group, respectively.
From the above findings, it is revealed that manage-
ment group, generally, have more positive attitudes to-
wards safety than worker group, particularly for the
factors of ‘‘organizational commitment and communi-
cation’’ (F1), ‘‘accident reporting’’ (F2), ‘‘line manage-
ment commitment’’ (F3), ‘‘personal role’’ (F5) and
‘‘workmatesÕ influence’’ (F6). It reflects that the manage-
ment group would be emphasis on these 5 factors com-
pared with work group.
As for the significance differences in organizational
commitment and communication (F1) and reporting of
accidents and near misses between supervisory staff
group and worker group, it may be result from their dif-
ferent job positions. The supervisory staff group gener-
ally has strong sense of responsibilities. Being as
supervisors, they have duties to report accidents and
keep good communication with their subordinates
(workers). For the worker group, they commonly think
that reporting accidents and organizational commitment
and communication are out of their concern and these
should be managed by the superiors.
4.5. Other determinant factors causing safety culture
divergences among the three groups
According to some respondents at management and
supervisory level, workers are generally indifferent and
510 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512

Table 4
ANOVA test for the three groups
Sums of squares df Mean square F values Significance
F1 Between groups 250.298 2 125.149 11.681 .000
Within groups 2967.778 420 10.714
Total 3218.076 421
F2 Between groups 39.012 2 19.506 9.586 .000
Within groups 563.695 420 2.035
Total 602.707 421
F3 Between groups 36.364 2 18.182 4.770 .010
Within groups 1055.924 420 3.812
Total 1062.288 421
F4 Between groups 2.345 2 1.173 .765 .467
Within groups 424.641 420 1.533
Total 426.986 421
F5 Between groups 164.048 2 82.024 7.048 .001
Within groups 3224.003 420 11.639
Total 3388.051 421
F6 Between groups 140.488 2 70.244 9.704 .000
Within groups 2004.926 420 7.238
Total 2145.414 421
F7 Between groups 16.726 2 8.363 1.018 .364
Within groups 2275.832 420 8.216
Total 2292.558 421
F8 Between groups 26.488 2 13.244 1.087 .340
Within groups 3375.799 420 12.187
Total 3402.287 421

passive on safety issue and have poor safety attitudes.
Besides, workerÕs ignorance and their resistance to
change are the determinant factors to cause the diver-
gences among the three groups of respondents. WhatÕs
more, most of the workers are low-educated compared
with the management teams and supervisory staff. They
only consider money rewards on work but ignore impor-
tance of construction safety. As a result, they may tend
to uncooperative and even overlook the safety
regulations.
However, most of management group and supervi-
sory staff group who are high-educated are more con-
cerned about their workforcesÕ safety issue. They also
realize that the safety performance of the employees
would affect their reputations and induce high cost ef-
fect. High insurance premium for the company with
poor safety record is one of the examples. Therefore,
they tend to play proactive role to safety issue in order
to protect the interests of the organizations.
5. Conclusions and recommendations
The results from the Safety Culture Survey indicate
that good organizational commitment and communica-
tion is highly associated with effective accident report-
ing, high line management commitment, active
supervisorÕs role and active personal role. Active per-
sonal role to safety and health resulted in high work-
matesÕ influence and low obstacles to safety behavior.
There is significant safety culture divergence between
the management group and the worker group in 5 test-
able factors which are organizational commitment and
communication (F1), reporting of accidents and near
misses (F2), line management commitment (F3), per-
sonal role (F5) and workmatesÕ influence (F6). It reflects
that the management group is much more emphasis on
these 5 factors compared with worker group.
The significant difference is also found between
supervisory staff group and worker group on organi-
zational commitment and communication (F1) and
reporting of accidents and near misses (F2). However,
there is no significant difference between management
group and supervisory staff group in all testable fac-
tors. It may be attributed to different extent on sense
of responsibility and education level of the two
groups.
However, there are still many proactive actions for
improving the current situation. It is recommended that
managers and supervisory staff can launch some safety
promotion campaign to raise the workers safety aware-
ness. Besides, proper and open communication channel
has to be established among the three groups which can
help different levels of staff giving their voices on safety
 I.W.H. Fung et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 504–512 511

Table 5
Tukey test for the three groups
Dependent variable Position (I) Position (J) Divergences (I–J) Std. error Sig.
F1 Management Supervisory staff .266 .13 .099
Worker .520* .11 .000
Supervisory staff Management .266 .13 .099
Worker .254* .09 .019
Worker Management .520* .11 .000
Supervisory staff .254* .09 .019
F2 Management Supervisory staff .015 .20 .997
Worker .550* .18 .005
Supervisory staff Management .015 .20 .997
Worker .535* .15 .001
Worker Management .550* .18 .005
Supervisory staff .535* .15 .001
F3 Management Supervisory staff .360 .18 .122
Worker .490* .16 .006
Supervisory staff Management .360 .18 .122
Worker .130 .13 .554
Worker Management .490* .16 .006
Supervisory staff .130 .13 .554
F5 Management Supervisory staff .220 .13 .229
Worker .421* .12 .001
Supervisory staff Management .220 .13 .229
Worker .201 .10 .100
Worker Management .421* .12 .001
Supervisory staff .201 .10 .100
F6 Management Supervisory staff .422 .15 .053
Worker .576* .13 .000
Supervisory staff Management .422 .15 .053
Worker .154 .11 .323
Worker Management .576* .13 .000
Supervisory staff .154 .11 .323
*
The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

issue in order to narrow down the safety culture diver- Acknowledgment

gences among them.
Though the analysis, it is showed that Safety Culture
Survey can be used as a reliable instrument to measure
the safety culture and the previously immeasurable ele-
ments of the safety system can be quantified, specifically
for human factors in an understandable and structured
manner. It encourages employees from all levels to have
better understanding on interrelation among different
factors (F1–F8). The findings also give invaluable infor-
mation to construction practitioners and safety profes-
sionals in the direction of cultivating safety culture in
the construction industries.
In addition, the authors suggest that in the future re-
search each safety culture related factors indexes can be
ranked according to their effectiveness to improvement
of safety culture and the safety professionalsÕ advices.
The factor with the highest index will be considered
as the most important factor which has to be place on
the first priority during reviewing the safety policy and
regulations. It will facilitate the decision makers to de-
velop an effective policy for cultivating a good safety
culture in the organizations.
The work described in this paper was fully supported
by SRG grant from City University of Hong Kong (Pro-
ject No. 7001600-560).
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