Safety Innovation Adoption in Construction: Role of Safety Compliance and Safety Attitude

Reliance on emerging technologies as pivotal tools for occupational safety and health (OSH) management in the construction industry is expected to rise with technological advancement and increased access to these innovative devices. Therefore, it is essential to uncover crucial factors that influence construction workers’ sustained use of technology for OSH management. Given that previous studies posit a relationship between behavior, worker attitude, and workers’ openness to innovation adoption, the present paper aims to investigate the potential connections between safety compliance (SC), safety attitude (SA), and construction workers’ safety innovativeness (SI). To achieve this aim, the authors surveyed 63 construction workers in the US. The SC and SA of workers were assessed using validated instruments and constructs, while safety innovativeness was assessed using items adapted from worker innovativeness research. Statistical analysis of the data revealed a positive and significant correlation between SC, SA, and a worker’s intention to adopt safety innovations (between 0.410 and 0.646). Also, analysis of the potential impact of demographic factors (work experience and worker designation) on the mean value of each construct suggests that there was no significant difference among the responses of the different demographic groups (p-value > 0.005). Therefore, the present study concludes that SC and SA could be significant predictors of SI. It is therefore recommended that future studies focused on developing and testing conceptual models for predicting the acceptance of technologies used for OSH management should include safety compliance and safety attitude constructs.