Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35

www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

National culture and safe work behaviour of construction workers

in Pakistan
S. Mohamed, T.H. Ali, W.Y.V. Tam *
Griffith School of Engineering, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

Received 3 September 2007; received in revised form 21 December 2007; accepted 17 January 2008

Abstract

It is widely accepted that unsafe behaviour is intrinsically linked to workplace accidents. A positive correlation exists between work-
ers’ safe behaviour and safety climate on construction sites. Construction workers’ attitude towards safety is influenced by their percep-
tion of risk, management, safety rules and procedures. Pakistan, a developing country, is currently experiencing a strong growth in its
construction activities. Unfortunately, the enforcement of safety regulations in Pakistan is not widespread. Indeed, some relevant regu-
lations are both outdated and irrelevant to daily construction operations. This paper investigates local construction workers’ behaviour,
perception and attitude toward safety, and attempts to link the research findings to the influence of national culture. A three-part inter-
view-based questionnaire survey has identified that the majority of workers have a good degree of risk awareness and self-rated compe-
tence. Additionally, workers’ intentional behaviour was empirically explained by their attitudes towards their own and management’s
safety responsibilities, as well as their perception of the risk they are generally exposed to in their workplace. The paper also reveals that
workers operating in a more collective and higher uncertainty avoidance environment, are more likely to have safety awareness and
beliefs, which can exhibit safer on-site behaviour.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Construction workers; National culture; Behaviour; Perception; Attitude

1. Introduction the construction industry greatly contributes to Pakistan’s

Safety in the construction industry has been considered
an important issue, with construction being one of the most
dangerous industries. This is especially so in developing
countries (Coble and Haupt, 1999; Ofori, 2000) where,
safety is a major concern because of the lack of Safety Acts
(Larcher and Sohail, 1999). The lack of statutory regula-
tions and legislation to protect construction workers, low
standards in corporate systems and governance, high
labour intensive character and inadequate infrastructure
are other major factors that combine to work against safety
in most developing countries.
Pakistan, a developing country, is currently experiencing
a strong growth in construction activities. For this reason,
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 5552 9278; fax: +61 7 5552 8065.
E-mail address: v.tam@griffith.edu.au (W.Y.V. Tam).
gross domestic product and employs about 9% of the total
workforce (Pakistan Government, 2001). Regrettably,
existing national safety regulations do not directly apply
to the industry. The absence or deficiency of such a set of
safety regulations adversely affects the enforcement of
safety, thereby resulting in more vulnerable conditions on
occupational health and safety for workers. Existing site
inspection services are not adequate enough to recognize
or evaluate occupational hazards on site. Accident report-
ing and recording systems are dysfunctional (Ali, 2006). On
site personnel, both workers and managers, are not too
concerned with safety since they are not informed about
the statistics of serious and fatal accidents, along with the
number of disabilities resulting from such accidents. Addi-
tionally, there is no provision for the employment of health
and safety personnel at the enterprise level. Further, the
lack of expertise at the policy-making level results in

0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2008.01.003
30 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35
ineffective and impractical safety rules and an inadequate
climate for safer worksites.
Safety climate is regarded as a safety culture manifesta-
tion in behaviour expressed in the attitude of employees
(Cox and Flin, 1998). The relationship between safety cli-
mate and specific measures of safety performance is well-
established, and a number of studies have reported positive
correlation between safety climate scores with the ranking
of safety practice and accident prevention programs (Cox
and Cox, 2001; Mohamed, 2002; Clarke, 2006). Also, Neal
and Griffin (2000) found that safety climate influences
safety performance. In addition, construction workers’ atti-
tudes towards safety are influenced by their perceptions of
risk, management, safety rules and procedures. In light of
the foregoing, the objectives of this study were to investi-
gate: (a) the perception and attitude of local workers
regarding safety issues; (b) their safe or unsafe work behav-
iour in handling risky situations; and (c) the influence of
national culture on their safe work behaviours.
2. Research methodology
To achieve the above three objectives, a three-part
interview-based questionnaire survey was developed to
target ‘‘frontline” construction workers who are consid-
ered to be the main agents to report on safety at their
workplace. The survey was undertaken in 2005 by the sec-
ond author; collecting data from eight large construction
sites in three major cities in Pakistan. The first part of the
questionnaire comprised 25 statements, adopted from
reported research studies (McDonald and Hrymak,
2001; Mohamed, 2002), dealt with workers’ attitudes
and perceptions regarding critical issues including: man-
agement commitment and communication towards safety,
safety training, site inspection, workers’ own risk percep-
tion, relationship among workers, and work pressure. For
each statement, workers were required to express the level
of their agreement (provided the item was relevant to
their particular trade) on a five-point Likert-type scale,
where one equals strong disagreement, and five equals
strong agreement.
In construction, working at height represents a major
cause of fatal accidents (Kartam and Bouz, 1998). For this
reason, and in light of the work reported by McDonald
and Hrymak (2001), the second part of the questionnaire
focused on workers’ behaviour in connection with per-
forming tasks: (1) on scaffolds, (2) using ladders, and (3)
on roofs. For each task, the workers were asked to con-
sider the risk levels for three given working situations
and their intentional behaviour for each encountered situ-
ation. They were also asked for their personal opinion on
the frequency of each situation at the work site. In sum-
mary, for each of these nine situations, the workers were
requested to:
 Offer an evaluation of their perceived level of risk (low,
medium or high risk);
Table 1
Definitions of the four cultural dimensions
Dimension Definition
Power distance The extent to which the less powerful person
in a society accepts power inequality among
members of a society
Individualism vs. The relationship between the individual and the
collectivism group that is reflected in the way people work
together Societies based on collectivism typically
place the well-being of the ‘group’ before that
of the ‘individual’
Uncertainty The extent to which members of a society feel
avoidance threatened by, and try to avoid, future
uncertainty or ambiguous situations
Masculinity vs. Masculine cultures place importance on
femininity achievement, high levels of
assertion and are generally materialistic
by nature. Feminine cultures place greater
value on the social aspects of life
 State the frequency at which these situations occur on
site (rare, occasional or frequent); and
 Predict their intentional behaviour if the situation
occurred today (i.e. stop or continue working).
The third and final part of the survey contained an addi-
tional set of 25 statements in order to explore the national
cultural trends of workers in the context of safety. For each
statement, the workers were required to express the level of
their agreement on a five-point Likert-type scale. For this
study, the culture of Pakistan was seen only from the
well-known and most-cited framework of Hofstede (Hofst-
ede, 1994) which has four work-related cultural dimensions
namely: (i) power distance, (ii) individualism vs. collectiv-
ism, (iii) uncertainty avoidance, and (iv) masculinity vs.
femininity. Each of the four dimensions is briefly described
in Table 1.
A total of 140 workers, representing six common
construction trades (scaffolding, masonry, steel fixing, car-
pentry, painting and electrical work), were surveyed. There-
fore, a total of 3  140 questionnaires were completed
across the eight sites. At the beginning of each site survey,
the site’s administration (main contractor or subcontractor
management staff) were contacted and permission to under-
take the survey was requested. Also management staffs were
requested to introduce the survey administrator to the
workers, or their respective supervisors, to facilitate the
process of data collection. Each survey respondent was
briefed about the objectives and nature of the study.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Attitudes and perceptions
Questionnaire responses were checked using the statisti-
cal package for social sciences (SPSS) version 11.5 to
ensure completeness, consistency, and readability prior to
data processing. The data gathered using the first part of
 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35
the survey were factor-analyzed to examine the inter-rela-
tionships among the 25 statements in attempt to reduce
the number of statements into a smaller number of factors.
Firstly, data suitability was assessed using a measure of
sampling adequacy (MAS) test, and the Kaiser–Meyer–
Olkin (KMO) test to predict if data are likely to factor well.
On the basis of the outcomes of these two tests, five state-
ments did not reach the standards required, so they were
removed accordingly from the analysis. As a result, the var-
iable list was reduced to 20 statements. A principal compo-
nent analysis was then conducted to reveal the presence of
three distinct factors. To obtain interpretable results from
these three factors, a varimax rotation was also performed.
3.1.1. Factor interpretation
The three-factor solution accounted for about 74% of
the total variance. The factors were then examined to iden-
tify the number of items that were loaded on each factor.
The three-factor solution, with respective loading scores,
is presented in Table 2. Reliability scores, for individual
factors, range from 0.70 to 0.78 indicating adequate inter-
nal consistency.
The results were assessed and numbered in a descending
order of the amount of variance to determine the underly-
Table 2
Factor loadings for a three-factor model of workers’ attitudes and
perceptions
Factor 1: Awareness and beliefs (variance = 38%; Eigenvalue = 7.517;
Cronbach’s a = 0.761)
I find working with a certain amount of risk exciting
I believe that safe work habits improve production
I am capable of identifying potentially hazardous situations
Management acts decisively when a safety concern is raised
Working safely is the top priority for site managers, foremen and 0.902
supervisors
Management ‘turns a blind eye’ on basic safety issues
I am never encouraged to raise any safety concern
I am clear about what my responsibilities are for safety
I am aware of my trade relevant safety procedures
I am not given enough time to do the job safely
Personal protective equipments are useful for increasing the
safety level
Factor 2: Physical work environment (variance = 25%;
Eigenvalue = 4.790; Cronbach’s a = 0.712)
Construction sites are dangerous places
My job carries a considerable level of risk
I am rarely worried about being injured on the job
Usually I do not get the right equipment to do job safely
All equipment and materials supplied to work are in good
conditions
Factor 3: Supportive environment (variance = 16%; Eigenvalue = 2.421;
Cronbach’s a = 0.695)
Safety training is provided on skills specific to individual tasks 0.784
and equipment
Potential risks and consequences are identified in training
I believe that prevention of accidents is the responsibility of
everyone
Good working relationship among workers is often necessary for
safety
31
ing features. Each factor was subjectively labelled in accor-
dance with sets of individual items. The first factor,
‘‘Awareness and Beliefs”, accounted for about 38% of the
total variance and comprises 11 items indicating the work-
ers’ degree of awareness or belief is based on their own, and
management’s safety responsibilities. The majority of items
had relatively high factor loadings (>0.75). Workers seem
to share a common belief that working safely is a top pri-
ority. They also recognize that management has an associ-
ation with safety; this attitude is reflected by a reasonable
degree of ‘‘agreement” with items addressing management
safety responsibilities. However, the item ‘‘safe work habits
improve productivity” was not too strongly associated with
awareness and beliefs. This could be explained by the
respondents’ focus on their competence and ability to work
safely.
The second factor, ‘‘Physical Work Environment”,
contained five items, which accounted for about 25% of
the total variance. Collectively, this group of items dem-
onstrated the workers’ perception of risk. Overwhelm-
ingly, the respondents seem to perceive construction
sites as dangerous places, and their jobs being associated
with high risks. They appear, however, to be relatively
satisfied with the availability, but not condition, of the
necessary equipment needed to carry out their jobs
safely.
The third and last factor, ‘‘Supportive Environment”,
had four items (Table 2), which accounted for about 16%
of the variance. The first two items demonstrated that the
respondents perceived shared responsibilities and harmoni-
ous working relationships as a pre-requisite for a safe
0.845
workplace environment. The remaining two items loaded
0.586
0.731 on this factor were related to training. The combination
0.962 of these four items indicated the intensity of support given
by peers (through shared responsibility and involvement)
and management (through training) to perform the jobs
0.739
safely. A closer data examination revealed, however, that
0.755
0.847 training is scarce, with only a few workers having had lim-
0.810 ited experience with formal safety training; thus there was
0.861 an indication for respondents to disagree with statements
0.818 referring to on site hazard-identification skills gained
through training.
Overall, it has been very encouraging to have obtained a
positive attitude by workers towards safety. Thus, workers
0.865
0.589
appeared to be: aware of the risk associated with their jobs;
0.766 do not find working in a risky environment too exciting;
0.810 believed in having shared responsibilities and in maintain-
0.743 ing harmonious working relationships to prevent accidents;
are confident about their abilities to identify hazards; and
generally trust management. Contrary to the notion that
construction workers in many developing countries have
a fearless attitude towards safety (i.e. tendency to perceive
0.819 accidents as unavoidable, and thus, a negative attitude
0.920 towards accident prevention measures, the respondents,
on average, tended to have risk awareness and self-rated
0.901 competence, and possess a relatively high degree of safety
awareness.
32 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35

3.1.2. Behavioural analysis (i) scaffolds which are not totally boarded; (ii) ladders
This section analysed the second part of the question- which are not tied or secured; and (iii) fragile roofs as being
naire concerning risk perception and intentional behaviour the most risky out of the nine situations. Working on roofs
associated with working at an altitude. More than half of under windy conditions, however, was perceived as the
the respondents had more than 15 years of site-work expe- least risky. No more than 10% of the respondents reported
rience. Importantly, only about 20% of the respondents a low risk perception of the following situations: (i) work-
had received any formal safety training, e.g. limited to a ing on scaffolds with a missing guardrail; (ii) accessing
few hours and a full day while approximately 80% of scaffolds by climbing up and down; and (iii) using broken
respondents had no formal safety training. or somehow defective ladders.
As mentioned earlier, workers were asked to consider The findings on risk perception for these three risky sit-
the risk levels for nine given working situations and their uations showed that the majority of the workers did not
intentional behaviour whenever each situation was encoun- have a misperception of risks associated with these situa-
tered. Table 3 shows the results of the behavioural analysis tions. However, there was a minority of workers who do
under these working situations. With the exception of two misperceive the risks and who could be needlessly exposing
situations: (i) working on roofs without edge protection; themselves and other co-workers to risks. The results were
and (ii) working on roofs in strong windy conditions, all in line with the findings of McDonald and Hrymak (2001),
the remaining situations (working on scaffolds, using who identified that, typically, about 3–5% of workers on
ladders and working on roofs) were perceived as either of site were found to have low risk perception to situations
medium or high risk. Workers perceived working on: seen by others as medium-to-high risk. Importantly, this
minority of workers appeared to be inexperienced with
Table 3
one-to-five years of construction working experience.
Behavioural analysis results of workers’ attitudes and perceptions Interestingly, in the situation of working on roofs with-
Behavioural Percentage of Percentage of
out edge protection, about 65% of the workers perceived it
situations respondents respondents as a low risk activity, with about 94% opting to continue
(Variables) perceived the reported their working. Working on roofs under windy conditions was
situation as intention to also perceived by the majority of the workers as a low risk
high risk stop working situation and hence they were more likely to continue
Working with scaffolds, which 74 97 working.
are not totally boarded The following three situations were reported as being
Working with scaffolds with 35 40
guard rails missing
encountered on-site occasionally: (i) working on scaffolds
Accessing scaffolds by climbing 35 40 with a missing guardrail; (ii) working on scaffolds without
up and down ladders and finding alternatives for climbing up or down;
Working with ladders that 64 94 and (iii) working on ladders too short for the task being
are not tied performed. Despite their occasional frequency, workers
Working with ladders too 55 42
short for the task being
reported a medium-to-high perception of risk level for
performed the above three situations. Despite having this perception,
Using a broken or defective 40 73 almost half of the respondents opted to continue working
ladder in these situations under the belief that they know how
Working on a fragile roof 60 93 to safely handle it.
without crawling boards
Working on roof without 30 8
edge protection 3.1.3. Binary logistic regression
Working on roof in strong 20 18 To determine whether workers’ intentional behaviour is
windy conditions
caused by their attitude or perception, a binary logistic

Table 4
Logistic regression results of workers’ attitudes and perceptions
Awareness and beliefs Physical work environment Supportive environment
Dependent variables B Wald p value B Wald p value B Wald p value
Working with scaffolds not totally boarded 0.473 4.845 0.028 0.373 0.257 0.612 0.244 0.059 0.809
Working with scaffolds with guard rails missing 0.418 4.416 0.035 0.391 4.615 0.032 0.280 0.926 0.336
Accessing scaffolds by climbing up and down 0.395 3.939 0.047 0.429 4.647 0.031 0.280 0.926 0.336
Working with ladders that are not tied 0.695 4.601 0.032 0.670 4.198 0.040 0.686 4.321 0.037
Working with ladders short for the task being performed 0.382 4.128 0.042 0.382 4.263 0.039 0.974 0.169 0.681
Using a broken or defective ladder 0.370 4.340 0.037 0.304 3.098 0.078 0.399 3.940 0.047
Working on a fragile roof without crawling boards 1.915 4.337 0.037 1.434 4.022 0.045 0.053 0.006 0.938
Working on roof without edge protection 0.239 0.449 0.503 0.191 0.220 0.639 0.479 6.317 0.012
Working on roof in strong windy conditions 0.199 0.771 0.380 0.178 0.517 0.472 0.478 6.118 0.013
 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35
regression analysis test was conducted. The aim of this test
was to assess the independent effects of each of the three
factors already identified on the nine behavioural situa-
tions. In other words, these nine situations were taken as
dependent variables, with awareness and beliefs, physical
work environment and supportive environment as co-vari-
ants. The results for the binary logistic regression are pre-
sented in Table 4.
Table 4 shows that the first factor, ‘‘Awareness and
Beliefs”, has statistically significant correlations (using
the standard alpha level of 0.05) for seven situations
(Table 4). These situations were perceived to be either
medium or high risk, and the majority of the respondents
indicated their preference to stop working when facing
such situations. The significant correlations indicated that
this factor was a strong predictor of workers’ intentional
behaviour. It should also be noted that Awareness and
beliefs contained items related to workers’ competence,
awareness, and ability to work safely. In all seven situa-
tions, negative values for the B coefficient were obtained,
indicating that the higher the level of workers’ awareness
towards safety, the less likely they were to continue
working. Similarly, the second factor, ‘‘Physical Work
Environment”, showed a significant correlation with five
of the above seven situations, reflecting a reasonable
degree of predictive ability. The items within this partic-
ular factor demonstrated the workers’ perceptions of the
risk to which they are exposed in their working
environment.
The third factor, ‘‘Supportive Environment”, showed a
significant correlation with the remaining two situations:
(i) working on roofs without edge protection; and (ii) work-
ing on roofs in windy conditions. As mentioned earlier,
these two situations appear to be frequently encountered
on-site, and thus are perceived by many workers as low risk
situations. Consequently, workers are more inclined to
continue working. The positive B values indicated that
the higher the level of support given by peers (i.e. co-work-
ers), the higher the chance that workers would continue
working.
3.2. National culture
3.2.1. Factor interpretation
A total of 23 variables were factor analysed to determine
the underlying dimensions of national culture. Table 5
summarises the factor loading for a three-factor model of
workers’ cultural practice. The results revealed that three
factors: (i) collectivism and femininity; (ii) uncertainty
avoidance; and (iii) power distance, accounted for about
80% of the total variance. These factors were then exam-
ined to identify the number of loaded items. Each factor
solution is labelled in accordance with the set of individual
loaded items. The first factor is named as ‘‘Collectivism
and Femininity”. This factor accounts for about 48% of
the total variance and contains thirteen items describing
individualism, collectivism, masculinity and femininity
33
Table 5
Factor loadings for a three-factor model of workers’ cultural survey
Factor 1: Collectivism and femininity (variance = 48%;
Eigenvalue = 11.399; Cronbach’s a = 0.771)
Managers and supervisors do encourage feedback regarding 0.938
safety issues from site workers
Personally, I enjoy risk aspects associated with my job 0.942
I often feel nervous or tense at work 0.909
A company should have major responsibilities for health and 0.949
welfare of its injured worker
Co-workers often give tips to each other on how to safely work 0.901
A safe place to work has a lot of personal meaning to me and my 0.860
co-workers
It would help improving the site safety, if my co-workers support 0.942
safe behaviour
Safety training can help improving my attitude to safely work 0.783
Safety decisions made by me alone are usually more effective 0.885
than decisions made by my co-workers together
It is not always important to have a good working relationship 0.849
with my supervisor
When workers ignore safety procedures at my workplace, I feel 0.867
that it is none of my business
I will not change my attitude towards safety rules, even if my 0.856
supervisor praises safe work behaviour
I prefer the company having high pay rates but low safety 0.956
records
Factor 2: Uncertainty avoidance (variance = 18%; Eigenvalue = 4.461;
Cronbach’s a = 0.792)
Major decisions regarding site safety issues, always take place 0.670
after consulting with site workers/subcontractors
Generally workers follow safety rules without being told to do so 0.784
Safety rules should not be broken, even when a worker believes 0.852
that it affects the production
Safety decisions made by the management usually seems to be 0.817
more effective than decisions made by workers
Many accidents just happen, there is little one that can do to 0.826
avoid them
I prefer to work with large company as they have effective on site 0.865
safety practice
Factor 3: Power distance (variance = 14%; Eigenvalue = 3.517;
Cronbach’s a = 0.701)
I am always encouraged to raise any safety concern with my 0.895
supervisor
Workers are always being consulted regarding preparation of 0.661
site safety plans
I am allowed to act decisively if I find any situation contrary to 0.886
safe conditions on site
I prefer the company having less strict rules and where I easy to 0.771
work with
themes. The results show that the workers believe in carry-
ing out all operations collectively rather than individually.
The second factor, ‘‘Uncertainty Avoidance”, account-
ing for about 18% of the total variance contained six items.
The workers’ responses reflected a clear perception in rela-
tion to safe and unsafe conditions, with most being prone
towards high uncertainty avoidance. The results of this fac-
tor validated the results of the workers’ behavioural survey
analysis, in which most of the respondents opted not to
continue working in risky situations.
The third and last factor accounted for about 14% of the
total variance and contained four items poised to measure
the ‘‘Power Distance” between workers and managers. The
34 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35

Table 6
Results of logistic regression for workers’ cultural factors and behavioural situations
Collectivism and femininity Uncertainty avoidance Power distance
Dependent variables B Wald p value B Wald p value B Wald p value
Working with scaffolds not totally boarded 0.518 4.416 0.035 0.473 4.845 0.028 1.823 0.687 0.407
Working with scaffolds with guard rails missing 0.400 3.928 0.047 0.695 4.601 0.032 0.377 2.806 0.094
Accessing scaffolds by climbing up and down 0.400 3.928 0.047 0.427 4.650 0.031 0.375 2.776 0.096
Working with ladders that are not tied 0.382 4.263 0.029 0.777 4.419 0.036 0.377 2.806 0.094
Working with ladders short for the task being performed 0.263 4.534 0.033 0.401 4.288 0.038 0.286 2.635 0.105
Using a broken or defective ladder 0.521 4.172 0.041 0.343 3.729 0.053 0.077 0.205 0.651
Working on a fragile roof without crawling boards 0.431 4.699 0.030 0.382 4.263 0.039 0.807 0.279 0.598
Working on roof without edge protection 0.089 0.050 0.823 0.132 0.120 0.729 0.126 0.152 0.696
Working on roof in strong windy conditions 0.573 2.318 0.128 0.325 1.970 0.160 0.244 1.478 0.224

majority of workers did not see much power distance
between themselves and the management whenever there
are issues either of consultation with workers on site safety
plans, or taking any action if they perceive the situation as
risky.
3.2.2. Prediction of workers’ intentional behaviour
Table 6 shows the results of the binary logistic regres-
sion along with values for the B coefficient and Wald statis-
tic (W). As described earlier in Table 4, the B coefficient
reports the factor by which the odds of an event occurring
will increase or decrease with a unit change in the indepen-
dent variable. The significance of individual variables in the
logistic regression equation was assessed by the W statistic,
which has a chi-square distribution. This W statistic is
generally used to assess whether a coefficient is statistically
different to zero, similar to the test used in multiple
regression.
Using the standard alpha level of 0.05, the first two cul-
tural dimensions, ‘‘Collectivism and Femininity” and
‘‘Uncertainty Avoidance”, predict seven and six behav-
ioural situations, respectively. The third cultural dimen-
sion, ‘‘Power Distance”, did not predict any behavioural
situations.
The significance of the influence of ‘‘Collectivism and
Femininity” on working with scaffolds with guard rails
missing, and accessing scaffolds by climbing up and down,
were found to be similar, with a p value of about 0.047 and
a Wald value of about 3.928. Both situations had a nega-
tive influence on the probability of continuing with the
work. Therefore, it can be stated that the higher the collec-
tivistic and feminist attitude of the workers, the higher the
probability that they would avoid continuing to work
under risky situations.
The second cultural dimension predicted six behavioural
situations (Table 6). The most influential situation pre-
dicted by this factor was working with scaffolds which were
not totally boarded, with a Wald statistic of 4.845 at a sig-
nificance level of 0.028. The model for this situation was
statistically significant with an overall prediction of about
97% of cases at the significance level of 0.034. The negative
sign of B depicted that the higher the uncertainty avoidance
among workers, then the less they were going to continue
working. The second most influential situation was access-
ing scaffolds by climbing up and down, with a model fit
prediction of about 72%, a Wald value of 4.65, and a neg-
ative B sign at the significance level of about 0.031. The
third situation on the prediction sequence was working
with scaffolds with guard rails missing. The workers in this
situation were about 0.499 times less likely to continue
working, with a Wald statistic value of about 4.601, at
the significance level of 0.032.
The third cultural dimension of ‘‘Power Distance” could
not predict any of the given behavioural situations. This
implies that, when it comes to workers’ decisions under
risky situations, cultural dimensions of ‘‘Uncertainty
Avoidance” and ‘‘Collectivism and Femininity” played
more important and significant roles in deciding their
intentional behavioural, rather than ‘‘Power Distance”.
3.2.3. Relationship between attitudes, perceptions and culture
Table 7 summarises a Pearson correlation test results
between cultural dimensions and workers’ attitudinal
factors. The results revealed strong linear correlation

Table 7
Correlation between workers’ attitudes, perceptions, and cultural dimensions
Collectivism and femininity Uncertainty avoidance Power distance
Awareness and beliefs Pearson correlation significant (2-tailed) 0.880 0.796 0.606
0.001 0.018 0.044
Physical Work environment Pearson correlation significant (2-tailed) 0.896 0.783 0.588
0.001 0.024 0.081
Supportive environment Pearson correlation significant (2-tailed) 0.426 0.519 0.555
0.078 0.057 0.604
 S. Mohamed et al. / Safety Science 47 (2009) 29–35
between cultural dimensions and workers’ attitudes and
perceptions.
The cultural dimension, ‘‘Collectivism and Femininity”,
showed a strong positive correlation with two attitudinal
factors ‘‘Awareness and Beliefs” and ‘‘Physical Work Envi-
ronment”. The strong positive relationship between the
attitudinal factors depicted that the more the dominant col-
lectivism and femininity nature existed in workers’ attitude,
the more they were aware of safety issues by identifying
and communicating safety issues among themselves. The
results of the descriptive analysis of the workers’ cultural
questionnaire relating to the measurement of collectivism
and femininity revealed that workers’ attitudes tend
towards collectivism rather than individualism and also
towards femininity rather than masculinity.
Therefore, the presence of a strong positive correlation
was not surprising. Workers tended to be more supportive
in sharing and conveying safety issues and to help each
other. The majority of the workers tended to stop working
when facing a perceived risky situation.
The second cultural dimension, ‘‘Uncertainty Avoid-
ance”, showed a strong correlation with ‘‘Awareness and
Beliefs” and ‘‘Physical Environment”, and a relatively less
strong correlation with ‘‘Supportive Environment”. The
direction of these relationships was positive, thus depicting
that, if workers were more safety aware and had a strong
belief in safety issues, the higher would be their uncertainty
avoidance.
The third cultural dimension, ‘‘Power Distance”, showed
a negative correlation with the attitudinal factor ‘‘Aware-
ness and Beliefs”. Statistically, there was no significance
with the other two workers’ perceptions and attitude fac-
tors, however the Pearson correlation values for ‘‘Physical
Work Environment” and ‘‘Supportive Environment” were
not too different from the Pearson correlation value of
‘‘Awareness and Beliefs”. The negative correlation between
power distance, and awareness and beliefs can be inter-
preted as; the larger power distance between workers and
management, the less will be the workers’ awareness and
beliefs regarding safety issues.
4. Conclusion
Internationally, there is a growing recognition that
construction workers’ attitudes towards safety are influ-
enced by their perception of risk, management, safety
rules and procedures. This paper examined behaviour,
perceptions and attitudes associated with safety in con-
struction site environments of Pakistan. A three-part
interview-based questionnaire survey was conducted
focusing on workers’ behaviour, perceptions and atti-
tudes. The results showed that workers were well aware
of the risk associated with their jobs; they did not find
35
working with a certain amount of risk as being too exciting;
they believed in having shared responsibility and in main-
taining harmonious working relationships to prevent acci-
dents; and they were also confident about their abilities to
identify hazards, and to generally trust management. The
respondents had a good degree of risk awareness and self-
rated competence, with a relatively high degree of safety
awareness.
The working experience of an individual worker seems
to influence their perception of risk. However, the minority
of the workers do misperceive risks attached to a number
of situations and thus could be exposing themselves, and
other co-workers, to unnecessary risks. Overall, workers’
intentional behaviour can be explained by their attitudes
towards their own and management safety responsibilities
and their perception of the risks they generally encounter
in their workplace. Further, workers working in a more
collectivist, feminist, and higher uncertainty avoidance
environment, are more likely to have safety awareness
and beliefs and thus exhibit safer work behaviour.
References
Ali, T.H., 2006. Influence of national culture on construction safety
climate in Pakistan, Ph.D. thesis, Griffith University, Australia.
Clarke, S., 2006. The relationship between safety climate and safety
performance: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Occupational Health
Psychology 11 (4), 315–327.
Coble, R.J., Haupt, T.C., 1999. Construction Safety in Developing
Countries.In: 2nd International Conference of CIB on W99, Hawaii,
United States, pp. 903–908.
Cox, S., Cox, T., 2001. The structure of employee attitudes to safety: a
European example. Work and Stress 5 (2), 93–106.
Cox, S., Flin, R., 1998. Safety culture: philosopher’s stone or man of
straw. Work and Stress 12, 189–201.
Hofstede, G., 1994. Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind.
Harper Collins Publishers, London.
Kartam, N.A., Bouz, R.G., 1998. Fatalities and injuries in Kuwait
construction industry. Accident Analysis and Prevention 30 (6), 805–
814.
Larcher, P., Sohail, M., 1999. Review of safety in construction and
operation for the WS&S sector, report summary of WELL task no.
166 (part 1).
McDonald, N., Hrymak, V., 2001. Safety behaviour in the construction
industry. Report to the Health and Safety Authority, the Health and
Safety Executive, Northern Ireland.
Mohamed, S., 2002. Safety climate in construction site environments.
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 128 (5), 375–
383.
Neal, A., Griffin, M.A., 2000. Perceptions of safety at work: a framework
for linking safety climate to safety performance, knowledge and
motivation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 5, 347–358.
Ofori, G., 2000. Challenges of the construction industries in developing
countries: lessons from various countries. In: 2nd International
Conference on Construction in Developing Countries: Challenges
Facing the Construction Industry in Developing Countries, Gaborone,
Botswana, November 2000, pp. 15–17.
Pakistan Government. 2001. Labour force survey report. Department of
Labour, Pakistan Government.